Now You are In, Was it Right?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Interesting results are coming from our friends who sent their children to schools this fall. Many of the children are so swamped with their school work that finding time to call parents has become very limited. Living hundreds or thousdands of miles away, many of the parents are concerned.</p>

<p>A few observations about what is happening: Computers are also affecting social life. Many students can comfortably stay in their room IM'ing or E-mailing others. Getting these students out for social functions is more difficult than before the advent of computers -- especially 2GB RAM machines with video cards to making gaming a breeze.</p>

<p>With the change of the drinking age, schools are monitoring this issue carefully. And, my daughter's school assigned classes during the first few days to discuss the issues of liquor and sex, so that the young adults are better prepared so as to avoid an embarrassing situation.</p>

<p>But the most pressing issue appears to be that with the advent of the computer while attending a small LAC. In such an environment, the professors are handing out weekly assignments for writing. This may deliver twice as many or three times as many writing assignments as my generation had, merely because typing on manual typewriter was much less efficient than with WORD or WordPerfect. The workload at some LAC's may even quadruple (or more) writing assignments at larger institutions. This is simply derived from the fact of the class size.</p>

<p>Is today's freshman overburdened? Is college more difficult than when the parents attended? Should students, when applying, take more heed to the fact that college very likely will deliver them to a world where academic rigors are significantly greater than their high school -- including the AP classes? I am sure the student will survive -- I believe this issue was a legitimate and major concern among the admissions department -- but is survival alone the issue?</p>

2

<p>Father of the Boarder, I have to say I've been surprised at the work load my son has had (he is soph). It is easier to compare his work (as opposed to our other kids) to our generation as he is taking same kind of classes my H. did---and there is no comparison! His bio labs would be 6-8 typed pages/week with sources. Basically he had 3 papers due on a average a week last year----that was unheard of when I was in school. Friends of his at larger schools have very few papers (after all what prof wants to grade 200-300 papers that often?).</p>

<p>Son has felt that we were not honest with him, as we told him he would have so much more free time in college than high school---that was not to be.</p>

3

<p>I can't speak to the LAC since my daughter attends a large public university (25,000+ students), but here's my two cents' worth on her situation:</p>

<p>Is today's freshman overburdened? </p>

<p>Not from where I sit as I talk to my freshman daughter. She has plenty to do academically, but still finds time to be co-president of her dorm, sit on the college RHA council, play two intramural sports, take an aerobics class each week, see her boyfriend, and go out with friends. And she calls home 3-4 times a week at her instigation. Poor girl is having just-too-much-fun.</p>

<p>Is college more difficult than when the parents attended? </p>

<p>No. The "toys" have changed, but I worked hard back then to get good grades and my daughter does the same now. She's pretty driven. The amount of papers and lab reports is about the same (I went to a small private liberal arts college back in the Stone Age). My daughter hasn't mentioned kids holing up in their rooms just IM'ing and playing video games and not getting out and actually spending face time with other classmates - but then, that's not her scene. I'm sure they do exist, though.</p>

<p>Should students, when applying, take more heed to the fact that college very likely will deliver them to a world where academic rigors are significantly greater than their high school -- including the AP classes?</p>

<p>I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but I think that this is a GOOD thing as I've always felt that public high schools tend to teach to the lowest common denominator. My daughter took 6 AP classes in high school and tested out of 38 hours of college credit, so she started as an almost-second semester sophomore. She tells me that she likes not being in class for 7-8 straight hours per day, as high school was, but that she must read MUCH more on a daily basis on her own time and take notes to keep up. So she must implement time management skills to accomplish this, which is very much something that she will need when she graduates and enters the working world. And the rigors are not necessarily tougher than the AP classes she took, just different. </p>

<p>As for any additional writing assignments - again, I think this is a good thing. Being able to think critically and put your cogent thoughts on paper is an essential trait in any future occupation. But it does sound like there are a lot more papers required at the LAC, as my daughter hasn't had to turn in any yet, save for lab reports. Her smallest class has about 200 kids; the largest 500. She has had 2 tests thus far this past Monday (been in school for a month now).</p>

<p>I am sure the student will survive -- I believe this issue was a legitimate and major concern among the admissions department -- but is survival alone the issue?</p>

<p>EVERYONE goes through an survival period when they start college. Most will adjust and thrive. It's been happening for generations and there is no exception now.</p>

4

<p>From what my son tells me, his workload seems pretty comparable to what mine was in college many years ago.</p>

