General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOberlin students want to abolish midterms and any grades below C
Students at Oberlin College are asking the school to put academics on the back burner so they can better turn their attention to activism. More than 1,300 students at the Midwestern liberal arts college have now signed a petition asking that the college get rid of any grade below a C for the semester, and some students are requesting alternatives to the standard written midterm examination, such as a conversation with a professor in lieu of an essay.
The students say that between their activism work and their heavy course load, finding success within the usual grading parameters is increasingly difficult. "A lot of us worked alongside community members in Cleveland who were protesting," Megan Bautista, a co-liaison in Oberlin's student government, said, referring to the protests surrounding the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a police officer in 2014. "But we needed to organize on campus as well — it wasn't sustainable to keep driving 40 minutes away. A lot of us started suffering academically."
The student activists' request doesn't come without precedence: In the 1970s, Oberlin adjusted its grading to accommodate student activists protesting the Vietnam War and the Kent State shootings, The New Yorker reports. But current students contend that same luxury was not granted to them even though the recent Rice protests were over a police shooting that took place just 30 miles east of campus.
"You know, we're paying for a service. We're paying for our attendance here. We need to be able to get what we need in a way that we can actually consume it," student Zakiya Acey told The New Yorker. "Because I'm dealing with having been arrested on campus, or having to deal with the things that my family are going through because of larger systems — having to deal with all of that, I can't produce the work that they want me to do. But I understand the material, and I can give it to you in different ways."
http://theweek.com/speedreads/626361/oberlin-students-want-abolish-midterms-grades-below-c
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Press Virginia
(2,329 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)I guess there is plus side-
For their peers in the same age group and major who aren't playing baby, it will be easier pickings for the best jobs LOL-
Press Virginia
(2,329 posts)No boss is going to "oh you were at the big rally for awareness last Saturday ? Well don't worry about that project we needed today."
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)When you're in school, your job is to go to school and do what the prof tells you to do.
If you "need" to go protest on the day of the final and the final is worth 40% of your grade, then the prof "needs" to flunk your entitled ass.
(And I say this as the daughter of someone who was at Berkeley back in the day. If the National Guard is flying over campus spraying teargas everywhere, that's a valid reason to miss class. A protest 30 miles away is something you can choose to avoid.)
hunter
(38,353 posts)Probably part of the reason I was "asked" to take time off from school twice.
I burned through several senior thesis advisers. The last one let me pass on account he didn't want to see me again and had a headache.
It took me nine years to graduate.
One of my nieces flew through Berkeley in four years earning a very solid science degree.
She clearly understands the system better than I did.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)that is the problem with this generation. They have too much without any sacrifice. This is a good lesson for them. You can always re-take a course if you feel your time is better served elsewhere.
rug
(82,333 posts)
yellowcanine
(35,704 posts)I remember. It was the end of my first year of college.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)If they really believe this, they're in trouble. Because what the school is selling.......or we can at least hope what they're selling.......is an education. If the little darlings want to spend that much time on their activist activities and getting arrested and all, they should save their tuition money.
I'm getting the impression that college age kids in general these days are under the delusion that the universe revolves around them. They've got a big surprise coming if and when they get jobs and find out otherwise.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)I called the millenials a very entitled generation which has been catered to their entire lives recently and you would have thought I killed their dog or something.
Dorian Gray
(13,535 posts)You are right. There are a lot of kids NOT like this, though. Even at that particular college.
This is really stupid. These kids need a dose of reality to smack them in their faces.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)and even took the pains to point out I was most familiar with those from a very wealthy suburb of NY. If the cause is important enough to them, they'll find the time but the university is under no obligation to cater to their activism.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)The younger generation is always criticized and called lazy, entitled, dumb, and so on.
“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”
Want to guess when that was said, or who said it?
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Lol.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)And I'm sure Neanderthals were making the same complaints.
My point is that elders always criticize youth, and it makes me crazy. Not only do I recall all too well when we Boomers first started getting jobs, and how the adults around us made it clear we weren't welcome and as far as they were concerned we were lazy and worthless and would never amount to much of anything, but I also spent about ten years straight taking classes at my local junior college from about 1994-2004. I went in the daytime, so I was generally the only older student in a class full of 19 year olds, and in that time frame they were GenXers. The most maligned generation in recent history, and oddly enough knowledge of them as a separate, distinct cohort has almost entirely disappeared. Anyway, sitting beside those kids for ten years straight gave me enormous respect for them. They really were working very hard, often at crappy jobs, and were in school to wind up with something better.
