As I have been frankly open about, I am a millennial. I am currently attending a university, with plans to get a PhD eventually. And no, I’m not one of those people with a mind made for STEM fields. I’m in English.
Please, hold the laughter.
I thought about going into other fields–history and political science were the big ones–and was pressured by well-meaning (mostly) friends and family to choose something else–anything else–other than the one subject I excel in. I am a continual disappointment to my father (for many reasons), as he decided I should be a lawyer, and I decided that my personality might be a bit of a detriment.
For example, “In my defense, Your Honor, the defendant is a dick” would probably get me held in contempt of court. Which, to be fair, would be completely true.
Anyway, I’m not just saying this because I want to give you a background on me for the sake of a get-to-know-you online icebreaker. I’m here to say, as a student at a university, that the whole system is a wee bit broken.
I’m lucky enough to have gotten into a private religious college (on a scholarship, thank Heaven), so I don’t encounter a lot of BS here. Sure, you’ll get the occasional protest, but normally it’s for serving pumpkin cookies past October, not for anything extreme.
But just because I’m lucky enough to be in a relative bastion of sanity within this insane higher education machine doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on out in the great big world.
And it’s crap.
Draconian campus sex laws, rapidly inflating costs, quotas, ‘feel-good’ applications instead of those that measure actual worth–since when did higher education become a place to feel, rather than to, you know, be educated? Sure, my degree in English isn’t lofty, but since I wanna teach English at the university level, it’s pretty much exactly what I need to do. But since when did a degree in Transethnic Queer Women’s Studies from 1901-1902 count as a field of study?
The more I see of colleges other than mine, the more I start to think that it’s a good idea to get my degrees as quickly as possible, so I can get out before the bubble pops. Prices have risen more than 400% in the last 30-40 years. That kind of inflation? Not sustainable.
People have decided that college should be babysitting, and that’s largely what it’s become. Teachers are more concerned about how their students feel than if they can string three sentences together. Basic writing skills are not only out the window, but in another county somewhere. “Kids are getting dumber!!!!” they shout at us, then pat our heads and burn all of the red pens–because how dare we acknowledge when something is done incorrectly.
Kids aren’t getting dumber. They’re being taught that as long as they do their minimum, it should be good enough. I had a cousin who missed his classes every day last semester at his college (while taking 18 credits), and passed all of them with an A. That’s fracking crap, man.
So here’s my call to action: start treating kids like they’re capable of something beyond feel-good ‘morals’ that are really political stances wrapped in bubble wrap. Start when they’re young. Teach them to think. To question everything their teachers throw at them till they know for themselves whether it’s true, and whether they understand it. Stop indulging every idiot with 44K in credit card debt with a piece of paper stating they know everything about Southeast Mexican Fringe Political Party’s Social Interactions, and start expecting things again.
Red pens are not the problem. The problem is that teachers are afraid, unable, or disinclined to teach. And that the colleges across America decided to squish every penny out of students in order to build a new gym every year.
To those in school–any school: learn. Grow. Take nothing for granted. Realize the value of what you’re being taught. And stop expecting to succeed. Because sometimes you won’t. But when you actually learn something–when you know you have grown as a person and a student due to that rare teacher who knows their stuff?
Well, that’s something to scream about.
Something to Scream About 