Uni students lazier and dumber than ever?

[endless]

http://www.thestar.com/article/614219

what does everyone think?
personally, i think it's too much of a generalization, but i'm not seeing it first hand yet.

[matt271]

im pretty lazy :]

[jernst]

I think its a very one sided argument. Just because university students use wikipedia frequently does not make them lazy. It can be smart in some cases. For example checking wikipedia during a lecture to look up a concept you don't understand can save you time and help you better understand the greater idea the speaker is trying to get across. The time saved allows the student to focus on more important details rather than getting bogged down in areas where they may have just needed a quick refresher. (this may be especially helpful for students who are too shy to just ask for greater clarification for example)

I agree thats its a problem if students rely only on wikipedia since you gain more thorough knowledge from a variety of sources, but in some cases it is valuable.

In terms of expecting success, in my personal experience I expected success in Calculus when I got to my first year university courses at WLU. After all I did have around a 90 at the end of high school. When I got there however, I got a rude awakening. I failed a diagnostic test with a 2 out of 20 and enrolled in the two semester calculus class rather than the one semester class to take it slower because of this. At this class which was designed for students who might have trouble by midterm I was almost failing. The class which started with probably 75-100 students was down to 20 students by the last few weeks, with most of the dropping it worried they would fail.

So where is the problem? Is it the students who are expecting to succeed? Or the high school teachers who are not covering the proper content, and maybe giving higher marks then the students they deserve. I for one would have been happier with a lower mark, expecting to have a hard time in university calculus rather than getting the shock I received. (by the way, I was in the first class of students to not do OAC)

[ali_dada]

I feel in Computer Science, the problem is not about being lazy but rather about being un-motivated and not being interested in the subject.

I have seen many people just doing Computer Science to get a degree and I tell them, why didn't you pick something easier where you could work even less and get a degree?

Seriously, if you are in 4th year and have problems in all of your assignments, quizes, etc and depend on others to do your work - you don't deserve to be at University.

This semester, I am working on 2 semester long projects and both were equally hard and involving and extremely long - well guess what, all my group members didn't show initiative so I ended up doing the entire work by myself while they get to do stupid tasks assigned to them and get free marks!

How do you expect these people to deliver at workplace?

Any other bad thing I found was overall wrong attitude of HR people and those recruiting. Most of the hiring staff are easily impressed by smooth talkers, and take looks into consideration. I am not advocating that a brilliant student dressed like 1950s who has no social skills is the best employee but at workplace, brains matter the most.

[[Gandalf]]

I read the article that day... As I recall, it talked mostly about math deficiencies. Well, perhaps that is the case in arts courses and the like, but I doubt there's a strong trend in CS or math programs.

High school classes are very much all over the place when it comes to comparing different schools, so I think it's fair to give everyone a chance from the start.

[Dark]

ali_dada @ Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:56 pm wrote:

I feel in Computer Science, the problem is not about being lazy but rather about being un-motivated and not being interested in the subject.

I have seen many people just doing Computer Science to get a degree and I tell them, why didn't you pick something easier where you could work even less and get a degree?

Yeah my friend is amazing at computer science, he loves it. He wrote a C++ compiler when he was 11 because he was "bored". I really thought he would go into computer science, but he's going into biology because he says it's "easy". He hates bio, he's getting a 54%, yet he's going into it because it's "easy". He is a computer science god, computer science is "easy" and interesting for him, yet he's going into bio....I pray for him next year, he will get merked.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Gandalf @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:53 am wrote:

I read the article that day... As I recall, it talked mostly about math deficiencies. Well, perhaps that is the case in arts courses and the like, but I doubt there's a strong trend in CS or math programs.

There certainly is.

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/navigation/Current/AP_changes.shtml

Quote:

High school classes are very much all over the place when it comes to comparing different schools, so I think it's fair to give everyone a chance from the start.

The problem is that those who blow their chance tend to require vast amounts of resources (before they are kicked out or go away) that might be better spent on those who have a better chance to begin with.

(PS Gandalf, the damn square brackets in your name make it a pain to quote you!)

[saltpro15]

hey Prabhakar, universities take into account what high school you attended when looking at your high school marks right? I come from a school with a brutal english teacher, by that I mean he's an excellent teacher, but he's never given anyone a final mark >89, and that hurts one's average.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

It's quite difficult to do that. The admissions people have some sense of what are good schools and what are not, but at a school with more than one Grade 12 English teacher, how are they going to know which one you had? Not to mention that, even in the technical subjects, they do not take the records of, say, Bachelor's graduates and correlate them with their incoming high school marks from four or five years previous. I'm not sure they'd get any useful information that way. I once graphed ICS3M marks against CS 135 marks. There was no correlation (looked like random data, the coefficient Excel reported was something like 0.07).

[Analysis Mode]

The education system in Canada fosters these kinds of work habits. Students nowadays feel that they are entitled to everything in the world and that they should just be handed to them on a silver plate. They fail to hand in assignments on time, skip tests and think they can just make up for them anytime, etc. And some teachers don't hand out late penalties.

Compare this to the system in China, where only the very best are allowed to go to university. Students who get into, let's say, Tsinghua University (called the MIT? or Harvard? of China) worked much harder to get to where they are now. However, one could also argue that Chinese universities turn out automatons instead of normal human beings. A balance must be struck, and I don't see that happening in Canada or China anytime soon.

There's also the matter of some Ontario universities not being very selective, so naturally, they will complain.

[Analysis Mode]

saltpro15 @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:09 pm wrote:

hey Prabhakar, universities take into account what high school you attended when looking at your high school marks right? I come from a school with a brutal english teacher, by that I mean he's an excellent teacher, but he's never given anyone a final mark >89, and that hurts one's average.

In Canada, if you have a high 80 average (or even 85) and a decent amount of volunteer hours (more than the bare minimum), you're guaranteed to get into 99% of Canadian programs you want to go into (there are some programs which require 90+). I mean, McGill University (one of the most selective in Canada) accepted nearly 50% of all applicants (a friend tells me they require a high 80 average). I don't think Canadian (or American) universities take into account which school you go to, only the rigor of the high school program that you took. However, universities might favour an exception for schools associated with universities (like UTS and U of T), but I don't know. It would be unfair to penalize students who go to high schools in slums, but achieve high results.

And even if you have an sub-80 average, don't worry, you still get to go to university.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Analysis Mode @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:04 pm wrote:

And some teachers don't hand out late penalties.

Some teachers are not permitted to hand out late penalties.

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/223488

I had a lengthy e-mail discussion with a very bitter teacher from Peel Region over these sorts of policies.

[Analysis Mode]

Oh, i'm assuming you're a teacher yourself?

[Analysis Mode]

To add something, my math teacher says that the Canadian mentality is to graduate everyboy from high school, instead of only the best. As a result of this, money is spent on people who don't care about school and will continue to fail, while studious students are being starved of enrichment opportunities. More money doesn't make a student change their philosophies about school and turn their education around, a personality/neighbourhood change or professional help does. I really hope I didn't step on too many toes by saying this.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Analysis Mode @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:17 pm wrote:

Oh, i'm assuming you're a teacher yourself?

Not high school.