Almost all of them had divorced parents, and most were determined not to let that happen to them. I don't know if their divorce rates are any less than their parents', but they cared a lot.
So I will often defend the youth of today. And yeah, those kids can take a lighter course load or maybe even a semester off. When they get out into what we call the real world they will learn to function in it.
And if they are lazy and think they deserve everything, it is probably the parents' fault.
When my kids graduated from college they knew they needed to support themselves, and they do.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)But no idea who said it and don't want to cheat by googling.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Socrates. It's okay to google. I do it all the time when posting here and I want to get something correct. Doesn't solve the problem with my typos, though. 
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Most of these stupid stories about "whiny entitled Millennials" seem to completely forget that we working class Millennials exist.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)class families in Westchester. So what do you think about this story? No grades under C? Time off for activism?
fullautohotdog
(90 posts)You can get educated at 50 million websites. What you're paying for is the piece of paper at the end and the line on the resume, as well as networking to have somewhere to send that resume.
And, btw, for $200,000 for four years of tuition, it better fucking revolve around the students...
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)The school apparently thinks otherwise. That's kind of something an intelligent person would make sure about before they lay down $50,000/year in tuition. Breaks my heart not one bit that they're expected to go to class and take and pass their test to get that piece of paper.
Bonx
(2,080 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)It is posts like this that make me wonder why I even bother getting out of bed.
fullautohotdog
(90 posts)than I did in all of college. I'm willing to bet it similar for most other lines of work short of being a doctor or the like.
And you write your post like I'm discrediting networking, internship and personal grown experiences. In fact, I'm doing the opposite. Without those experiences -- of new people, new cultures, new ideas -- I personally would have been far worse off as a person -- hell, I was well on my way to voting Republican for life like most of the arseholes in my area who never bothered to see what was beyond the little town's line (My graduating class of 100 in my podunk little town had 100 white/non-Hispanic students. I don't think I ever met a gay person who wasn't hiding who they were before I went to college, or ever spent any quality time with anyone who wasn't a WASP or, at most, an Irish/Polish Catholic. Jews? Muslims? Buddhists? Other atheists/agnostics like myself? No way...). It was huge for my personal growth as a person, and it made me a better employee, too. I'm not saying your experiences are shit or "minimizing" them -- or minimizing my own. I'm not saying people should stop going to college, or we should stop grading people -- had you actually read my post, you would have noticed that.
I'm saying that with our world-renowned shitty-ass education system, the increase in the disaffected who would rather help others than make loads of cash and the dawn of another industrial revolution where we don't need people to flip burgers thanks to machines or solder computer boards maybe we should, you know, look at it from the outside and see what could be changed.
If that means administrators and students in one college in the Midwest work on new standards to involve activism and community outreach into their programs for the betterment of the school, the students and the community at large, there could be room for growth in producing capable, caring, compassionate and conscious adults. How can you say no to that? Because it's not what you went through?
BTW, I mostly threw up my first post as a speed bump -- knowing how well most viral news stories are like a game of Telephone in regards to their accuracy these days, I'm willing to bet that if we were to actually look at what the students said, it would be more along the lines of what I proposed above, as opposed to everyone's automatic assumption of "We're too lazy to go to class, so GIMME GIMME GIMME I'm a MILLENNIAL CRYBABY!!!!" That's why, for example, I tune out when some jackass DJ says "According to the latest medical study..." on the morning drive-time broadcast, and I never repost moral outrage stories to Facebook.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Then you picked the wrong major. Or the wrong school. Or you spent four years dicking around. I can't even begin to guess, the options are myriad.
It's worth noting, however, that one thing "working in the real world" seems not to have taught you is the relative worthlessness of anecdotes. Guess it wasn't on one of the midterms.
