changing the terms
So I'm sitting in an Advising Institute that's to help faculty learn how to advise students more productively. I'm more aware than ever of how challenging can be, even in very small arenas, to change the ways we use language.
For example: there's a simulataneous push-me-pull-you in our cultural discourse surrounding college. College profs often bemoan students who are overly focused on accumulating credits towards their degree rather than focusing on the learning that's going on. And yet here, like most public universities, we have multiple ways that students can pretty literally "buy" courses (eg., take a $5 test and see whether you too can get credit for your first-semester writing course! hey, maybe you can take it while you're still in high school!). Why in tarnation *wouldn't* students be focused on college-as-credit-grabbing when that's the way _we_ market it to them?
This drives me crazy, to understate it. Part of my goal here is to get _all_ of us on campus to focus less on how to help students get general education courses "out of the way" and focus more on all that students can learn within a particular course--and putting *students* in charge of thinking really hard about what kinds of experiences and learning they want to have.
Sorry to get all job-by on you all. Now, back to family and books and fun.
For example: there's a simulataneous push-me-pull-you in our cultural discourse surrounding college. College profs often bemoan students who are overly focused on accumulating credits towards their degree rather than focusing on the learning that's going on. And yet here, like most public universities, we have multiple ways that students can pretty literally "buy" courses (eg., take a $5 test and see whether you too can get credit for your first-semester writing course! hey, maybe you can take it while you're still in high school!). Why in tarnation *wouldn't* students be focused on college-as-credit-grabbing when that's the way _we_ market it to them?
This drives me crazy, to understate it. Part of my goal here is to get _all_ of us on campus to focus less on how to help students get general education courses "out of the way" and focus more on all that students can learn within a particular course--and putting *students* in charge of thinking really hard about what kinds of experiences and learning they want to have.
Sorry to get all job-by on you all. Now, back to family and books and fun.
posted by Anonymous at 11:50 AM
8 Comments:
You bring up an interesting point and maybe I am misunderstanding, but general ed courses....they all were, for me, maybe a half step more advanced than the classes I took senior year of HS. And really all they were was a regurgitation of the same ideas from HS. I didn't feel like I got to any really exciting things until I was in 300 and 400 levels classes.
Maybe that is part of the desire of students to just "get through"...maybe they are just too general.
*** now that I think a bit more about it....perhaps an advisor could help steer a student towards classes that would challenge them AND fulfill general requirements....I don't think that I had that...it might have been more helpful.
I feel like an advisor could make a huge difference in how a student thinks about her/his education... At U of O, which is huge, I had no advisement. I know I was assigned someone, but I have no idea who that was, and I felt 100% on my own as far as how to even choose a major, what I wanted to do, etc. (Maybe I was expecting private-school style attention.) And I think it's hard for students not to develop some apathy toward classes that you just have to take... not that you shouldn't be getting something out of them (because there's a lot to be gotten) but because it feels like the murky waters you have to wade through to get to the "good stuff". I think having advanced options is absolutely key so you don't feel like you are regurgiataing like jmb said... I know I felt like that too.
In my MSW program, which was small (we graduated 50 or so), my advisor and I had a very contentious relationship and she was not at all helpful. I think advisement is huge... for one thing, it makes a student think a prof actually cares about the education she/he receives and shows that there can be some thought behind it. My MSW advisor was *clearly* putting in time advising (she'd rather research or write articles) and had no interest in actually helping me design my curriculum toward what I wanted to do. Anyways, that's my two cents... I love the jobby post!
jmbmommy, yes. One part of my mission is for first-year writing courses (English 101-type courses) to *not feel like 13th grade*. They should NOT feel like review, or like revisiting things...they should be exciting and relevant.
I do know that this doesn't happen for some (many?) students like yourself, and part of it is because of a host of complex factors...but part of it is also related to your insightful second paragraph: if advisors, and others, would emphasize how gened courses (like English 101, but others too) *can be* interesting and *can be* a way to explore ideas and ask deeper intellectual questions--well, even talking about them this way, instead of as barriers before the fun stuff of the major, would change things.
Thanks for your great comment here!
ps lcs. Your experience at U of O is *very* common (unfortunately) and is eerily similar to a lot that we talked about today. Profs have *no idea* how to be advisors, and it's a good thing that we're talking about it here, actually.
And yes, to both of you: I agree--why not have students who're confident, proficient writers *place into* advanced courses, rather than *testing out of* (and therefore not taking) the very kind of course they're good at?
Okay, I'll stop now ;)
I love that you are trying to change this at your "jobby". In my experience, advisors weren't helpful until my 3rd year when I was supposedly ready to choose a major. I took a few AP classes in high school, so I got to skip some of the 101 classes. Although I dreaded fulfilling the requirements for the undergraduate portion, I think they are absolutely necessary to help students expand their horizons. Making the required courses more challenging and interesting is a great idea -- wish mine would've fallen into that category!
But alas, college was a time to "find myself", I just wish I could've stayed there forever! :)
Carrie
I think sometimes the problem with college is that so often it is marketed to students as the next step in their quest for whatever high paying job they are after, not as a place of higher learning. So, when students see college this way general ed classes do turn into something they just want to hurry up and get through. And just to chime in on the advisor issue... I think that is a huge problem also! Most of my advisors were a lot like LCS's experience with advising... I had to make the effort to go see my advisor (their was no reqirement or even encouragement, really) and then when I did, it didn't seem all that productive, or enlightening! Anyway, interesting post, keep them coming! :)
i didn't know i had an advisor. did i? not sure. i know i had a list of course credits i had to complete to get a degree to get a good (read: pays well) job.
i really had no clue about anything when i was at university.
i had almost zero sense of being in control of my life or my education.
i didn't know how things worked, i had no life experience, much of what i learned in GE courses didn't seem relevant to my life in any way.
i had no frame of reference or experience upon which to build when ingesting new information in my non-technical courses.
doing what interested me didn't seem like a viable way to eventually have and support a family, so i chose a technical field i was fairly good at and promised to pay a lot more.
i had some lousy professors and some really good ones, but i could hardly tell the difference.
academically i was lazy but had usually had little trouble making passing grades; socially i was blindingly, dramatically ignorant about everything; i feel like i was nearly a non-person, blundering thru situations so fearful of making an embarrassing mistake that i did almost nothing.
i was extremely unmotivated and took about 6.5 yrs (plus a yr and a half off) to complete a 4-yr degree.
perhaps one can tell that college is something i'd love to do over again if i could.
perhaps one can also tell this comment kind of devolved into a rambling recollection all about MEEE with scant relevance to the original topic...
Thanks to all of you for your good comments--I'd love to have four hours to get you all together in a room and talk about general education, college, and so on.
I'm squarely in helping administer *the* gened course: first-year writing. I'm pretty passionate about its worth and importance, and I'm also aware of how complicated gened is--so much is working against students having any sense of things relating to each other, or to their majors, or to their lives. Anyway, I could (ooops, I have, but for other academics :)) write pages about this topic. But I won't right now...
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