are your college students studying hard?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, we tell high school students that GPA alone isn’t enough—they need a “spike,” leadership roles, extracurriculars, and a carefully built résumé to get into a good college.

Then, once they get there, we say they should stop being strivers—that college is about fun, social life, and the “experience", build network, find jobs...

And somehow we expect them to arrive on campus and suddenly care deeply about learning.

Most don't, but some do. And those who do, do amazing, amazing things after graduation. Even from a less famous university. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m really baffled at the idea of homework in anything other than lower division math or foreign language courses. Does college now include a lot of busy work?

???? Were you a student before? If you don't take home projects/homework, how do you apply the knowledge to real-life problems? How does the professor know if you understand the materials? Yes, lots of classes are in these quantitative domains. You expect the kids just show up in class (or not even showing up) and ace the exam and get all As?

[Anonymous]

DC studies a ton at Cornell just to keep up, but a lot of the time the kids get together to study (their own subjects, and they actually seem to lock in) so that it’s not so lonely. And then they go eat and hang out together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m really baffled at the idea of homework in anything other than lower division math or foreign language courses. Does college now include a lot of busy work?

???? Were you a student before? If you don't take home projects/homework, how do you apply the knowledge to real-life problems? How does the professor know if you understand the materials? Yes, lots of classes are in these quantitative domains. You expect the kids just show up in class (or not even showing up) and ace the exam and get all As?

Mid term exam, final exam, papers, research project or term paper. In most classes the final or the term paper/project was 60% of your grade too. In a few courses that didn’t have papers the final was 80%. There were no weekly or biweekly homework assignments in upper division courses.

The point was to demonstrate mastery of the content along with demonstrating you had developed the skills to move on and contribute to the field. If you were able to do that but simple doing the reading then you could pass the mid term and final without going to lectures depending on the professor. However, if you were that strong and this was a professor known in their field then you weren’t skipping lectures. It was like getting to go to a favorite authors talk or guest lecture that people travel to see. Some of the filler professors today are more like sitting through a PowerPoint presentation from the low level sales guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a college professor and am dismayed at how little effort students put into their coursework. Attendance has been horrible. Students took 1.5 weeks off during spring break. Homework hasn't been turned on. They all seem to give up and do not care. I wonder if it is only true for my university and the cohort. What do students want get out of college?

How do you expect parents to know anything other than what their kids tell them? We can't even see their grades wiithout a waiver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m really baffled at the idea of homework in anything other than lower division math or foreign language courses. Does college now include a lot of busy work?

???? Were you a student before? If you don't take home projects/homework, how do you apply the knowledge to real-life problems? How does the professor know if you understand the materials? Yes, lots of classes are in these quantitative domains. You expect the kids just show up in class (or not even showing up) and ace the exam and get all As?

Mid term exam, final exam, papers, research project or term paper. In most classes the final or the term paper/project was 60% of your grade too. In a few courses that didn’t have papers the final was 80%. There were no weekly or biweekly homework assignments in upper division courses.

The point was to demonstrate mastery of the content along with demonstrating you had developed the skills to move on and contribute to the field. If you were able to do that but simple doing the reading then you could pass the mid term and final without going to lectures depending on the professor. However, if you were that strong and this was a professor known in their field then you weren’t skipping lectures. It was like getting to go to a favorite authors talk or guest lecture that people travel to see. Some of the filler professors today are more like sitting through a PowerPoint presentation from the low level sales guy.

DP: A lot of colleges have more collaborative hands on practical projects, especially in engineering and computer science. These tend to also have interim deadlines. Similarly my kids in writing intensive courses seem to have more assignments than I remember from once up on a time. The midterm, paper, final model is pretty limited to courses that don't have research or practictical elements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m really baffled at the idea of homework in anything other than lower division math or foreign language courses. Does college now include a lot of busy work?

???? Were you a student before? If you don't take home projects/homework, how do you apply the knowledge to real-life problems? How does the professor know if you understand the materials? Yes, lots of classes are in these quantitative domains. You expect the kids just show up in class (or not even showing up) and ace the exam and get all As?

Mid term exam, final exam, papers, research project or term paper. In most classes the final or the term paper/project was 60% of your grade too. In a few courses that didn’t have papers the final was 80%. There were no weekly or biweekly homework assignments in upper division courses.

The point was to demonstrate mastery of the content along with demonstrating you had developed the skills to move on and contribute to the field. If you were able to do that but simple doing the reading then you could pass the mid term and final without going to lectures depending on the professor. However, if you were that strong and this was a professor known in their field then you weren’t skipping lectures. It was like getting to go to a favorite authors talk or guest lecture that people travel to see. Some of the filler professors today are more like sitting through a PowerPoint presentation from the low level sales guy.

DP: A lot of colleges have more collaborative hands on practical projects, especially in engineering and computer science. These tend to also have interim deadlines. Similarly my kids in writing intensive courses seem to have more assignments than I remember from once up on a time. The midterm, paper, final model is pretty limited to courses that don't have research or practictical elements.

Nope, spouse has a PhD in engineering, I have a Masters in Political Science. Top schools. There were no interim deadlines for projects or research papers that were graded along the way.

[Anonymous]

Yale. Humanities. Studying a ton. Classwork alone is a lot. Clubs are more on top of that

[Anonymous]

College student study hours have been decreasing for a long period of time.

https://manhattan.institute/article/what-do-college-students-do-all-day-the-answer-isnt-studying#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20today's%20students%20work,education%2Drelated%20activities%20.%20.%20.