And you write your post like I'm discrediting networking, internship and personal grown experiences. In fact, I'm doing the opposite. Without those experiences -- of new people, new cultures, new ideas -- I personally would have been far worse off as a person -- hell, I was well on my way to voting Republican for life like most of the arseholes in my area who never bothered to see what was beyond the little town's line (My graduating class of 100 in my podunk little town had 100 white/non-Hispanic students. I don't think I ever met a gay person who wasn't hiding who they were before I went to college, or ever spent any quality time with anyone who wasn't a WASP or, at most, an Irish/Polish Catholic. Jews? Muslims? Buddhists? Other atheists/agnostics like myself? No way...). It was huge for my personal growth as a person, and it made me a better employee, too. I'm not saying your experiences are shit or "minimizing" them -- or minimizing my own. I'm not saying people should stop going to college, or we should stop grading people -- had you actually read my post, you would have noticed that.
No, I write my post like you don't know what the hell you're talking about... a fact that, at this point, is self-evident.
You think people can educate themselves at the University of Google? Then put your money where your mouth is. The next time you're sick, don't go to a doctor. Talk to some guy who just read an article on Web MD.
I don't take issue with evaluating our education system. I take issue with your asinine assertion that there's nothing the university system does that a few hours and Google cannot.
I could say "no" to that because it's fucking nuts.
No way in hell should an educator eliminate grades below a "C" because of students' extra-curricular activities or interests, no matter how responsible they are. There's nothing wrong with activism, and there's nothing wrong with learning how to manage your fucking time, your responsibilities, and your priorities. It's a pretty useful skill, actually. One that comes in very handy in the "real world", as you are no doubt aware.
It's worth pointing out students can get credit for activism. Take an internship at a fucking non-profit. Do the work you want to do, and get college credit for it.
I will grant you that. This story reeks of the usual millennial hate boomers like to consume so they don't feel quite as bad about leaving this country in a worse state than it was when they found it. My spidey senses tell me these students are an extreme minority, and for the sake of generating click-bait have been given media attention disproportionate to their actual presence.
It worked, of course. Note the boomers here eating this shit up like it's going out of style.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)who struggled to pay for tuition and books even with pell grants, went to state colleges, took student loans, and spent most of my time studying, didn't drink a single drop while in grad school because there was too much studying to be done... I can confidently say that I am far more educated than you.
fullautohotdog
(90 posts)Quantess
(27,630 posts)Go ahead and give it your best shot with a genuine, meaningful reply.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)I had a student tell me flat out once, "I paid for this course to learn something. If I don't learn it, you haven't given me what I'm paid for and should be fired."
Most major colleges will allow you to audit courses for free, so you're not paying for attendance. You are PAYING for the right to take a test that certifies your mastery of the topic, nothing more. Grades are simply a measure of your understanding of the course topic. If you pay for the class, and I give you a test, you have received the "product" you paid for. Everything beyond that is up to you, as a student.
I was an activist in college, going to far as to chain myself to fucking trees to save some of the last unprotected old growth redwood groves in California. For nearly three years, my protest site was over 250 miles from my college. And yet, I still maintained a B average while doing it, and made all my midterms.
Oneironaut
(5,544 posts)We respect credentials, even if they're meaningless or unearned. These kids seem to have absolutely no respect for the process of learning, and have a "I paid for a degree, so give me one with no effort on my part" mentality.
These kids need to learn that colleges aren't selling degrees - they're selling you the chance to earn a degree. The key word here is earn.
When I went to school, my school was filled with entitled little shits. They'd wreck everything, screw around on exam week, and spend mommy / daddy's money on booze and repeat courses.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)If you look how colleges advertise themselves nowadays they are basically pandering to kids who want a 4-year long party and don't give even half a shit about learning.
LisaM
(27,860 posts)Colleges are being forced to treat students as customers rather than, well, students.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)I just want to say, though, this does not apply to all college kids, most of these people are privileged middle class brats, many of them likely the offspring of alumni. I was the first person in my family to go to college and I worked my ass off.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)Pretty funny, though. Thanks for posting.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)granting mostly As and Bs, especially to upperclassman.
In one of my junior-level business classes back in about 1980 the professor told us exactly that. He said that administration had made it clear what the overall grades should be in that class, and that most of us would get As and Bs.
