“College Students Think They’re So Special”
I’ve been saying all this for years. I could possibly agree with saying “everyone is unique,” because I don’t look like everyone else, and everyone doesn’t look like me, but special? I think you have to actually do something in order to be “special” besides just existing.
Attention, college students: You may as well skip all this banter and head straight for the bottom of the post, because although this is written about you, I doubt most of you will actually care about any of what it says, so that’s the most important part. I made it easy to find. It’s written in bold text.
This semester, I am taking a class in Java programming for beginners. I’ve always been interested in programming, but I’ve never really had a very good teacher or a very good opportunity to learn anything of the sort, so this has been a really good experience so far. In most ways, anyway.
In high school, I tried to take a class on C++, but the teacher seemed about as knowledgeable about how to write any programs in the language as I did, and I was coming from a background of writing tiny useless programs in QBASIC, which I had learned primarily through experimentation and a long process of trial and error and reading through help files. Needless to say, I didn’t last long in that class. Since then, I hadn’t really made any other attempts to learn to program. I continued dabbling in QBASIC for a while, but never really got much out of it and eventually gave up. I’ve played with HTML for a long time, and could basically understand it in and out, but HTML is nothing like C++ or Java or any other language. I tried working with PHP for a while, and can only do some very very basic things, but it was still a step forward, however small.
Last semester I took a class called “Great Ideas in Computer Science” – or rather, “Computer Science For Dummies Babies,” as it perhaps ought to have been called. It was another small step forward, but ultimately wasn’t very satisfying. I learned the parts and purposes of programming, which was all very interesting, but we never really did get into any real programming, save for some assignments done in a simulator called Karel the Robot. The course in itself was good and interesting, and I learned a few things, but what was by far most dissatisfying were my classmates. The majority of them clearly had no interest in the subject matter, no interest in being there, and no interest in paying attention. The handful of lab classes I attended (a whole 2) were nothing but a two-hour exercise in futility and frustration as the TA attempted to explain a concept in greater detail, while the bleach-blondes at the back of the room in pink glittering sweats with their oversized gaudy, golden lumps of Louis Vuitton and Prada purses tight against their shoulders, irritating New York accents in full drawl, couldn’t seem to stop talking about how drunk they were the night before, and repeatedly asking to see how to save a file again. And again. And again.
The urge to pound my face against the keyboard in front of me again and again until sweet unconsciousness blotted out my classmates’ ignorance was strong and tempting. Instead, I simply wrote down the lab assignment and retreated to the solitude of the office, or even the clamor of the student union, where I could work through the lab assignment without an indefinite number of interruptions coming from everyone else in the class, and later submit the project via e-mail. I stopped going to lab altogether, eventually. There was no point. I felt bad about not going, as though I was wasting the time of the well-intentioned TA in charge of the class, but in the end I couldn’t bring myself to watch while the wealthy, spoiled, and ignorant brats around me took advantage of the poor guy over and over while nothing else was ever accomplished in class.
That semester ended, as they so often tend to, and I got out with my passing grade, and my schedule, where I was registered to take another class in the CSE department – 113, two steps up from the horrors of 111. I assumed (perhaps too quickly) that because this class was somewhat up the ladder from the one I’d just gotten out of, that there was a chance that my classmates would possibly be slightly up the intelligence scale as well. I walked into class the first day, and noted that while the demographic of the class seemed to lean slightly toward a majority of males, the female element of the class appeared “geekier,” less obsessed with appearance. In short, there was far less pink in the room. Pleased with my observation, I sat down to what looked like it would become an enjoyable class, and thus far, it has been.
Except for the labs.
Once again, the lab section is taught by one of the course’s teaching assistants, which isn’t a problem in itself. The TA for this particular class is from Spain, and has an accent accordingly – but he isn’t difficult to understand. He speaks English clearly and smoothly, and better than I’ve heard some native speakers in the class speak it. This is also not a problem. The problem lies within the student population itself.
This past Tuesday morning, I showed up to lab at least (I thought) somewhat mentally prepared for what I thought would be a boring but tolerable, if not slightly slow, lab session. For the most part, these labs are more productive than those in the class I took previously, but there are still a handful of problems, the most readily noticeable of which is that no one bothers to read anything. Ever. This lab session was an example of these people in their prime form. Basically, the way lab works is as follows:
- Everyone shows up to lab.
- The assignment is explained. The assignment is also available online, on the course website, which can be accessed from the computers used during class. This would make it easily possible to have a window with the assignment written in it right next to the window with the code you’re working on in it. Wow!
- The assignment was not that hard, if you bothered to read it. The assignment essentially involved copying the pre-written code down, and changing a few very minor things that didn’t take much difficulty to determine once you had bothered to read the instructions.
- Submit the assignment. Easy.
What needed doing seemed apparent enough to me. But apparently not enough to everyone else. While I (and a few others) started in on the lab, everyone else started completely freaking out.
“I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE, HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO IT??”
Um, maybe by reading the assignment and doing like it says? A little?
Ugh. This went on for about twenty minutes. While I was almost finished, the rest of the class was still in panic mode, making the poor TA run around the room answering questions that were more than easily explained by reading the assignment. The last straw for me was when one particular student sitting in the row behind me took it upon himself to berate the TA in an extremely verbally abusive manner.
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS. WILL YOU JUST TELL ME HOW TO DO IT? DO YOU EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH?? WHAT IS THIS CRAP.”
I was completely shocked and appalled by this. This person was placing blame for his own misunderstanding on someone who had absolutely nothing to do with the problem. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was motivation enough to finish up what I was doing, submit it, and get the heck out.
The problem I see in all this is that none of these people belong in college at all, at least not this one. And why is that, exactly? My reasoning is simple.
All through high school, I made a few observations about the way grades were given and students were treated. Those who spoke up, and spoke up often, were given much higher grades. Yes, it is completely reasonable to say that they had a good understanding of the material in class and could express it as such, but more often than not a lot of the commentary expressed in class was completely off-topic or otherwise completely useless. It seemed to me that a system had developed which rewarded those with the biggest mouths with the highest grades, and the most respect. To me, logically, just because you have something to say does not necessarily make you smart or mean that you know what you’re talking about. This applies to everyone. This could apply to me and this blog right now. It’s not the quantity of words coming out of your mouth, it’s the quality of what they mean when combined. The two are not necessarily one in the same.
I believe that this sort of mentality has developed and proliferated throughout high schools, and while it’s not a bad thing to get students to interact, it is a bad thing when you make them begin to believe that just because they have something to say in class, they should say it, regardless of what it is.
I also believe that no one reads anymore – students, average people on the street, presidents of powerful nations – anybody. Which is half the problem with everything that’s wrong with the world these days. Someone doesn’t understand something? They complain to the first person they can find, regardless of whether they are capable of finding out about it themselves. I find this absolutely ludicrous in a world where we have such fine technological advances as, say, oh… the internet. Google. Wikipedia. Not to mention, you know, libraries and books, but those are antiquated, so who really cares anyway? But that requires reading. It’s not a quick enough information fix. But that’s a rant for another post.
I guess, to get down to the moral of the story(ies) here,
Read the manual instructions. It’s not that hard.