5

<p>D's workload is much heavier than mine was, even tho I was a lit major, and had lots of reading. I still had time to play cards every night and have fun on the weekends. I, too, told D she would have more time in college. Not so. She has more papers than I ever had (3-5 minis every week, in 3 different languages, and 3 longer ones every three weeks, with major ones later) , and she isn't even taking one lit class! Her out of class requirements for group work, etc., equal the hours her friend spends in the lab each week for her science classes. And she says she's only getting about 4 hours sleep per night! I didn't sleep much, out of choice, but hers is out of necessity. But then I think that I went to an unranked school, and hers is elite. I guess in the back of my mind I thought it would be much more demanding.</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
Many of the children are so swamped with their school work that finding time to call parents has become very limited.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Don't make me laugh!</p>

<p>
[quote]
With the change of the drinking age, schools are monitoring this issue carefully.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Maybe a FEW schools are willing to supervise these young adults, but for most the kids are on their own to use whatever judgement they came with...</p>

<p>
[quote]
Is college more difficult than when the parents attended? Should students, when applying, take more heed to the fact that college very likely will deliver them to a world where academic rigors are significantly greater than their high school -- including the AP classes?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't know if it's harder, but it probably should be -- these students are in a much more competitive world (speaking globally) than we were.</p>

7

<p>Yeah, I had to laugh about that "monitoring more carefully" line, too. What colleges are doing is the bare minimum to allow their attorneys to say "We did what we could! We didn't look the other way!" if they are sued by the family of some alchohol-poisoned kid. As far as I can tell, the only real difference is that some semblance of carding occurs if alchohol is served at an official function, and many more official functions occur without alchohol. The actual amount of drinking, and enforcement of anti-drinking laws and policies, seem pretty much unchanged from back in the day.</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
Computers are also affecting social life. Many students can comfortably stay in their room IM'ing or E-mailing others. Getting these students out for social functions is more difficult than before the advent of computers -- especially 2GB RAM machines with video cards to making gaming a breeze.

[/quote]

You must have met my roommate. I don't think he leaves except to go to class, and even then the computer goes too. :eek:</p>

<p>I wouldn't say students are overburdened, but professors seem to have a knack for giving major assignments and exams at the same time. I have a German presentation Monday, an archaeology exam Tuesday, and a English exam and philosophy paper due Wednesday. My workload manages to look resemble a rabbit's reproductive cycle. The good news is that I've managed to maintain all A's thus far. (Should I mention working 8 hours a week and being very active in three clubs? :))</p>

<p>
[quote]
Friends of his at larger schools have very few papers (after all what prof wants to grade 200-300 papers that often?).

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Ah, but many professors make the grad students grade them. ;)</p>

9

<p>Well, my S fits nicely in the "finding time to call parents is limited" category, but I don't think it has anything to do with his course workload ;).</p>

<p>My S, due to Katrina, has had the rather unique experience of attending 3 schools in 3 semesters, so I think his case provides a lot of "data" for your question.</p>

<p>He has attended (1) a top 25 small LAC (all small classes) (2) Tulane University (mid-sized U; some large classes but not huge classes) and (3) highly selective elite U, also mid-sized - where he is currently.</p>

<p>He has found the workload "manageable" to use his words at all 3. He is an Engineering student, so heavy on the lab sciences. But he has taken "writing-intensive" courses at all 3 places. The number of assignments did not vary dramatically across the 3. In the case of his schools, these writing-intensive type courses were fairly small, no matter the size of the school.</p>

<p>One thing I would recommend to all college students, and did recommend to him: think about balancing your course selection each term. You might want to be careful not to have several writing-intensive courses each term. If you are a science major, you might be stuck with several lab courses in one term, but you can still be careful not to go overboard, spreading your distribution type courses across all of your terms and seeking to mix these in a way that balances reading intensive and writing intensive courses, so you are not overloaded. It can be done.</p>

10

<p>S seems to have a good balance of free time vs. class/study time. He did observe that attending classes was the easy part - classes and profs are interesting, but then you have to read/study/write!</p>

<p>We do hear from him, and he sounds pretty happy, so he doesn't sound more taxed than I was as an undergrad.</p>

11

<p>We are only 2-weeks into this, but I feel my daughter is doing a wonderful job of settling in!
She has always had a strong work ethic, taken the more challenging courses and the work load isn't too far from what was expected in her AP classes. She was told the college classes would be harder/different and prepared for that so it was not that big of a shock.</p>

<p>Other than one night of slight homesickness {she just wanted to come home and read in her own bed!}, she has adjusted quite well, doing the things she needs to be doing and enjoying the company of new-found friendship.</p>

<p>She calls at least once a day {sometimes twice!} and we AIM back and forth daily to let each other know what's up! {This is nothing new for us though! Any time she has been away for any amount of time, she is very dependable at keeping in touch!} We are also enjoying the webcams greatly and actually being able to "see" one another!!</p>

