University Students are Afraid of Everything
jpminda.wordpress.com
jpminda.wordpress.com
Sometimes very small, very loud groups can be perceived by outsiders to be more influential than they actually are.
There some to be some more mix-ups in this rant:
>According to some universities, these counsellors provide “customer support”.
This is more an indictment of the sad state of student/university relationship - you pay so much, you're a customer, not a student.
>Final exam time at many large universities is when this infantilization really comes out. Students will literally walk around in public wearing their sleeping clothes and sweats. They nap in the library or in the hallway of academic buildings during normal work hours
That's not infantilization, that's just laziness and a short way to the dorm. Sleeping in a university during "normal work hours" (gasp!) has been normal for decades.
>Education is not trauma
Maybe it didn't use to be a trauma - but in the time of more and more focus on grades and GPAs, forced student competition, "career days", CV polishing courses, mandatory unpaid internships, i.e., ageneral shift from the university as a place that creates politically mature citizens to a place that churns out better trained cogs for companies, education may have become trauma.
Isn't this the same response we hear every time someone else speaks out about this? "This is just the work of a few bad eggs. If this was a widespread problem, why aren't we hearing about more of it?" Which, yeah, the first few times people have made this complaint, I agreed with. But it has started to ring hollow.
> Sometimes very small, very loud groups can be perceived by outsiders
I don't think the author here is an outsider—they're a professor at a university where this is happening.
Most cases in the author's article have to do with other universities - about the author's university, he complains about "counselors" (again, I think that's a financial incentive for the university - "customer support", happy customers study longer therefore pay more, special customers for groups who normally don't study -> more students from that group -> more money), and people in pajamas, which isn't really a problem that I can understand.
Now that I've re-read it, it's a bit weird that a psychologist writes a sentence like this:
> It seems that Harvard students, for whom the average grade is A- need more help.
If you're expected to have an average of A- by your peers, teachers and professors of other universities then I'd expect the pressure to be enormous, of course you'll see more problems with mental health!
>I must ensure that every every disability is accommodated.
The poor man!
>> The poor man!
Did you not read the next sentence? The point was that most of the "disabilities" are bunk:
> Most disabilities that I am asked to accommodate seem to be unspecified and are remedied by providing the students with a separate, quiet location and an extra 30 minutes to take an exam.
For example, someone with a spine injury with a only partially functioning bladder may need to urinate a few times during a long exam. If he/she's not around students, he/she can do that using a bottle and doesn't need to waste any more time wheeling back and forth to the bathroom. (I have a friend in a wheelchair who used to do this during exams). Visually impaired may not be able to write or read on their own so they have someone read them the questions and dictate the answers, which disturbs other students if they'd be in the same room.
AFAIK if you need a different room then the disability has to be documented to the university with a medical letter, but I can't find that requirement at the author's uni page so maybe that uni doesn't.
Just to add to this:
I'm a TA and have been a lecturer a few times for courses at my uni. There is a whole registration process that the student and professor must go through. I'd estimate (in my limited experience) it's usually only 1 in 30-50 students who request extra accommodation. I suppose there are some that use it to take advantage. However, there are social implications of having special accommodations that naturally work to off set those who might take advantage these allowances.
And some people are bad studiers, and some people are bad workers, and some people have trouble remembering details, and some people have trouble organizing their thoughts clearly. And so on for all sorts of other inabilities. Should they all be able to get through college? If not, what's the distinction? If so, what does it mean to pass through college?
For a bunch of reasons it is not feasible for people to talk about or expect any actions about the real problems they face (for instance, the cost of college, all of the ways the 'meritocracy' falls short that aren't connected with race and gender).
(Oddly, for all the talk about race-class-gender, you never hear about class because a lot of history got forgotten in the 1960s. For instance, you hear about anti-semitism, but you don't hear that the Klu Klux Klan was an equal opportunity hate group at the peak of it's influence which hated irish people and italians, as well as blacks and jewish people.)
I don't think there's any topic that's more "Pro-Skub" vs "Anti-Skub" in the entire internet than "Outrage Culture" vs. "People outraged at Outrage Culture".
As a student: "They (working people) nap in their beds or on the couch during crunch-time and study-hours!"
And while I don't do it myself ot that degree, I also wouldn't call lax-personal care during finals laziness. It's just a different social convention which doesn't hurt anyone.
In my very personal experience, their volume gives them enough influence to cause trouble, regardless of their size. "Reactionary politics" are a way of life now, thanks to instant global communication.
Ok, you tell a bunch of young adults that what they do over the next 2-4 weeks is super important. They will put effort into something, and the end result is a number, and the higher the number, the better chances they have at getting what they want in life (later). And no one will ever give a shit about what happens over those next few weeks except the number. Well, then you'd actually be a total dummy not to ruthlessly optimize for that number. Dress like shit? Why not. Take adderall? Why not. Sleep whenever you get a chance? Why not.
Maybe university students are a bit too sensitive about things (I actually agree with that statement). But many (most?) university courses are designed such that a student can typically get what they need (a big number at the end of it) by applying the bare minimal amount of effort outside of certain crunch times, and then dropping all other aspects of life during crunch times. If I can get good marks by sacrificing ~4 weeks of my life (and frankly looking like complete shit) per term, while letting me still go out and hang out and have fun and get drunk and laid and high for the rest of the term - hell, why not. It's not like your missing out - everyone else makes the same calculations. You're not going to be able to hang out with your friends during exams anyways.
Seriously. There's a reason campuses have lounges and quiet areas, and it's not just so you can sit and do homework during your downtime.
While mandatory unpaid internships seems to be a new development, pretty much everything else existed in the 70's and 80's when I did my 8-year gig. All of the Pre-XXX students were totally grade oriented, with some engaging in lab sabotage to drag down the competition. Parents during HS recruiting were told the majors with the highest GPA for the Pre-Laws. The only advantage of all those bloody Pre-XXX students were that the courses not on their tracks were quite small and TA'ing paid the bills for grad school.
Boomer parents are (properly?) criticized for cocooning their kids. Maybe this makes them less able to handle the "toss into the deep end" that college can represent. I figured it out, with the more-senior undergrads being fonts of wisdom (in non-major classes, dorm RA's and just those on the halls).
I wasn't that amazing or rare. I did well in some courses, got slaughtered in others. Science majors were <3.0 departmental averages so my 2.87 didn't look so bad, what with all those advanced/small courses. I also learned by my 4th year that if I studied Su-Th I could goof off F-Sa with a clear conscience. And man, was I pissed at the non-science folks who had half the hours/week in classes...
