Bob is an undergraduate (3.5 GPA) at a Midwestern public university:
I hate classes with a lot of reading that is tested on. Any class where a teacher is just gonna give us notes and a worksheet or something like that is better. Something that I can study and just learn from in five [minutes] I’ll usually do pretty good in. Whereas, if I’m expected to read, you know, a hundred-and-fifty-page book and then write a three-page essay on it, you know, on a test let’s say, I’ll probably do worse on that test because I probably wouldn’t have read the book. Maybe ask the kids, what’s in this book? And I can draw my own conclusions, but I rarely actually do reading assignments or stuff like that, which is a mistake, I’m sure, but it saves me a lot of time.Coming soon: more about Academically Adrift.
Mary Grigbsy, College Life through the Eyes of Students (State University of New York Press, 2009). Quoted in Richard Arum and Josip Roksa, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (University of Chicago Press, 2011).
comments: 10
Beware of the drool!
I hate school with a lot of classes that are tested on. Any school where a teacher is just gonna give us A’s and not homework or something like that is better. A semester that I can get done from in five [seconds] I’ll usually do pretty good in. Whereas, if I’m expected to do anything, you know, like go to school and then stay there for awhile, you know, like in the classroom let’s say, I’ll probably do worse that semester because I probably wouldn’t go to school. Maybe ask the kids, what’s in that school? And I can draw my own conclusions, but I rarely actually go to the school or stuff like that, which is a mistake, I’m sure, but it saves me the trouble of going there.
It sounds like you’ve heard this song before.
Um....150 page book? what is that like an hour and a half of reading tops? I'll still flunk the test but I'll read the book. That is why I go to class anyway, to find out the name of the books. After that there isnt much point. the grade wont matter because I'll know where the material is and I'll learn it. Then I'll go to the library and get the books in the bibliographies of the first ones and read those. and so on and so forth. Then I'll take the F intentionally(More fun that way) No, I'm not joking about any of that. I'm in earnest. I'm paying for this so I'll get what I want out of it but I dont want grades so I wont go after them, I'm too busy reading up on the subject so I can pick the professors brains and understand the answers. F*** the grades
"I'm just in college for the grades." How in heaven's name does he manage a 3.5 gpa? I shouldn't be surprised, after having worked side by side with teachers who were functionally illiterate despite having degrees. Well, don't get me started...
An old curmudegon am I, and have seen through a long work career in several fields that the mentality represented by this young fool extends about three minutes into a rewarding career before his grade-point deception becomes evident. For decades now, the wise manager has looked for the "qualifiable" candidate more than the officially qualified, and the wager on a new employee is very often not frittered away on the likes of such an attitude. It is assured on the basis of simple competition that he is a self-weeding specimen who will find his way to the compost heap of unhappy adults, all the while wondering why. Give me the truly motivated and I will reward him, while sending these young lads and lasses off with a polite "thank you" after an interview with little more word of explanation.
The anti-intellectualism coupled with such a brazen sense of entitlement is the main reason I do not miss the classroom. I have a strong animus against ingratitude. I remember as a freshman when I first read H.R. Trevor-Roper's collection of essays on the European witch craze and other aspects of the transition to the Early Modern. It was one of the books assigned in addition to a standard European history textbook in one of those courses that aren't supposed to be any good, namely twice a week lectures by a professor (as it turns out, an expert in Early Modern Europe) and discussions with TAs (who were passionate scholars), I was captivated. So lucky to be engaged by such a mind (even though Lord Dacre's career admittedly lost some of its luster when he naively authenticated the forged Hitler diaries..). And the good professor left the long quotations in German, French and Latin in German, French and Latin! I liked being treated like somebody who was supposed to be able to (at least) get the gist of the quotations and understand their relevance.
That's the real reason I just don't get the attitude of our collegian. If this young man is not interested in a real college education (the kind where you actually educate yourself), or a skilled trade (like being a cabinetmaker, electrician or plumber), he should join the Army and learn to be an auto mechanic. He might as well get used to the idea of menial labor now rather than after shopping around his worthless degree (worthless because he has nothing upstairs to show for it).
I still have my copy of T-R's essays, by the way, the binding long gone and the high-acid paper having crumbled virtually to dust. I just can't bring myself to tossing it into the recycling bin with the more ephemeral newspapers and magazines.
Thanks, everyone, for your indignant, flabbergasted, and/or bemused responses to Bob. I’d disagree with one thing that Normann said: I think that being a capable mechanic requires much greater effort than Bob seems willing to offer.
Scratch that: I think that being a capable anything requires much greater effort than Bob seems willing to offer.
You're right, Michael. Passenger safety depends on capable mechanics, regardless of mode of transportation. Auto mechanic was the first thing that came to mind, so I apologize to all auto mechanics, whose skill and talent I have always respected and gladly paid for over the years, if I insulted them by implication (For the record, I would have never thought of aircraft mechanic for our friend Bob). And certainly no profession that requires street smarts and cunning, such as rent boy.
A line of work that might make reading and studying seem more appealing.
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