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Often professors grade gently to avoid being mobbed at the end of the year as I was told by a few myself. Students have been getting worse by the year at that.

Often professors grade gently to avoid being mobbed at the end of the year as I was told by a few myself. Students have been getting worse by the year at that. The worst part of the modern college experience I think is the fact in many majors, you no longer learn relevant job skills and are expected to learn them in undergrad or post grad research outside of the courseload. This obviously sets up a world where more advantaged students who can afford free time to such things continue to hold the best outcomes, despite recent DEI pushes from admin to avoid these things. I’ve heard a professor actually state with pride how the lab classes in their department have not changed in over 40 years, so that grades from 40 years ago could be compared to todays grades, somehow believing that is more useful to employers than getting qualified candidates. Then on the other hand students have to take so many concurrent credit hours in different classes that they will admit to triaging their study time and giving up on certain classes, where they might have succeeded if allowed more time for focus perhaps in one of those month-mester formats, where you can get a semester’s course done in a month or so.

nradov 3y ago
Colleges aren't intended to be trade schools teaching job skills. This does, however, put some students in a difficult position. If someone wants to become a professional software developer and isn't particularly interested in becoming a well-rounded individual with a broad, liberal education then there aren't many good options. Coding boot camps exist but are generally limited and low quality. You might not realize this yet, but occasionally overloading students with coursework is actually a positive. I attended an academically rigorous college and as an average student there was just no way I could finish everything on time in a high quality way. This taught me effective time management, ruthless prioritization, and the pointlessness of perfectionism. Those lessons were more valuable than the content of any particular course.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  While this style of educational methods might work for you, they don’t work for everyone and in fact they are very harmful to a subset of the population. Colleges seemingly are more willing to install fencing in parking garages than to look inwardly at why they have had to install this fencing in the first place.
- rayiner 3y ago
  > Colleges aren't intended to be trade schools teaching job skills If that’s the case then we shouldn’t be funding them as such. Virtually all the support for public funding of post-secondary education is helping people get good jobs and get upward mobility. This is obvious from listening to how politicians speak about educational funding.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    We didn’t get here from the supply side but from the demand side. Entry level office work does not hire with only high school anymore, and the students have followed. There are plenty of people who would not go to college if they thought they could get white collar work doing so; in 2024 everyone dreads the high cost of college education. I don’t really think anything in college is particularly helpful for entry level white collar work, it’s just what the employers are asking for.
    - nradov 3y ago
      Employers hiring for entry level office work only ask for college degrees because they can. During periods of relatively high unemployment this acts as an easy filtering mechanism to cut the number of job applicants down to a manageable level. If low unemployment rates continue then employers will reduce the college degree bullet point from a "must have" to "nice to have". Of course, long term many of those entry level white-collar jobs are likely to be eliminated altogether by automation and offshoring.
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        Do you have an example of a developed economy where employers backslid on educational requirements? Because I'll believe it when I see it.
        nradov 3y ago
        Does the USA count as a developed country? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-degree-job-requirement/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-degree-job-requirement/
bradley13 3y ago
> Often professors grade gently to avoid >being mobbed at the end of the year Mobbed how? I have had students protest their grades - there's a process for that. If the grade is somehow a mistake, or unfair, it gets corrected. If not, and if the grading is demonstrably fair, what are they going to do? FWIW, although I am a hard grader, the student ratings indicate that they appreciate it.
- hyggetrold 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - compiler-guy 3y ago
    Because if there ever were a representative sample of how students feel about a professor, it’s ratemyprofessors.com.
    - hyggetrold 3y ago
      Where else would it come from that is publicly available?
      - sudosysgen 3y ago
        Nowhere, but many universities do have student feedback/evaluation forms that you get back after teaching a class, so a professor could know even if they weren't rated on a website.
  - bradley13 3y ago
    That particular site doesn't exist here. There is a similar site, but not used very much. Still, for what it's worth, have a look: https://www.meinprof.ch/uni/prof/1431 https://www.meinprof.ch/uni/prof/1431
    - hyggetrold 3y ago
      Vielen dank! Fwiw I totally believe you were telling the truth. :)
teeray 3y ago
> you no longer learn relevant job skills and are expected to learn them in undergrad or post grad research outside of the courseload Colleges scoff at the idea of becoming "job training schools," but that is exactly what they need to be. The students are, overwhelming, there to "get a good job after college." Only a fraction of them will continue on to spend their entire career in academia.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The logic isn't that most students will go on to academic careers. It's that if students have a solid basis on the theory and other foundational basics of a field they can pick up a lot of the (often ephemeral) tooling/techniques/etc. on their own. If you want to argue that elite schools in particular often over-rotate on the theory and don't do enough to get students hand-on I won't really disagree with you. But there is a distinction from trade schools.
  - Cheer2171 3y ago
    Yes. At my CS program, there was a saying that when someone asks you what programming languages or frameworks you know, you say "any", because you are being taught foundations that will let you pick up any language or framework that gets invented (barring some massive revolution in quantum computing or P=NP or whatever) Almost no CS major will get a job that will require them to write their own programming language and compiler from scratch. But having done that, I am way better off than if I spent that semester taking a bootcamp on the latest implementation details of the newest language or framework at the time, which is now obsolete.
    - brewdad 3y ago
      Sure, but how successful have you been getting a job requiring knowledge of Rust if you learned C++ in university? What about a more established language like Java if you happen to have little experience with it. The fact is modern companies don't want you to have the ability to acquire a new skill, they want you to have that skill on day one. This is even more true outside the programming realm. It's short sighted and counterproductive long term but when the next quarter's earnings are what matters, long term is but a an abstract concept.