There is also way more competition. The college population is triple the size it was in the 80's. Meanwhile the job market continues to shrink in many ways. Maybe kids should be getting different degrees but at 17 it's not surprising they don't know journalism isn't a great degree to have.
I think this is casting the problem in the wrong light. Look at this from the employer's side instead. I dont see any work being done in an office that couldnt be done by a journalism major, or a english lit major, or a music major. If you are a semi-competent student who tried to learn at least a few things in college, you are more than qualified for the majority of jobs.
Employers have just turned applications into a competition to see who can gather the most bullet points on their resume. Besides the few truly skilled jobs out there - engineers, scientists, medical professionals - a basic ability to read and write is all you need.
If there really is a problem on the educational side the focus should be on making sure students are learning and doing more, instead of trying to dictate what degrees are "valuable".
This together with high tuition fees makes school a high pressure place. When I went to school in the 80s there wasn't this constant pressure students have now.
This is where the prof can actually start to pull some numbers out to back up his observations. Measuring the number of disabilities that are assuaged by having an unfair advantage over the class curve and comparing that to GPA may actually change things. Until then, expect the prof to continue to bitch.
Students in North America have it easy compared to them. Are students in East and south Asia just harder than their north American counterparts?
Walking around in slippers and napping wherever is a consequence of freedom from social conventions, or at least an environment where social conventions are anomalous and rapidly changing. So is promiscuity, once called free love. These are things that universities have always been havens for. Others things (puppy rooms) are experimental, also an artifact of a nonconformist and liberal environment.
Students and academics have more license to be quirky and eccentric than lawyers and soccer moms. That's a good thing.
I also cringe when I here about PC student audiences that can't tolerate stand up comedy. It all feels like a part of the recreational righteous rage, liking to be right and pointing at the kid that said the C-word.
OTOH, it's also a side effect of effective social movements that take place at universities. If I look back at social movements that universities played major roles in, I don't think they've been bad. Attitudes towards queers and trannies have changed so much in my lifetime. Amazingly. There is tremendous support and solidarity from the public. It's a breathtaking rise in collective conscience. If I'm going to be yelled at by 19 year olds for saying "tranny" but we get to a point where transexuals can work and live normally, homosexuals can have families…. I'll take it.
Part of the way that is achieved intolerance towards "assholes," homophobes, xenophobes, sexists. Students, being young and insufferable spray that all around. Long term though, it sticks mostly where it should.
But yea, I agree. Young people are annoying.
Higher ed is there to educate, prepare and provide networking and access to the job market. Very few people go with the end goal of learning for learning's sake. People attend higher ed as a vehicle to a better economic future. As such, coddling and comforting and extending parental protection institutionally does a disservice to people growing up and getting ready for the cold world out there which awaits all.
The world is by nature wild and unsanitized. I understand the need to want and bring about a better more civilized, if less natural world, but I don't think suppressing reality is the way to subjugate reality to our form.
T* is a slur that is too often the last thing a woman hears before she is brutally murdered.
"the term "tranny" is used as a dehumanizing slur to describe transgender individuals and is oftentimes the last word someone hears before they are brutally attacked. Similar to the anti-gay F-word, the term "tranny" is commonly used to humiliate and degrade transgender individuals."
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lance-bass/why-we-shouldnt-use...
This is utterly ignorant of context. There are names used exclusively in hatred against a group, and there are names a group is happy to be called.
By your logic, perhaps we should be going around referring to women as whores, black people as niggers, trans people as trannies, gay people as faggots, because "you can't win this game".
Yet civilised society does not. And with good reason.
In any case, I'm not arguing for anything in particular. I don't think there is a logic to this. My point is not about what words we can use.
My point is that anger and insurrection against systematic hate, cultures of intolerance, injustice are directed against the instruments of intolerance. But, rage and insurrection are not always nuanced tools especially in the hands of young people. They get mad at the words themselves, not just the hate. Sometimes it's fueled by the wrong thing, like enjoying moral platitudes. Sometimes by the right thing.
Either way, I think the net results are good.. essential even, but some of the side effects can be insufferable.
But what about the chucklehead fifteen feet away eating a sandwich, who just heard you reaffirm his belief that it's okay to call women whores, because they're not really people, right, just sex objects?
For you and your friend, that's fine. But this the sandwich eating bastard goes out and --secure in the knowledge that women don't get a say, because nobody around him uses language that suggests they do-- rapes someone, and doesn't think it's a big deal.
And there's that rape culture that people my age are always screaming about. And there's the hate culture that people my age are always screaming about.
We're not screaming about you, who are as annoying to us as we are to you. We're screaming about the people you're teaching by example. The ones who rape women (1 in 4 women have been raped in the US) and men (1 in 6), who murder gay and lesbian and bi and trans* folks (I don't have numbers there, mea culpa) and face no reprisal, because nobody in power takes it seriously.
Seriously. We get twitchy about those words because hearing them might mean that we're about to be killed.
I don't know why I react negatively, considering that I consider myself a feminist, but I suppose that's the whole point of something being 'instinctive'. It's a heuristic that may or may not make sense. But it's one borne of ignorance and the privilege of not having to think about these things (being a white, highly-educated male), and being surrounded by, I assume, upstanding males who don't rape, and upstanding white folk who are not racists.
it's posts like yours that remind me that my instincts can be wrong and harmful in practice, and while I'm free to feel as I feel, it's posts like yours, and stories from my friends, that shock me whenever I hear them, and that give me some perspective and make me realize my instinct is not a precious thing to protect or defend above everything else.
Please remember that it really helps to explain things the way you do. I'm not saying it's a responsibility to do so, or that not doing so gives 'us' the right to remain oblivious. Far from it.
I'm simply saying that practically speaking, posts like yours are much more helpful than blanket judgments and (perceived) knee-jerk outrage. It benefits everyone to try and paint a picture of a perspective that is not necessarily shared personally, however unnecessary it should be to do so.
I wish I was good enough to be sensitive all by myself, but the sad fact is that even I as a person with a sizable amount of close friends who are gay, bisexual, female, or minorities (in every sense of the word), can forget that not everyone shares my rather privileged perspective.
And it's really helpful for me to be reminded that, say, a rape joke might not be a problem for me, but that it might be a problem in a larger context where rapists justify their actions by it.