Grade inflation at most schools is a very real thing. Back in 2001 it was revealed that 91% of Harvard's graduating class graduated with honors. It's dropped since then to only about 60%, but that's still ludicrous. Reed College in Portland, OR, is one of the few that has experienced very little grade inflation over the years.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)so that they can ignore or discount degrees from these institutions that applicants present as qualifications.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)I first heard of it in 1980, and it wasn't anything new at the time. And grade inflation has absolutely been around for at least as long, which is another word for the same thing. Extremely few colleges have not had serious grade inflation over the years. And the more prestigious the college, the more likely the grade inflation, from what I can tell. Again, note that Harvard has granted graduation honors to as many as 91% of a given class. If that's not grade inflation, nothing is. But everyone thinks Harvard is the best, most rigorous of schools. I wonder.
And speaking of Harvard, Thomas Frank's most recent book, Listen Liberal, discusses the problem with the fact that almost everyone in Obama's inner circle is a Harvard graduate. A very narrow gene pool, to say the least.
HR departments ought to be fully aware of this, because most of those people have themselves gone to college, and if they've taken the sorts of business classes I was taking back then, they ought to have either been directly told, or have been able to figure it out themselves. Especially after looking at a few hundred college transcripts.
Engineering degree
156 semester hours in four years/eight semesters
3.1 weighted GPA
Graduated in the top 20% of the class.
Very few A's those four years (and three D's)
Special snowflakes want it handed to them on a silver platter.
Edit to add: One elective the whole four years.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)grades that would all but keep you from graduating in other fields, are totally acceptable.
My older son was in engineering for a while, and he never quite understood that. He wound up flunking out because he was doing poorly, getting a D in one class, and didn't go to the final exam. When my husband was helping him pack up to leave, the professor of the class in question said that all my son had to do was go to the final and sign his name to the exam, even if he didn't do any of the problems, because they would have passed him because he was good enough. While this kid didn't expect easy As, he didn't fully grasp how different engineering was.
The liberal arts are a different reality than engineering.
1939
(1,683 posts)and a lot of those 71 attended summer school sessions. I think I was one of the 25% or so that didn't flunk a single class (came close the first year).
Some guys dropped out of school and we had a bit of "leakage" over to the liberal arts curricula.
I had an 8:00 AM class six days a week all four years.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)But an 8:00 AM class six days a week all four years sounds brutal.
I'm not sure whether that helps account for engineer jokes or not. I happen to like most of those jokes, in no small part because most of them tend to describe the son I was mentioning. And I mean that very fondly, not meanly. I like engineers and that engineer personality.
1939
(1,683 posts)About half of your day classes were MWF and the other half TTS. Engineering and science classes also came with a two hour lab in the afternoon. Labs were scheduled five days a week and engineers usually had three or four (one semester, I had five labs with weekly lab report of course).In the liberal arts, they had no afternoon classes after the first two years. We called an afternoon nap "LA lab".
I actually liked the 8AM classes because I usually had classes at 8 and 9, a free period at 10, and then classes at 11 and 12 (plus a lab from 2 to 4). Breakfast at 7:00, dinner at 1:00, and supper at 6:30.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)in 1965 there were also Saturday classes on that same TTS schedule, although not very many by then. They went to classes being either MWF or TT, with the latter schedule having longer class times.
And your schedule does sound like a pretty good one.
1939
(1,683 posts)Hello 1939, welcome back.
Are you still a CE?
Did you pass all your courses last semester?
Here is your schedule, go sign up for a room.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)in Mechanical Engineering. In her major 6% were summa and 10% were magna.
I am not sure what the bottom end of the grades were, but my daughter had to work hard for her grades. So much so that it was a relief to begin working full time as an engineer.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)have much if any grade inflation. Those are hard classes. My son did engineering for a while, and has gone back to physics, his first love. Although physics isn't considered an easy field either.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)They are smart and hard working. My degree is plant science, basically a biology degree with agriculture specialization. Math and chemistry were not that bad and genetics was fun. I had friends in engineering and I would read their text books and be lost.
One of the dangers of telling all the kids that STEM is the key to the future is that many of the fields require higher than average intellects or a different kind of smart. I wanted to do Genetic research but no matter how hard I worked and studied I was never more than a middling student in that field even while working the plant genetics lab. The ones who were good at it were just flat out smarter than me.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)not everyone is good in those things. We also need musicians, artists, translators, and lots and lots of things that don't require much in the way of STEM.
