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MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 22 hours ago
I know every generation says it about the next but gen Z is just fucking weak. Some great people and an admittedly, dealt a shitty hand.
But.
I’m going back to school as an elder millennial and my God, some of the craziness I’ve heard. A buddy teaches a film theory course a lot of kids use to satisfy early arts requirements at universities and he quickly realized if he didn’t show the movie in class, 2/3 of the class wouldn’t watch it despite being available through the school website. So, essentially, these kids (or their parents) are paying hundreds of dollars to watch movies instead of engaging.
The degree for which I’m going back recommends only 4 courses a tern with no work.I knew engineers who rocked 6 or 7, worked and were party animals.
Every advisor with whom I’ve spoke has basically said “look, if you’re going to treat it as an adult with adult work habits, you can handle 5 courses without trouble.” But they have all these disclaimers because kids and their parents go nuts when Johnny, who was just streaming hockey highlights all class somehow didn’t get a good grade.
As a late gen Z yep. I work in a school, and I feel like the course material has been chopped up and is being spoonfed now.
When I was there 10 years ago. (fuck) It was a unspoken rule that you had to learn to learn and quickly. If you did not well. Half our class dropped out.
However its also clear that schools are, in my country at least. A lot less likely to throw out students that probably should just find a profession rather than a higher degree.
College became a business at one point, probably somewhere around 2000 it really became evident, and that’s that. People who have no business getting into college not only get in, but they get degrees. And how do we do that? We water it down, make it accessible to everyone.
And I say this as a college dropout. We need to stop the idea that college is for everyone. That’s totally okay.
Those engineers probably had a job market with serious salaries to work for, and a course load relevant to that market. Kids these days live in a dying society with no hope. Why the fuck should they try? “Get a degree” is the quest. The assignment isn’t to learn something, it’s to get that fancy page. One of the required items is take some token bullshit art class. So we’ll do the one where we sit through movies.
The “go to college to become successful” thing is mostly bullshit; see there’s that community of people who were already going to be successful because their parents are, and what they get out of college is unsupervised time together with their peers. It’s not about Calculus 2 homework and Sociology lectures, It’s about not saying anything to your roommate’s girlfriend about the girl your roommate was fucking last night, the resulting bro-hood that earned, and your roommate becoming the district attorney in 12 years time. That’s what the people who are in congress got out of college. The thing is, you have to be one of them when you get there already.
Hell, I think the entire reason this ritual is academic-scented is because scholarship and science were a big fad with the elite about 300 years ago.
Actually walking the walk, going to school to learn the material the professors are teaching and getting a job in research or the professions will land you a job that pays marginally better than McDonald’s and a lifetime’s worth of debt. Doctors don’t get rich anymore. “Scientist” is the occupation of applying for grants. There’s no money to be had in actual academia…unless you’re owner of the school and teenage drinking buddy with the man who is now the governor.
College itself has very little to offer those who are planning to go get a job that doesn’t have some regulatory “it is a felony to do this job without a degree” requirement like lawyer, engineer or physician, but it has become a de facto societal requirement. Which has turned college into less of an educational experience and more of a trial to endure. And these kids are enduring it.
Basically all of what you said was equally applicable 20 years ago and folks atill managed to get degrees, handle a real courseload, pay attention for a whole lecture etc. And then we graduated into the worst financial/employment crisis of the last 100 years.
A lot of this feels like made up gripe reinforced by being online way too much. Maybe it’s the result of rocking a smartphone and the resulting doomed echo chambers since childhood but it seems to have broken a whole generation.
You don’t want one of the lucrative credentialed jobs like lawyer, engineer, doctor etc? Sure. But my God, we can’t even get kids to join the trades which pay great, cost almost nothing to enroll and are all but guarantees of job security.
And then we graduated into the worst financial/employment crisis of the last 100 years.
Yeah, graduating high school in 2005 and thus finishing college in 2008 was…great. I’m not shotgun emoji about it at all.
Thing is, when we were in college, it looked like jobs and futures still existed, they waited until our last semester to destroy society. It never got better. Kids these days were born in the bullshit, we were merely adopted by it.
Also, you apparently don’t know the first fucking thing about the trades.
This is just silliness. Jobs and futures still exist, just because your corner of social media is going nuts doesn’t change that.
The generation prior grew up with the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation and still managed to go put on their shoes and work.
A good number of my friends are electricians, plumbers, pipe fitters or in HVAC but uhhh, sure there buddy.
arnt alot of them aspiring to be “influencers” or was the next gen after Z.
BilboBargains@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
This was the reason I left a career in academia and went back to engineering. The university enabled feckless plagiarising students and didn’t support the lecturers that upheld values. Okay then, good luck with your diploma mill bullshit, I’m going to literally double my wages and halve my stress by leaving.