Oppressed groups sometimes reclaim slurs against them. That's fine, if it hurts anyone, it is merely themselves. It's not others hurting them.
http://englishcowpath.blogspot.com/2011/06/euphemism-treadmi...
Really? I cannot imagine why anyone would feel hatred towards a mentally disabled person, and while some people might be cruel, they're probably cruel towards anybody who's weaker than them. So I don't really agree with your categorization.
However, I admit that a lot of people use the terms "retarded", "stupid", "idiot", etc. in a mean, hateful, cruel way, but these terms as insults are usually directed towards people who are not mentally disabled, exactly because they are not! (When you call a retard a "retard", that's not an insult, it's the truth. It's an insult only if you call a non-retarded person a "retard"!)
I am 100% sure you can tell the difference between calling someone a t* and calling someone a Jew, and I am 100% sure you know when it is appropriate to identify someone as a Jew and when doing so is othering and degrading.
Context matters. If someone wants to use "trans" as an insult, they will.
"Don't speak to me you trans" and "Don't speak to me you tranny" are both offensive remarks. The difference of using "trans" or "tranny" doesn't change the message.
I'd also like to note that the use of "tranny" is still used self-referencingly by many trans.
"Queer" is an insult where I am from but many homosexuals are increasingly using it self-referencingly ("I'm queer.") and I see less people get all up-in-arms over the word "queer" than "tranny", which I find strange.
It is my belief that giving words power is silly. By fearing them you show others that they can use that word to control you. If you are indifferent, their words fall flat. They become weak and powerless. By advocating the fear of words, you give them increased power. You teach people to fear the word because it can hold power over others. Those who wish to abuse that power will see that and use the word.
In the end you result in the abusers having more power, people with no ill-intent to feel bad for the usage, and people whom the word is targeted at grow more fearful of it. That's a lose-lose for all involved.
By not giving the word an "unspeakable" status - the abusers realize the word holds no power and stop using it, people who have no ill-intent don't have to feel bad for using the wrong word, and the people whom the word targets don't grow to fear the word.
I find advocates of making a word "unspeakable" because it, in certain contexts, can be "bad" is counterproductive is all. You increase the power of the word, nasty people will use it with even more glee, and nothing is accomplished other than self-victimization.
Which I think is a pretty solid argument for not using those words, unless you're cool with frequently hanging the threat of murder over <insert minority>'s heads. Personally, I'm not cool with that.
"Tranny" is a vicious slur against trans people, on par with "faggot" for a gay person or "nigger" for a black person. Please edit your post.
Then we can be intolerant of people who argue with violence instead of with words. That doesn't require us to be intolerant of people who hold certain opinions.
This is circular and I think not very well thought out. Declaring something criminal is "answering arguments by the use of ... pistols", just as he is railing against in the same paragraph. Who defines tolerance and intolerance? Who gets to draw the line? I think being tolerant necessarily means tolerating the intolerant, and I think people arguing otherwise are being the very intolerant they are trying to defeat.
You can't be tolerant sometimes, intolerant others, and then hold an olive branch high above your head, claiming to be tolerant. It doesn't work that way, in the same way that you can't claim to be a pacifist if you support pacifism sometimes, and violence others. It just is a false statement.
> Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
- Karl Popper
Jokes that would be seen as amusing in my country were taken as a personal insult and avoided at all costs. Many interesting non-latinos would gradually be excluded for no reason.
Ironically, I fostered relationships with apparently "racist white males" who were more concerned with the content of conversations than 'fighting the enemy'.
And to be clear, that's just an observation. As a white, male, highly-educated person I try to avoid judgements or too many opinions on this issue.
I don't think it's too much to effort for schools and organizations to post information on what is and isn't a microaggression but I do think people who are the targets of microaggressions ought to consider a more proactive approach to correcting such social missteps.
> our society has deemed one's gender identity as an immutable fact of nature
Did it ever occur to you that these people were simply curious about your experience in life because it was so much unlike their own?
But norea-armozel still classified them as microaggressions. I think that's a problem. If even ordinary, naive curiosity, without intent to be rude, is classified as aggression, well... you're going to be on the receiving end of a lot of it, then.
Hopefully only once per person, because once you make it clear that you find the questions (even asked without malice) to be hurtful, then they shouldn't ask a second time. But that's probably a step you're going to have to take with a fairly large number of individuals.
Maybe the problem is not with ordinary human curiosity. Maybe the problem is that you're classifying ordinary curiosity as aggression. Does it really harm you (cause you actual emotional pain/harm) if people are curious about your experience?
Um no, my view isn't an assumption. Gender isn't sex. People don't call a boy a man or a girl a woman. Maybe US western culture assumes sex = gender but the rest of the world has some form of distinction from sex (biological) and gender (social).
>Also, for me, a "name" is about the least personal thing about myself - it's what others call me, so it's inherently a cultural thing that depends on the social contract. For example, if you change your name without a good reason, most people would simply assume you're trying to run away from your past or avoid justice.
In our US western culture a name is a name whether given or self-attributed. No one demands Prince or Madonna to give their legal names. We know them by those names in terms of their public actions. If I greet myself as Veronica it's safe to assume that is my name. It doesn't require a background check in a social setting like a party or a meetup. It's not like I'm looking to get a security clearance.
Also, there's no such thing as a good reason to change one's name. You just change it for your reasons. The good and bad about it is merely a subjective valuation of the act of the change. It has no bearing in terms of the character of the person. If you can't just accept my name is Veronica upon first meeting then maybe you're just a jerk?
Well, a "girl" is a subset of "woman", and is definitely more a woman than a man. But we can agree to disagree.
> If I greet myself as Veronica it's safe to assume that is my name.
Well, if you introduce yourself as "Veronica", of course I'll call you by that name. But at the same time, I still consider "What's your real/previous name?" a perfectly valid question (based on curiosity, not insults), just like I would consider it for Prince or Madonna.
That's your problem right there. Veronica is my real (legal) name. It's not for you or anyone to decide what is my real (legal) name in a social situation. This is not a matter of a background check for a job or a security clearance. If you as a person can't acknowledge my name and my existence as is then the middle finger is going to be my answer back (and probably my fist if it gets rowdy).
It's been a long time, but this happened at my University too. It was just part of the relentless competition among students to make other students think THEY had it so much harder than anyone else. It was like a badge of honor to be taking a 300 level class as a freshmen, or have to study all night long, or to be starving because you had so little money.
I did the same thing.
And when you get out of college, it just transfers over to parenting.
