First of all, this is my first time posting on progressiveu. I found it through my scholarship page on FastWeb. So I figured I would give it a shot considering I use to update my regular journal on livejournal quite frequently with complaints of daily events within the school and socially.
I'm a third year student at my university, and am graduating in December 2008. Initially I was suppose to graduate in May 2009, then I switched my major which pushed it back to May 2010, and then switched it back and thought that I was behind so I would graduate in December 2009--a semester after being in college for 4 years. However, I found out last Novemeber that I was actually graduating a semester BEFORE being here for 4 years. After graduating I will either take a semester off before graduate school, or go to graduate school. It depends on what school I get into and when they allowed admissions.
Now, recently, I ranted to my mom for a good 3 hours on the phone about education in college. I'm a history major, so everyone assumes you are learning the same stuff over and over again, except in different detail and context. Well, they are absolutely wrong. I've taken a wide range of classes from U.S. History 1939-1960, U.S. History 1919-1939, U.S. Military History, just to name a few. These classes do cover the same time period, yes, but they rarely relate to each other--excluding during war circumstances. Now my minor, Judaic Studies, is a completely different story. Yes, I understand that the Jewish state of Israel has only been around 60 years--well, going on 60 years this May. However, there have been many events that have taken place within those 60 years.
Well, let me start off by explaining my courseload this semester. Maybe it is my own fault for deciding to finish the rest of my minor this semester. I'm taking Literature of the Holocaust, Modern Hebrew Culture (which is basically the history behind the creation of Israel, and then Israel itself), and Hebrew Language 4. I'm also taking a history class, an internship, and an independent study, but none of these fall into the category of what my point is.
So those Judaic Studies classes (Literature of the Holocaust, Modern Hebrew Culture, and Hebrew Language 4) do not completely relate to one another. Yes, they deal with the same language and the same people, but to repeat what my teachers are repeating in the class is not right. I have these classes on the same day, so when I hear my teacher talk about the Russian pogroms because it is described in the literature at 10:30 in the morning, I don't expect to hear a completely different professor say the same thing at 12 P.M. and at 6 P.M. that same day. Yes, it relates to Modern Hebrew Culture, but we passed that part of the history of Israel at the beginning of the semester. And don't even begin to think about asking me how it relates to Hebrew Language 4 because I have no idea, and the teacher didn't really tell us either.
What has become of our education system today? We are paying higher in tuition for basically nothing. I recently learned that more budget cuts were coming to our school, resulting in more classes being dropped, and similar class subjects being taught. How can a student learn about different things when similar subjects are the only type of classes being taught?
In addition to this, I have papers due in my Literature of the Holocaust and Modern Hebrew Culture class. I've had the same professor for Modern Hebrew Culture in a different class and know what he expects paperwise. However, he went into further detail a few weeks ago about grading papers and how he uses the 'heavy scale'. He throws them up in the air and whichever has the most papers and lands first are the ones that get the A's. He was joking, yes, to an extent. But he told us that he can tell the last minute papers compared to the semester long research papers that other people do. Now, I'm a good student, I started my paper back at the beginning of the semester, and am nearly done with it, even though it isn't due until the end of April. But I have so much other work to do that I figured getting an easy essay out of the way is the best thing to do. However, other students haven't even started it yet. And I know for certain that a good majority of the students' papers in this class will be last minute work. And it angers me, a student who actually listens to the professor and does a semester long paper, can get a near equal grade to a student that pushed out 7 pages in the course of 24 hours. That's just not equivalent.
I've learned over the past 3 semesters how to do mediocre work and still get an A in the class. However, if I try harder, I get stressed out more, and will receive a similar grade to if I barely put any effort in. No, it's not the ease of the classes, because these classes are rough with at least 3 essays and 3 tests. It's the fact that professors nowadays know that students aren't going to do as well of a job and it would look bad on the teachers to have given the majority of students lower grades.
So, we pay more in tuition, to get less of an education. Makes sense, right? Wrong. The money I pay in tuition I expect to get back in learning. However, it doesn't seem that way at all. Universities need to start realizing that students are just coasting along in their studies and that their effort is lacking. Employers look at students' GPAs and think "wow, a 3.5" but little do they realize that they've taken classes with professors who grade the students so easily that they've put in no effort. The shock will come to employers once they learn that their new employees are lazy and don't put in effort to complete the job.
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