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a_bonobo wrote "Maybe it didn't use to be a trauma - but in the time of more and more focus on grades and GPAs, forced student competition, "career days", CV po

by jleyank 11y ago

a_bonobo wrote "Maybe it didn't use to be a trauma - but in the time of more and more focus on grades and GPAs, forced student competition, "career days", CV polishing courses, mandatory unpaid internships, i.e., ageneral shift from the university as a place that creates politically mature citizens to a place that churns out better trained cogs for companies, education may have become trauma." While mandatory unpaid internships seems to be a new development, pretty much everything else existed in the 70's and 80's when I did my 8-year gig. All of the Pre-XXX students were totally grade oriented, with some engaging in lab sabotage to drag down the competition. Parents during HS recruiting were told the majors with the highest GPA for the Pre-Laws. The only advantage of all those bloody Pre-XXX students were that the courses not on their tracks were quite small and TA'ing paid the bills for grad school. Boomer parents are (properly?) criticized for cocooning their kids. Maybe this makes them less able to handle the "toss into the deep end" that college can represent. I figured it out, with the more-senior undergrads being fonts of wisdom (in non-major classes, dorm RA's and just those on the halls). I wasn't that amazing or rare. I did well in some courses, got slaughtered in others. Science majors were <3.0 departmental averages so my 2.87 didn't look so bad, what with all those advanced/small courses. I also learned by my 4th year that if I studied Su-Th I could goof off F-Sa with a clear conscience. And man, was I pissed at the non-science folks who had half the hours/week in classes...

dcole2929 11y ago
It's not the same at all. This stuff has always been around but the difference is it used to only apply to a small subset. If you want to go pre law or med yeah get ready for hell. If you want to work at a newspaper or in marketing it was a much easier time. Nowadays unless you're in tech good luck finding a job remotely related to your major if you don't have a resume packed full of extracurriculars and experience. There is also way more competition. The college population is triple the size it was in the 80's. Meanwhile the job market continues to shrink in many ways. Maybe kids should be getting different degrees but at 17 it's not surprising they don't know journalism isn't a great degree to have.
- vtlynch 11y ago
  >Maybe kids should be getting different degrees but at 17 >it's not surprising they don't know journalism isn't a >great degree to have. I think this is casting the problem in the wrong light. Look at this from the employer's side instead. I dont see any work being done in an office that couldnt be done by a journalism major, or a english lit major, or a music major. If you are a semi-competent student who tried to learn at least a few things in college, you are more than qualified for the majority of jobs. Employers have just turned applications into a competition to see who can gather the most bullet points on their resume. Besides the few truly skilled jobs out there - engineers, scientists, medical professionals - a basic ability to read and write is all you need. If there really is a problem on the educational side the focus should be on making sure students are learning and doing more, instead of trying to dictate what degrees are "valuable".

by jleyank 11y ago

dcole2929 11y ago

It's not the same at all. This stuff has always been around but the difference is it used to only apply to a small subset. If you want to go pre law or med yeah get ready for hell. If you want to work at a newspaper or in marketing it was a much easier time. Nowadays unless you're in tech good luck finding a job remotely related to your major if you don't have a resume packed full of extracurriculars and experience. There is also way more competition. The college population is triple the size it was in the 80's. Meanwhile the job market continues to shrink in many ways. Maybe kids should be getting different degrees but at 17 it's not surprising they don't know journalism isn't a great degree to have.

vtlynch 11y ago
>Maybe kids should be getting different degrees but at 17 >it's not surprising they don't know journalism isn't a >great degree to have. I think this is casting the problem in the wrong light. Look at this from the employer's side instead. I dont see any work being done in an office that couldnt be done by a journalism major, or a english lit major, or a music major. If you are a semi-competent student who tried to learn at least a few things in college, you are more than qualified for the majority of jobs. Employers have just turned applications into a competition to see who can gather the most bullet points on their resume. Besides the few truly skilled jobs out there - engineers, scientists, medical professionals - a basic ability to read and write is all you need. If there really is a problem on the educational side the focus should be on making sure students are learning and doing more, instead of trying to dictate what degrees are "valuable".