New parents walking around in sweat pants and their hair a mess to show that they got no sleep due to the newborn. Then when you have 4 kids, you like to pack 300 lbs of kid crap around with you to show that you have WAY more kids than that new parent, or you talk about how many sports you are taking your kids to, how big your grocery bill is, or whatever. It's all so silly. I'm not sure why we seek this recognition.
I'm wondering what comes after parenting at this point... I'm assuming wealth and how we use our freedom among other empty-nesters???
EDIT:
I'd like to state that I actually don't find any problem with much of this, I just don't understand it.
When we are in college, we are facing the most challenging courses and living situations we have ever faced to this point. We are learning from books, and how to handle life's struggles.
As a new parent, having a newborn completely uproots your life, and it IS incredibly challenging. EVERYTHING has changed at this point.
Then with lots of kids, yes, it too is crazy.
From then on, I have no idea.
And the "puppy room", well, to each their own.
It's the kid who has pajamas on but still looks great, carries one book, a pen, and a coffee back and forth across the quad 6 times a day that I wonder about :)
The challenge is purely self-inflicted, so it's natural to assume they get something out of it, and status is the most obvious motivation.
Then again, they might be one of those weird mutants who actually like children.
I'm not an evolutionary psychologist, but I imagine the only thing stronger than a social animal's desire for status would have to be their desire for children.
Most people have a set of life goals they accomplish in sequence, such as college -> marriage -> career -> children (Some people switch them around or omit some of them)
Pushing 40, if I went back to college, and all the kids were taking cots to the engineering building to sleep on while somehow getting ready for a final, I'm sure I'd have nothing to do with it. I'd push the midnight oil if I could, then I'd go home, sleep snug in my bed, and be back bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5am to get started again.
But when I was 20, I'd be there with my cot, no question.
Law students are both sensitive and not. I remember many times students crying while we discussed cases of rape, child murder and domestic violence. As one prof pointed out: "We have over 100 people in the room. Statistically speaking we must have many rape victims, and more than a few perpetrators."
Students cried, but they certainly did not suggest that topics not be taught. Students at professional schools (law/medicine etc) have committed to a profession with a known body of knowledge developed over hundreds, arguably thousands of years. They would not want that very expensive education to be curtailed for the very modern concept that is political correctness.
I am less bothered by them choosing not to do them once qualified than not even learning how to do it. There are times when an emergency abortion can save a woman's life and sure it's not likely there's no one around to do it in 2015 USA but what about in an emergency? A power cut after hurricane etc?
Several of my wife's colleagues have done this. It shocks me.
The first tears I remember appeared in the first couple crimlaw lectures. I won't go into the facts, but it was a discussion of Keeler (2 Cal.3d 619) that ramped up the emotions for some.
Take any law class. A hundred adults in their mid twenties in one room. That's fifty females. Chances are that at least one of them is pregnant, probably more than one. And there are plenty of parents of both genders. Nobody thinks less of them for being a little more emotional than the norm when forced to addresses certain cases. Nor would they expect the curriculum to be altered.
This is an authoritarian reaction. People in power complaining that they are losing their power, their place in a hierarchy that places the student body as subordinate to them.
How about this as an alternative point of view: University Students demand respect and a supportive environment. Professors balk at the idea of treating them like there is any merit to their opinions on how they should be treated; reduce them to disparaging caricatures.
On one hand, the university is supposed to be a crucible where difficult problems are confronted, hard work is accomplished by making sacrifices, and mature professionals are forged through years of dedicated effort. On the other hand, it's also the students' home and living space for several years, and it should provide the comfortable and low-stress lifestyle that most adults need to be mentally healthy.
Inflated tuition costs and degree commoditization have lead universities to adopt a "customer is always right" attitude, bringing the two purposes directly in contention in an attempt to please everyone.
The solution is probably somewhere in between. There's a place for puppy rooms, and a place for strict educational standards - but the two shouldn't mix.
How does anyone know what others are feeling, except when they tell us what they're feeling? This article isn't about how university students are acting like children. It's painting university students as children in order to dismiss their behavior. If you actually wanted to know what university students are doing and why, you'd talk to them. Instead, this article is condescending, patronizing, and (ironically) infantilizing.
To give no trust is to get no trust. If you don't trust university students to act as adults with their own autonomy who can make the best decisions for themselves, which includes effecting the environment and social structures that benefit them most, then, congratulations, you're an authoritarian and have just discarded the basic tenets of liberalism, right libertarianism, left libertarianism (i.e. anarchism), communism, and socialism. After eradicating most post-enlightenment ideas of how to treat people as human beings, what are you left with?
I reiterate: If you treat someone like a child, you're not engaging them. You are dismissing them. And if you treat someone like a child in order to justify a hierarchy and power structure above them, it is very, very clear what historical examples you are following.
Not really, many horrible governments have been democratically elected, don't you think it's a good thing that the north told the south that they don't have the right to decide what's good for them? Do you not feel that it's good that the 'free world' told Russia & Germany what is good for them?
There are many example through history of one people telling another that they don't know what's good for them and it being regarded later as a good thing.
In your examples you are making the unspoken assumption, for example, that black slaves were part of the political body that kept them in slavery. Yes, if you look at it as an issue between North and South, it looks like the North telling the South what to do for itself, but that seems completely wrong because we are putting the lots of slaves and slave owners together as if they were one coherent entity.
In a world where freedom of association holds, I believe my statement would hold to the limit that many, many actions we take that seem only to affect us also affect others, and to the limit that freedom of association, like all freedoms, is incoherent in its absolute limit.
It's a simple fact that if you have to have an anxiety attack because you hear things you don't like that you are incapable of emotional self-regulation, hence behaving like a child, hence being referred to as childish. The only thing I would say is unfair about characterizing the behavior as childish is that it is an insult to those under 18 that are able to emotionally self-regulate.
It's a reasonable expectation of adults that they are able to regulate their own emotions and hear phrases like "America is the land of opportunity" without having an emotional breakdown.
You seem to be incredibly enraged at the idea of freedom of association: The liberty to associate with other people or not on your own terms.
It turns out that universities act as loci of power in the larger hierarchy of our society: Universities confer status and distinction, legitimize skillsets, and some act as hubs of commingling for people who belong to the ruling class. Students need to go to university in order to participate in society as dignified individuals. That is what is at stake here, and your anger is merely anxiety at the idea of an institution of power falling into the hands of powerless people. You would rather they degrade themselves in order to receive a piece of paper that says they are good enough to be respectable parts of modern society.
