alt Hacker NewsStudents who need that kind of "stick" to do well on exams aren't college material in the first place. We have pushed far too many youths into college as the default option, and that hasn't been good for the students or the institutions.
There are plenty of people who have the innate intelligence and intellectual curiosity to succeed in college, but come out of high school lacking discipline and clueless about what they want to study. They would be better off spending a few years working or serving in the military or something to get their shit together first, and then enroll in college later. Those students tend to have clearer goals and take the educational experience more seriously.
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It depends on what college is really for.
Much of college is a social signaling mechanism. Well over a decade ago one of my family members, with a degree of shame had to explain to a friend why I didn’t finish my BA.
A lot of middle and upper class people use college as a way to filter people. You can argue our top universities also serve as finishing schools.
I did, after reaching six figures anyway, finish my BA. The shame is gone.
Or does it still linger as I went to a middle of the road state school. Not Stanford, Yale or even Berkeley.
Honestly I originally attended community college in part to get grant money/loans which allowed me to get a cheap apartment. As a bonus I meet a lot of cool people, read Howard Zinn.
Yeah I disagree with this entirely.
I did very poorly in school growing up. I think I failed at least 4-6 classes in middle/high school.
In college I did well and I'm now getting my masters in CS while working as a software engineer.
So, the 'stick' can certainly be useful. Doing poorly in high school is not necessarily an indicator of how you will do in college -- particularly if your life at home was turbulent as it was for me.
You guys are acting like you can only live at one of two extremes: purely self-motivated, or purely grade driven.
For most students it’s a mix of the two.
ah yes, instead of giving students homework, have them serve in the military for a few years until they’re ready for college
> Students who need that kind of "stick" to do well on exams aren't college material in the first place
Well, that raises an interesting philosophical question. What sorts of learning patterns in a person make them "college material"?
Surely you agree that there are a wide variety of teaching styles present among all college professors. If a student's personal way of learning best is incompatible with their assigned professor, are they not college material? Why is this an issue with the student, and not the professor not being teaching material, or the university not being facilitator-of-education material for failing to match students and professors well?
I agree that people have been pushed into college as a default option due to it being overloaded as both place of learning but also printing salary-granting papers, but it's NOT clear to me that students who need the specific stick mentioned in some cases are broadly unsuited for higher learning.