12

<p>I'm a Student Affairs professional at a state college. It's true - we're monitoring alcohol use and abuse very carefully on our campus. It still happens of course, just as it has at American colleges since the 1600s, but we've become much more responsive and coordinated in the way that we address it. You'll find that's true at many campuses - while the drinking culture has always been there, the severity of it has seemed to escalate nationwide in recent years and colleges sometimes react from their own set of values and sometimes from concern for their own liability (or both). AlcoholEdu - the online entering class alcohol seminar - is doing a brisk business these days (and they're excellent at it too).</p>

<p>Meanwhile, my daughter - a college freshman - is so busy that she's finding it hard to communicate with us, but she's doing the extracurricular thing so eagerly that she's almost literally got every minute booked. As far as students being busy, calculate that your students should be spending 2 or 3 hours out of class for each of the 15 or so hours that they spend in class. Then the are activities, plus the extra hours that many students work to support their cell phone and auto maintenance habits. So a student's free time is there, but if they're taking full advantage of all the opportunites at their college, the time shouldn't be free for long.</p>

13

<p>OP >> With the change of the drinking age, schools are monitoring this issue carefully. <<</p>

<p>I must be "out of it". Have some states lowered their drinking ages again? I thought everyone was back up to 21 (except for a few that had low alcohol beer).</p>

14

<p>gadad: >>> I'm a Student Affairs professional at a state college. It's true - we're monitoring alcohol use and abuse very carefully on our campus. <<</p>

<p>I think this is great. But... how are you guys doing this? are you monitoring the dorms? frats? How?</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
So a student's free time is there, but if they're taking full advantage of all the opportunites at their college, the time shouldn't be free for long.

[/quote]
Isn't that the truth? I keep telling mine that there is a second semester , also.</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
This may deliver twice as many or three times as many writing assignments as my generation had, merely because typing on manual typewriter was much less efficient than with WORD or WordPerfect.

[/quote]

Technology evolves and colleges (and business) change with it.</p>

<p>In my college days (engineering) there was a big change in that the first handheld scientific calculator (HP35 - $400) came out which left part of the class (the elite rich ones) with the fancy calculators and the rest of us (the poor ones) with slide rules. It was quite a quandary for the professors - limit use of the calculators to be 'fair' or take advanatge of them to allow more real work, the math rather than slide rule manipulation, to be done. Eventually it was the calculator that ruled. Since students could do the basic math faster, the student could now do more problems in a given time so they ended up with more problems to do. This, of course, was positive since the student ended up learning more.</p>

<p>Note - after suffering with just the slide rule and a $150 four function calculator, TI came out with the second scientific calculator, the SR51, for which I scraped together enough money to buy ($250). Sorry for the short history lesson.</p>

17

<p>My S sounds busy & happy--for the brief times he contacts us. Like in HS, he doesn't mention his classes or teachers much one way or another. There's not all that much choice in curriculum anyway--engineering at this U is pretty spelled out as to what you need to take & when.</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
In my college days (engineering) there was a big change in that the first handheld scientific calculator (HP35 - $400) came out which left part of the class (the elite rich ones) with the fancy calculators and the rest of us (the poor ones) with slide rules

[/quote]
I was at a UC campus and took a course in introductory course in computer programming via the engineering dept -- I remember they lent us those fancy $400 calculators for our use during the course. I would guess we had to sign some sort of list and would have been docked the value of the calculator if it wasn't returned at the end of the course -- and its possible that we were charged a a very nominal rental fee, though I don't remember one. I don't know if that's just the difference between a public u. & a private college; not too many rich kids on UC campuses back in those days.</p>

19

<p>Too busy to call. Yeh sure. They are in their own new world and need to make a break from the past.</p>

<p>Monitoring alcohol use. Yeh sure. The lawyers make sure there are appropriate policies and some sort of education. Other than that, I don't hear about much in the way of real action to reduce abuse and underaged drinking.</p>

<p>Writing 4 times as many papers as before. Yeh sure. I remember lots of writing and fat reports and no seemed to care that I did these on an old manual typewriter.</p>

20

<p>The comments on computers and Word has made me think about going to college with that old manual typewriter. It was a reconditioned portable, Army surplus from WWII. I used it all through college and through graduate school - because I had no money. I could still type about 60 wpm on that old junker. Do kids now have keyboarding skills? I know my D was never taught in school. We made her learn and become proficient at touch typing before she was allowed to play on the computer and internet. Most of her friends seem to hunt and peck and are lucky if they can type more than 40 wpm.</p>