I trust university students. There are two reasons to go to university: To go into debt so you can get a professional job, and to learn. I trust university students to transform universities in a way that benefits them most. I do not trust the powers that be to do anything but degrade universities into businesses for profit that hold individual legitimacy for ransom, or propaganda centers for the prevailing power structures that shape our society.
If professors want to teach, they ought to lead, not bludgeon students with the authority granted to them by institutional forces. Unquestionable authority is a tumor in any healthy society. When it pervades the system, society itself is terribly ill.
Corporate lawyers don't need to know about rape law, for example. I am neither a law student nor a law professor. It's not my lot to tell them how to hash out their conflicts. I think they can come to an agreement that accommodates everyone; for example, exemptions from class for the period where rape law is discussed.
I think universities will survive if they treat their students as worth negotiating with rather than griping in public about how childish their students are. I went to university. I know how condescending professors can be. I think it's reasonable to infer that this recent spate of public griping stems from anxiety, because authority that is challenged always feels anxious.
But I think that's out of scope.
I don't like the term micro-aggressions. It should just be called tactlessness or rudeness. For example, coworkers at my last job made jokes about cops pulling over and harassing in front of black employees. Best case that's insensitive. Worst case that's some dogwhistle bullshit.
On the flip side, people got reported to HR for saying the "s" word. Yes, shit. I think the line is somewhere in the middle. All of us need to be a little bit more aware and a little bit less touchy.
> by some campus guidelines, it is a microaggression to ask an Asian American or Latino American “Where were you born?,” because this implies that he or she is not a real American.
Some Asians would find this policy racist as it presumes that all Asians are American Asian.
For example, look at these black face parties.
http://www.thegloss.com/2014/10/17/culture/dear-white-people...
As for "where were you born", that's a long discussion. But I do want to say as an Asian American, I'm okay with it sometimes and sometimes not. Some people are curious, while others genuinely think I must be a foreigner. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive but it's hard not to be when I live in a country when co workers randomly ask me questions about chopsticks and internment camps.
If someone asks where you're from, they're probably curious about your background. If somebody asks where you were born, either they're implying you're not really a proper resident of where you prefer to live (whether that's a racial thing or a "somebody who moves to New York can't be a real New Yorker thing"), or they're being creepy by asking the kinds of things that get used as bank security questions.
"What ethnicity are you" or "What is your heritage" are better phrasings of the question of ethnic background.
What's wrong with people genuinely thinking that you're a foreigner? Personally, I would consider it offensive if people would assume I'm not a foreigner somewhere where I looked unlike most other people. But then again, I'm from a non-English-speaking country, so by assuming someone is a foreigner, you're preemptively extending them the courtesy of communicating in English with them.
Anyway, I too like the idea of younger generations growing up with more compassion towards people that are different. I raise my children with that in mind, believe it or not. But what much of what we're seeing coming out of college campuses in the US is not something I want my children to learn. I won't raise them as perpetual victims offended at anything and everything and I sure won't raise them to be unable to deal with an opposing viewpoint without falling back on a shut down the discussion mentality. Which is what the author is actually complaining about in the article.
These are extreme examples to be sure, but the principle remains.
And nobody is saying "you can't say 'all fags should be shot.'" They're saying 'You can't say it _here_." Freedom of speech is not freedom to be heard.
Saying I don't want to hear what you have to say and actively preventing speech are two completely different things. If a group of students don't want to hear a speaker, they have the right to not show up. They don't have the right to prevent the speech from happening. I don't know if you intended it, but your response is an effort to change the context of what I stated.
"Freedom of speech is not freedom to be heard" is what people actively preventing free speech fall back on to justify their actions against the speaker. Not that I'm lumping you in with that way of thinking, just pointing it out.
Actually, I believe that by discussing the statement you're much more likely to change the person's opinion or open up their empathic capabilities than by being an intolerant asshole and attacking them verbally.
Where I draw the line is groups of people deciding not just for themselves but for everyone else what free expression and free speech means. Which is the group I described. This is the growing trend that I'm speaking of, which you seem to think is something to dismiss. I say you should pay attention to them because history shows that this is the type of people who do the most harm to the previously mentioned marginalized groups under the guise of bettering humanity.
My concern is rooted in the thought we've been having to deal with this nonsense since the 90s and it only seems to be growing. Obviously it's a slow trend but most things spread slowly. The thought process at play has already made for hard times for people in and out of college.
By the way, your response has been the most reasonable I've received in this thread. Thank you.
All I have is anecdotes but they are troubling. A couple of weeks ago I spoke with a second grader who was brought to tears at the thought of upcoming testing (state required assessment). My immediate thought was something along the lines of "Just do the best you can", but the question remains: where was this anxiety coming from: parents, teachers, both? In this case, education was very clearly trauma for this individual.
Perhaps the "helicopter parents" are doing more harm than good, that seems likely. At the same time, perhaps round after round of assessment testing is hurting as well. And universities seeking to coddle their students, perhaps to keep them "happy customers" but also to keep them ignorant of their overall costs.
In any case, it's not entirely clear that "education is not trauma", this article itself seems to contradict that thesis.
> Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.
> In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn't want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric.
- Paul Graham, Why Nerds are Unpopular
I'm not sure I agree. I think I grew up as an emotionally mature, successful (so far), yet quite unusual person, despite having been schooled for a long time and acing most of the formal requirements of the institutions.
My parents always said, "trust us, you need to go to school" even though I didn't want to (I mean, obviously, I had a computer and games and a compiler!), but now I agree with them - back then, I couldn't imagine the perspective, breath, width, emotional maturity and social development that further years of schooling would give me, and I couldn't appreciate the extent to which schooling, vocation and other long-term choices that we make (or are guided towards) as completely inexperienced adolescents will shape the future 60-80 years of my life (I'm only about 10 years down the road so far, but the signs and directions are much more obvious now).
Sure, some amount of authority is necessary, but that's mainly because people, especially children, will otherwise go for short-term pleasure without thinking about the longer term. But saying that school molds children in any way is quite a stretch in my opinion - a better way of putting it would be that it shows them different possibilities and enables them to be better informed before choosing which direction to take in life.
It is unfortunate that some parents inadvertently hurt their kids by either not allowing them to learn to deal with negative emotions, or even worse, teaching them ideas like "it's okay that you failed the test, I know you did your best"
Wow, this feels really out of place. When I was in school from 2006-2011, there was definitively no feelings of being an adult permitted. The university encouraged parents to make any kind of financial aid / money related decisions, and encouraged leaving the students out of it. There were counselors for their use, if they were needed. Definitely agree with the gist of the author. On the other hand, people have been complaining about the weakness of the youth since Socrates, so I'm not sure that this article is signal rather than noise.