I sympathize about your wanting to do something you weren't quite able to do. I've had that experience, and it can be very easy to let that make you think you're dumb or unworthy, when (in your case) you just didn't have the amount and kind of smarts needed for the genetic research. I sincerely hope you are happy with what you actually do do.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)And thanks for your concern. The experience at the time taught me humility and I have become much more successful, and more importantly satisfied, than had I done genetic research.
My degree was in a STEM field but my current profession is not. However, I would not trade the critical thinking skills I received at University for anything.
I am just concerned that we are focusing too much on STEM. That is as dangerous as telling kids they must go to college to be successful which we have been doing for 50 years.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)a four year degree is absolutely not for everyone, and the junior colleges often offer excellent certificate programs, some of which take as little as six weeks to complete, which lead to real jobs.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)I occasionally hire Union welders and they earn a very decent income and many are amazing artists(would not necessarily tell them that!)
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)Why bother with all that going to classes and grades and tests and hassles?
malaise
(269,305 posts)who are clueless about the notion of an education.
i know youngsters who would buy the degree at the gate (as if it were pick up Chinese food) and never enter campus. More than a few want the benefits of certification without the hassles of an education.
They will learn the hard way.
Oneironaut
(5,544 posts)The point of a college isn't to be an activist. That's dumb. You can be one in your spare time, but the point of college is to learn.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Faculty like "communications" professor mellisa click who called for "muscle" to threaten a student reporter.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)
csziggy
(34,140 posts)It was about the same size as Oberlin College, though not as old, and had a very innovative curriculum. One of the requirements was to put in so many hours of "community involvement" as possible - working on a political campaign, volunteering with local organizations, and other efforts counted. The requirements were pretty vague and what they accepted fit a wide range of definitions.
One of the things I did to fulfill my requirement was to participate in a protest against Pat Nixon. The city had just passed a law that anyone on the streets could be stopped and had to have at least $20 in cash on them. In a city with a huge senior population many of the people didn't have the means to keep $20 in cash on hand at all times. It was reputed that Pat Nixon never carried any cash - the Secret Service and the White House aides took care of her expenses. So we protested that the law was not being equally enforced.
That protest filled 3 of the 20 hours of community involvement I had to put in that semester. I also tutored kids and made calls for the Reubin Askew campaign against Claude Kirk for governor.
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)But out of extreme curiosity, what was the city's rationale behind requiring anyone on the street to have cash on their person? That one's pretty bizarre!
csziggy
(34,140 posts)I never got a chance to discuss college or activism with my great aunt who was an associate professor at Oberlin College for many, many years. She died just a couple of years later. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that she might have been in favor of being politically active. She got her college degree when it was unusual for a woman to get one and her special friend had a medical degree when women doctors was exceedingly rare. Both had professional jobs, never married, and led very active lives in the community.
The idea of requiring people to have cash on hand was to limit the number of homeless and the panhandlers. It did more to harass the elderly than to cut down on their target groups. This was long before most people had credit cards and checking accounts were pretty expensive back then. Many of the elderly in the community cashed their Social Security or pension checks and lived only on the cash they had on hand. A lot would hang out in the parks and at that point the city didn't want the "unsightly" old people littering up the public areas.
LisaM
(27,860 posts)They should. BUT....if you've mastered the material well enough to have a conversation with the professor about it, then you should have mastered it well enough to write an essay about it. How are professors supposed to be effective if every student gets to prove mastery of a subject using a different method? Where is she or he going to find time to set up 20 conversations with students who feel that their place is not even on campus, but 30 miles away?
Just SMH.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)"I can't come to work today because I have to attend a protest" isn't going to make too many employers happy.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)The university is there to EDUCATE you, not cater to your activism.
Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)Quantess
(27,630 posts)Last edited Thu May 26, 2016, 09:31 AM - Edit history (1)
Reducing academic standards further is not acceptable. Protesting is an extra curricular activity.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)God forbid someone's self-esteem take a blow.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Last edited Thu May 26, 2016, 04:07 PM - Edit history (1)
This would be funny if it weren't so sad.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)My daughter is in University now and the vast majority of students are hard working, not entitled, laugh at the concept of "safe spaces", and would reject the above petition.