nradov 3y ago

Colleges aren't intended to be trade schools teaching job skills. This does, however, put some students in a difficult position. If someone wants to become a professional software developer and isn't particularly interested in becoming a well-rounded individual with a broad, liberal education then there aren't many good options. Coding boot camps exist but are generally limited and low quality. You might not realize this yet, but occasionally overloading students with coursework is actually a positive. I attended an academically rigorous college and as an average student there was just no way I could finish everything on time in a high quality way. This taught me effective time management, ruthless prioritization, and the pointlessness of perfectionism. Those lessons were more valuable than the content of any particular course.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
While this style of educational methods might work for you, they don’t work for everyone and in fact they are very harmful to a subset of the population. Colleges seemingly are more willing to install fencing in parking garages than to look inwardly at why they have had to install this fencing in the first place.
rayiner 3y ago
> Colleges aren't intended to be trade schools teaching job skills If that’s the case then we shouldn’t be funding them as such. Virtually all the support for public funding of post-secondary education is helping people get good jobs and get upward mobility. This is obvious from listening to how politicians speak about educational funding.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  We didn’t get here from the supply side but from the demand side. Entry level office work does not hire with only high school anymore, and the students have followed. There are plenty of people who would not go to college if they thought they could get white collar work doing so; in 2024 everyone dreads the high cost of college education. I don’t really think anything in college is particularly helpful for entry level white collar work, it’s just what the employers are asking for.
  - nradov 3y ago
    Employers hiring for entry level office work only ask for college degrees because they can. During periods of relatively high unemployment this acts as an easy filtering mechanism to cut the number of job applicants down to a manageable level. If low unemployment rates continue then employers will reduce the college degree bullet point from a "must have" to "nice to have". Of course, long term many of those entry level white-collar jobs are likely to be eliminated altogether by automation and offshoring.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      Do you have an example of a developed economy where employers backslid on educational requirements? Because I'll believe it when I see it.
      - nradov 3y ago
        Does the USA count as a developed country? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-degree-job-requirement/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-degree-job-requirement/

bradley13 3y ago

> Often professors grade gently to avoid >being mobbed at the end of the year Mobbed how? I have had students protest their grades - there's a process for that. If the grade is somehow a mistake, or unfair, it gets corrected. If not, and if the grading is demonstrably fair, what are they going to do? FWIW, although I am a hard grader, the student ratings indicate that they appreciate it.

hyggetrold 3y ago
[flagged]
- compiler-guy 3y ago
  Because if there ever were a representative sample of how students feel about a professor, it’s ratemyprofessors.com.
  - hyggetrold 3y ago
    Where else would it come from that is publicly available?
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      Nowhere, but many universities do have student feedback/evaluation forms that you get back after teaching a class, so a professor could know even if they weren't rated on a website.
- bradley13 3y ago
  That particular site doesn't exist here. There is a similar site, but not used very much. Still, for what it's worth, have a look: https://www.meinprof.ch/uni/prof/1431 https://www.meinprof.ch/uni/prof/1431
  - hyggetrold 3y ago
    Vielen dank! Fwiw I totally believe you were telling the truth. :)

teeray 3y ago

> you no longer learn relevant job skills and are expected to learn them in undergrad or post grad research outside of the courseload Colleges scoff at the idea of becoming "job training schools," but that is exactly what they need to be. The students are, overwhelming, there to "get a good job after college." Only a fraction of them will continue on to spend their entire career in academia.

ghaff 3y ago
The logic isn't that most students will go on to academic careers. It's that if students have a solid basis on the theory and other foundational basics of a field they can pick up a lot of the (often ephemeral) tooling/techniques/etc. on their own. If you want to argue that elite schools in particular often over-rotate on the theory and don't do enough to get students hand-on I won't really disagree with you. But there is a distinction from trade schools.
- Cheer2171 3y ago
  Yes. At my CS program, there was a saying that when someone asks you what programming languages or frameworks you know, you say "any", because you are being taught foundations that will let you pick up any language or framework that gets invented (barring some massive revolution in quantum computing or P=NP or whatever) Almost no CS major will get a job that will require them to write their own programming language and compiler from scratch. But having done that, I am way better off than if I spent that semester taking a bootcamp on the latest implementation details of the newest language or framework at the time, which is now obsolete.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    Sure, but how successful have you been getting a job requiring knowledge of Rust if you learned C++ in university? What about a more established language like Java if you happen to have little experience with it. The fact is modern companies don't want you to have the ability to acquire a new skill, they want you to have that skill on day one. This is even more true outside the programming realm. It's short sighted and counterproductive long term but when the next quarter's earnings are what matters, long term is but a an abstract concept.