As far as exams being stressful, I'd say it's fine to give students a break and let them handle the stress however it helps. For most, it's their first exposure to "serious" evaluation of their work, and it is a bit daunting because their decisions are ineffable once made. Of course, the stress-mitigation strategies that the students learn during this time period are essential to their growth-- this isn't focused on enough, IMO. After being in the workforce for a while, exam time seems more like a vacation from stress rather than a stressful time to me. I wish that I had been able to pet a nice puppy during exam time.
I also wish that there were a "phase 2" of college to be taken after 5-10 years in the workforce. The education of having to provide for yourself imparts a lot of discipline and enthusiasm that I really could have used as a student. I could probably get eight bachelors' degrees in the time it took me to get two the first time around. College was a step in the maturation process for me-- a step that was a bit too small as a result of some of my mother institution's decisions.
In summary, colleges certainly coddle the students, and the students are eager to be coddled. But don't be too bitter: the students deserve their youth, too.
The current generation is mostly politically apathetic, obsessing instead over silly things like being offended by law textbooks containing words like "rape" and "violate".
Helicopter parenting is to blame, no question.
I wonder if that has more to do with financial/economic changes (rather than cultural ones) particularly when you look at how tuition has changed in terms of amount and how loans are handled and by whom.
I think you have it backwards. Higher learning should impart on you the discipline and enthusiasm you need for the workforce, and not the other way around.
Having to talk to three different people, and sit down for meetings, just to get the authorization to schedule my classes drove me crazy, while wasting time with mandatory "awareness" (alcohol, sex, whatever) classes made me question the point of it all.
In the end I chalked it all up to me being a bitter old 21 year old freshman, and took the opportunity to talk my way out of as many silly requirements as I could.
I do feel a bit vindicated seeing others take notice of how emotionally vulnerable college students have let themselves become, but I still hope there is a solution which fosters an environment of growth and challenge without going too far in either direction.
Wimps! In my day you sat in the back row of the classroom and slept while the lecture went on.
Does anybody really think that smart young adults could not maximize their potential out in the real world earning actual money, learning on the go.
The university rips young people out of reality for four more years to pamper them like babies and deprive them of reality in the name of "education"; as if listening to lectures from middle aged adults has some sort of magical revelatory power that living life does not.
Most engineers and analysts could learn on the job or with specializations(no longer than a few months).
Oh, wait, that's too much work. They're just a bunch of whiners.
Edit: Not sure if the downvotes are because people don't get this was sarcastic, or if people do.
Either way: Try listening to the people complaining instead of just brushing them off as "whiners". I hope that clears things up.
That said, there is a clarification in the article that does need to be stated. The prof is not against rape, racism, sexism, PTSD counseling, etc. Rather, they are just a new person in a long line of fuddy-duddys complaining about the youth of today. I believe the prof's gripe was against the perceived laze or lack of courage that their student's exhibit. I think this comment in particular should be expanded on by the prof:
..Most disabilities that I am asked to accommodate seem to be unspecified and are remedied by providing the students with a separate, quiet location and an extra 30 minutes to take an exam.
If the prof can start to gather some stats on that and make a real case that the students are abusing these privileges, then some change may be possible. Until then, the prof is just another old man complaining about kids on their lawn.
But I also think I have a reasonable conception of what deplorableness is. And that includes persecution of nonbelievers for suspicion of heresy. Some people have founded a non-theistic religion regarding certain elements of social conduct, and its adherents act rather poorly towards those who do not share their beliefs.
They can believe what they want. But they can't force me to kneel before their altars.
Also, allow me to take a moment to endorse the use of the tilde ('~') as a "sarc mark".
~I'm sure it will catch on any day now.~
From the OP Article.
So let's take a look at Jeannie Suk's writing [0]
>One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this conduct violate the law?”—because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress.
And cited a real law student (female or not) who was actually offended by the word "violate" and asked for it to not be used because it was triggering. As well as some students suggesting rape law shouldn't be taught at all.
[0] http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trouble-teaching-rap...
Let's break the point down a bit. For an actual rape survivor, it's possible the word "violate" might be triggering. If that's the case in that room, then perhaps another word should be used.
As for not teaching rape law, while rape law is something that might be triggering to a victim, this is a rare example where not teaching it, at least if it's a requirement of the program, is a problem. There's a discussion that can occur about the appropriateness of teaching rape law in, say, an introduction to law course at the undergraduate level. Having the discussion is important.
Funny how the people who say that coddled students want to shut down all discussion, only to shut down discussion about what's appropriate to teach in general courses or for a university to endorse.
Similarly, if you can't handle law, you probably shouldn't be a lawyer.
No, it isn't. They are offended by something else about you.
How have I personally offended this person, for instance? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3054067/Pictured-Div...
I'm a "white NT cishet male", as well, and at a glance, you can't tell the decent people from the awful ones. It's about behavior, and in a space where most people who look like us act like shit, it's not unreasonable to generalize a lack of trust. It's not on them to be understanding, it's on _us_. because we're in the position of privilege in this situation.
It is indeed a real problem. Everyone feels like they are entitled to be not only safe, but also "comfortable" at all time. No matter what. Nobody should judge you, nobody should disagree with you, nobody should make you feel bad about anything. This is a recipe to create highly dysfunctional adults.
Accepting conflicting opinions, facing rejection, standing for yourself without calling a twitter mob to the rescue, not seeking constant validation is part of being a functioning human being.
I'm wondering what is the agenda behind this trend. The author seems to think that it is to make sure students remain babies and stay in college as long as possible to avoid facing the real world. Could it really be something that petty? I started thinking that it could be encouraged by politicians to create a generation of babies that would feel better about dealing with a nanny-state.
A well-written paper on this, which I think has been discussed on HN before: http://www.systema-journal.org/article/view/314 (you can get the general idea by skipping the technical parts in Section 3).
If this theory is correct, then it has less to do with the supposed weaknesses of today's students or a deliberate political agenda to keep them from growing up - instead it's an unintended consequence of the idea that everything must be subjected to constant "scientific" numerical evaluation.
I'm not saying the US currently has a nanny-state (far from it compared to what is implemented in Europe for example), but this could be a real agenda.
