tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post7375768185208008850..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: Massaging the Meritocracy (The University Today, Part 2)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-45284263198227254982008-05-21T11:24:00.000-05:002008-05-21T11:24:00.000-05:00I think for first year experience type programs to...I think for first year experience type programs to be efficient and effective to the student, they need to be geared toward the discipline. While a broad text does have it's advantages (thank you for noting our Fast Food Nation FYE), It would have more intrinsic value to those if the text and programs focused specifically on their field.<BR/><BR/>From what I could tell when I was an undergrad at WIU, the FYE program was thought of as sort of a joke by the faculty, and something they were doing to please the provost and parents. However, as a grad student, my opinions have changed. FYE programs are one of the best things I have viewed coming to college campuses. Programs like these really do help introduce students to whats going to happen. I have been subbing for some extra cash and experience at local high schools, and had the opportunity to talk with some of the seniors who had started this process, and they were a changed student between fall and winter break. <BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Though I am not there yet, give it another year for my Masters and hoping for my PhD in four years, I will be at the side as well, suffering the same regulations, fighting the same bureaucracy, and constructing a dumb waiter to help me out of the Ivory Tower's basement....after I pay back my loans of course.Christopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13424247835859201144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-4535147524878338562008-05-20T22:44:00.000-05:002008-05-20T22:44:00.000-05:00I think in order for the United States (at least) ...I think in order for the United States (at least) to get to a place where a high school education is enough, that more of the things normally taught in the freshman and sophomore college years need to be offered during high school. <BR/><BR/>Have you ever read Friedman's <I>The World Is Flat</I>? After surveying Asia's high growth areas he concluded that the center of kids' educations should be in math and science, otherwise they won't be able to compete for jobs in any place in the world. I agree with that; even if a person never makes actual use of higher math or the scientific method in his life, the thinking and reasoning skills required to succeed in math and science simply make it possible for that person to be smarter in general. <BR/><BR/>Of course that means the work of education has to start long before any students enroll in your classes, Russell. Largely this has become the purview of state boards of education. In Washington that work is almost completely governed by the State Superintendent, and not every decision she makes is even remotely sensible to me as a parent of young children. Even so, I am still convinced that they're sincere in their efforts. <BR/><BR/>I don't necessarily appreciate the tone of your populist friend, because I don't think he captures all the varying motivations a person who goes to college can have. Certainly when I was at BYU, I thought a significant part of the student population was very focused on credentials at the expense of what you and I might consider a "real" education. My own parents were firmly in the "give the professor exactly what he wants no matter what you think" camp. In order to become credentialed as quickly (and cheaply) as possible. <BR/><BR/>But, maybe that was because their focus was on the credential as a means to an end, in order to support the family and religious life they considered to be the real center of their education, or to be grounded or centered in things like scripture and/or a traditional or religious worldview which simply doesn't value the economic benefit of "real learning" as highly as allegiance to home and hearth. <BR/><BR/>So yeah, you go through it and get debt and $40k/year salaries and what not, but perhaps people who do it are OK with it for more reasons than that they aren't thinking for themselves.Rob Perkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15618647194288598056noreply@blogger.com