Well, the way you put it does sound like a conspiracy theory:
>I'm wondering what is the agenda behind this trend. The author seems to think that it is to make sure students remain babies and stay in college as long as possible to avoid facing the real world. Could it really be something that petty? I started thinking that it could be encouraged by politicians to create a generation of babies that would feel better about dealing with a nanny-state.
fwiw, I live in a country that probably would be classified as a nanny state, and the same dynamics are very well present here, too. My personal theory is that it's far more complicated.
So yes, I do believe that if it is true that student infantilization is trending and institutionalized it's because the ruling class can get some benefits out of it.
I'm perfectly ready to admit that I'm paranoid :)
There's always an in-group that validates perceived threats to the individual and amplifies the concern and the response until it reaches a fever pitch, and it remains there as long as the support base is there.
If it weren't for the fact that somebody has to pay their salaries, professors could ignore this behavior. Sadly, the academics are going to have to bend if they want to keep their jobs. It's the same in every other subculture; the mob gets their way as long as you are beholden to them for something.
You say "non-smokers" but you mean "normal, default people." Smokers are the delusional in-group, slowly murdering themselves and those around them with a remarkably unfun drug. You're welcome to do whatever you want to your own body but keep it away from others. Imagine what you just said, applied to any other substance! Non-drinkers who have to drink my beer for 10 seconds? Celiac-diseasers who have to eat my bread for 10 seconds?
If you force beer down an alcoholic's throat they may relapse. If they're gluten-intolerant they could have a severe reaction. And obviously feeding bread to a gluten-intolerant person will have a serious negative reaction. Inhaling cigarette smoke isn't going to put you in the hospital or send you on a cigarette-smoking binge, nor affect your health any worse than walking around downtown LA would.
“In my day” (I’m old now, my day was the late 80s early 90s), you visited the registrar’s office. A financial aid office. The bursars office. I felt like an adult, making decisions and finding things out for myself… But now there are counsellors for everything."
I can only imagine how frustrating it is when minority, non-straight, disabled, non-dudes explain the challenges the face that maybe straight white dudes haven't experienced, only to have those straight white dudes write articles like this completely dismissing all of that after basically not listening. Yeah, I'm sure things were just swell for you back "in your day". But has it occurred to you that it was less swell for other people in ways that should be addressed? It certainly doesn't seem to have for this author.
Also, in the above quote, it seems like he resisted a pretty strong urge to put scare quotes around "disabilities". Because there's no way to tell when these people have not immediately-visible disabilities, except for when they're literally fucking telling you.
There might be kernels of legitimate concerns in this post. But, like in the many basically-identical blog posts and comments written by many, it's all rolled into an incoherent mash of "College kids today, they can't take a joke, with their trigger warnings and talk about microaggressions, their `disabilities' and whatnot. They need to toughen up, because back in my day we didn't need puppies."
Suicide is the leading cause of death[1] for college students and this guy is going to criticize the addition of resources to help handle stress? It just reads like ignorance.
1: http://news.virginia.edu/content/more-us-college-students-di...
And I personally think the point is very relevant. OP says students are coddled and campus stress isn't a big deal. GP brings up statistics showing that campus stress IS a big deal because it can lead to suicide. Seem very relevant to me.
Well, actually they probably did. That's why we have all these statistics telling us how many kids in college kill themselves. Because they needed those things.
There are many reasons for one to go the route of suicide, and in many cases no degree of counseling would help. But, for counseling to help it needs to address the root causes of the problem for that person, which may be unique to that person. Almost all of the programs the author is complaining about will not address that in any way. Especially the programs that don't even involve much stress to begin with.
As for suicide rates, I'm curious as to how far off the statistics you are referring to are from the national average. Personally, right now, I'm more concerned over the suicide rates of soldiers.
> in many cases no degree of counseling would help
In many cases? Really?
> for counseling to help it needs to address the root causes of the problem for that person,
That just isn't true. There are cognitive, behavioral and a combination of both that help people all the time. Therapy that focuses on changing behavior patterns (ie CBT) and not on your root causes are often most effective. Many therapists also use therapy dogs because they're so effective, something this guy railed against like it was turning students into children.
> I'm more concerned over the suicide rates of soldiers.
How is that related?
It is true, but I'll admit it's not true for everyone. People's reasons for suicide can be quite complex and often times no one but the person knows or understands the reasoning. To change behaviors without addressing the root causes of the behavior provides the possibility of the behavior returning. It's much the same with alcoholism and drug addiction.
How is this discussion related to the original article that didn't bring this subject matter up? It's related because suicide rates came up in the discussion and I stated that I'm personally more worried over soldiers returning from war who receive next to no help versus students who agonize getting counseling over what classes they should take next semester. If a student is depressed and considering suicide because they feel they are failing themselves, their parents, or whatever to the point of considering suicide, then I want help available for them. But then, no one here has said anything about being against that, right?
Reducing stress is an overall better policy, as long as it doesn't get in the way of receiving an actual education. I think that's an important conversation to have.
Why do so many people feel the need to redefine people's words/thoughts and dictate what they mean?
My college doesn't have counselors, and I wish it had,if only to help me navigate the stupid bureaucracy that adults insist anyone should be able to navigate.
Instead, I find myself more comfortable and less stressed at my actual job, so it's not just that I'm "coddled", or that I expect to be sheltered from how the real world works.
But, I agree, helping students focus more on learning is a good thing. Then again, let's not remove life lessons in the process. Such as dealing with bureaucracy.
Think positive. With counselors, and puppies, and trigger warnings and all that silliness, college can be more demanding than it used to be without making people spend what should be their prime years in a state of chronic stress.
Consider what college students of previous generations did to unwind. Was that really better?
When you challenge somebody's core beliefs, their bodies respond as if you are trying to kill them. Challenging less strongly held beliefs is less stressful.
I'm going into teaching a security class, and this is strongly in my mind. Most people have a lot of strongly held false beliefs about how secure they are, and what the information they do leak could be used for.
>As if the very act of registering for a class is traumatic event for which the student needs counselling.
Clearly the author didn't go to a high-demand program at an impacted state school. "If you don't register for 12 units, your financial aid package will be revoked and you'll have to reapply for admission next term." Field Sciences, here I come! (True story.)
For example, telling someone they speak good English in a situation where you're both native speakers is a microaggression. Asking where they're from or where they grew up isn't a microaggression.
Another good example of a microaggression would be to ask someone if their hair is natural (as I've seen commonly asked of African American women). Or if you're transgender (like myself) the common microaggression is to ask for one's "real" name (as if the legally designated name isn't sufficient).
It's not much to ask to figure out what is and isn't a microaggression, really. I hate the word since it doesn't best describe the behavior but the nature of it is very real.
I don't think that's necessarily what the author is talking about. However, this part in particular was troubling:
"Then there are offices to help students with anything that could possibly upset them (I suppose to ensure that they remain enrolled snd thus paying fees and tuition). My university, like most, has offices for diversity, indigenous student support, sexual orientation, even a mental health office specifically for international students, etc. As a professor, I am frequently asked to make academic accommodations for every religion and every possible religious holiday that might conflict with assignment. I must ensure that every every disability is accommodated."
What's wrong with providing institutional support to students with different backgrounds and disabilities? Complaining about student support groups, accommodating disabilities or recognizing non-Christian religious holidays is a a bit over the top. It's anecdotal, but I had an indigenous friend living in the unofficial LGBT-targeted co-op that committed suicide during his last year of college. If having another support system in place that targeted his needs would have saved him, I don't care how "infantilizing" it would have been. If it can be managed, it's better to have too much support than tragedies like that.
I don't understand why the author feels the need to conflate political correctness with resources that, at least theoretically, make universities less stressful, less homogeneous, and more accessible. If it's something that interferes with academics, that's a completely different concern.
Plus, who wouldn't want a puppy room? I wish my workplace had one of those. :)
Being able to maintain a discussion and arguing in favor of your own point of view is no longer a remotely important skill?
Is he implying students should not be excused on the basis of such an event, merely so they can complete their assignment?
It's worth noting that in BUD/S, if there's a death in a trainee's family, they're usually excused and rolled back to a new class upon return, giving them the opportunity to complete their current phase of training.
If universities think they should be harsher in this regard than some of the toughest military training on the planet, then that's simply deplorable.
Why is it that we're removing so much responsibility from kids these days? Or is this the end result of helicopter parents?
Get your shit together, adults.
I put "higher education " in quotes because it has less and less to do with education, sadly.
What I am much more worried about are two things:
1. More students are joining the constantly-offended-by-everything, humorless killjoy crowd.
2. They appear to be mostly uninterested in politics. But they should be interested in political change, given the bleak future that they face (with mountains of debt, etc). Quite a contrast to the politically-active 60s or 70s.
Where this went off the rails is well pretty much everything after that. The author admits to it but you really can't compare college today with college in the 80's and 90's. They are two completely different beasts. Students walk around in pajamas all day during finals week because they are fucking tired. Finals are hard, comprehensive, and exhausting. That's always been true, but the difference is now you have finals on top of the 8 million extracurriculars you have to be involved in to actually get a job after graduation. Oh and that job that you have to work in order to you know actually pay for that 40K/year piece of paper. No one is working at the bookstore anymore and paying tuition with that.
Are you really complaining about making religious exceptions? If college is supposed to prepare you for the real world, guess what there I'm probably not working on a day of religious observance if I can help it. How ironic is it that a teacher of psychology is complaining about welcome events, recommended by psychologist as helping students adjust to a new environment? School is not a warzone but it can be traumatic for the unprepared. The amount of pressure you have being placed on kids today is utterly incomparable to what you may have dealt with in the past. It's great that you have been teaching for 12 years. Personally I spent 4 of my 5 years in uni working in student life as an RA in the dorms watching group of freshman after group of freshman get absolutely clobbered by their first and often second (where you get the sleeping in the library group) set of finals. HS doesn't prepare kids for college anymore That's not their fault, that's the system. Yet college can be such a high pressure environment that one bad finals week can literally derail the rest of your college career. It is not unusual for a kid to be sat down and "asked" to change majors or leave altogether after bombing a final. Not even the class but just the final.
And as far as the counselors? Having ~75% more people in college than in the 80's tends to make the old system a bit unwieldy. Maybe you enjoyed going from department to department to get basic information but it was a stupid system then that unfortunately still exists now at most places. All counselors do is give you a single person to talk to when you're inevitable sent back to some place you've already been. Counselors suck but actually making sure you on track to get your degree on time is not the simple process it used to be. Is there really something wrong with someone 17-22 having a resource on hand to make sure they aren't making what could very well end up being a 40K mistake if they have to stay an extra year because they took Bio A instead of Bio I (yes that has happened). Most adults have accountants for that same reason.
There are so many things wrong with the system and the authors choice, because it's the in-vogue thing to do, is blame the spoiled kids. The Ivy Leagues are not representative of all college, or even most colleges. And if this is the authors attitude he's part of the reasons kids need the many services available to them. I wish more students would take advantage of the services he mentions so I could stop seeing news of kids killing themselves over college so often.
End Rant
Honestly though, it just touched a nerve with me. Millenials, as I'm sure every generation before us, has become the it thing to bash. And I feel as though most of the people doing the critiquing skim over the fact that the world we grew up in is fundamentally different than that of our parents, and their parents. The basic assumptions that older people make don't apply for us. We are the first generation pretty much since this country was founded who's job prospects are worst than our parents. Most of our parents will benefit at least something from Social Security. We will never see a dime. We are the largest, most educated generation ever but also the most in debt and most under-employed (people who want a job but can't get one).
Part of all this is just life. But what makes it worse is that people keep characterizing us as lazy, and entitled for wanting the things we've been told all our life we'll get, if we work hard. Due to no fault of our own, the American Dream or whatever that means if pretty much not an option for most of us, and yet people are surprised we started making a decisions without that goal in mind. If I have to work til the day I die, and most likely I will, shouldn't I try to work somewhere that is as fun as I can find. If that means swings, puppies, and playpits is that a bad thing?
No shit. It's the universities' responsibility to teach children and prepare them for the "real world." They're failing because they're afraid of liability when they're charging 40-60k a year per head? That's insane. How about they take responsibility for their actions and start teaching our children. How about the universities (the adults) stand up in this case and the the students (the children) to shut up and sit down and listen. Do these kids feel offended? Oh, boo hoo. They'll get over it.
Otherwise, to put it bluntly, we're going to end up with a whole lot of useless pussies ruining our economy and way of life because they're too scared of some words to do anything even remotely useful.
"professional comedians face increasing difficulty in playing colleges and universities because they cannot do offensive jokes"
The more I learned about sexism, racism etc. I the less I liked the currently famous comedians.
I'd need a puppy break too with what the kids have on the line today.