Like any group, the noisy and outrageous ones get all the publicity, but most Millennials are no different than students in the past generations. Hard working and want to succeed.
Don't let fools like the ones in the article taint opinions of an entire generation.
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)1300 signed the petition. That's 43%. Your definition of "a small subset" differs from mine.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)Marengo
(3,477 posts)philosslayer
(3,076 posts)After all, activism is part of their education.
Throd
(7,208 posts)philosslayer
(3,076 posts)n/t
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)the point succinctly and clearly, it looks they've MASTERED rhetoric and debate. It's an idiotic petition.
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)indicates a MASTERY of rhetoric and debate. Thanks for educating me.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)Why listen/read a 10 paragraph screed that says the exact same thing. Time the poster obviously was in no mood to waste.
forthemiddle
(1,383 posts)If the student was protesting in front of Planned Parenthood 20 hours a week?
Be honest.
Dorian Gray
(13,535 posts)This is whiny whiny BS.
Take a leave of absence if it's too much for you. Study or don't study. Get a D in a class if there is something you believe is more important than studying for that class.
This is why people think kids today are a generation of entitlement. Stories like this.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)They need to decide what their priority is, not have the school cater to their special little snowflake needs. That's not how the real world works.
fullautohotdog
(90 posts)crapping on one of the most left-leaning institutes in the nation...
Tuition is $50,000 a year. I think if you're paying for something to that degree, you should have a say in how you get it. If the students and the administration want to make an Oberlin line on a resume -- what you're really paying for when you go to college -- mean socially conscious, politically and charitably active person who gives a shit about their community, then the college should look into whatever they need to give their students who are paying an obscene amount of money what they want.
Does that mean automatically passing every class? I doubt it (but I'm not in academia, so I'll leave that for the academics), but through personal experience, I've seen that there's more than one way to skin a cat as far as written essays to determine how a person understands the material.
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)I was quite surprised to see the vitriolic responses on the thread. I thought I was on another website a few times.
Throd
(7,208 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)WHAT THE FUCK are you supposed to do with a degree from this university?
I found the "career center" which basically grooms these now 22-23 year old adults on the right "path" and "enhance" their personal objectives LOL-
Oberlin’s Career Center (http://www.oberlin.edu/career/) helps students and recent alumni in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Conservatory of Music identify and achieve meaningful life and professional objectives that build upon their Oberlin education and experiences. The career development process is supported through services that:
Enhance self-awareness of interests, values, and talents
Encourage exploration of future paths
Provide opportunities to acquire knowledge and experience
Develop skills for effective self-presentation, along with a thorough understanding of the selection processes for internships, advanced degree program admission, fellowship competitions, full-time employment, and professional networking.
Bonx
(2,080 posts)I don't know, just axing.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Found this, but just the "introduction"
ANTH 203 - Introduction to Archaeology
And this,
ASTR 302 - Astrophysics II: Galaxies and Cosmology
but mostly just looks like a shitload of electives
kwassa
(23,340 posts)The first college in the country to admit women and blacks and founded as such in the 1830s.
It also has one of the top music conservatories in the country. Very highly ranked.
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)A large number of graduates also go into Government Service also.
Rex
(65,616 posts)And YES there are such things as oral examinations, but that is usually used to clep a student. These students seem to think that money equals knowledge and that is false.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)This is about economically privileged brats with Affluenza used to getting what they want without having to put any effort in.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)It's good to know that there are some people whose judgement extends beyond "Left good, right bad".
AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)He based his grades largely on personal assessment of class discussions and short essays.
When I asked him how I could have surpassed so many students who wrote "brilliant" essays, he responded to the effect that while most of his students displayed the "correct" answers, I was the only student who asked the right questions.
Most of the people who responded with criticism toward the students (who were essentially asking to get some credit for their community activism) look on education as pouring knowledge into the student vessels and grading them on how well they regurgitate the content when taking the test.
That commentary displays an authoritarian attitude towards education, and is comparable to the mentality of "teaching to the test".
tularetom
(23,664 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)I was there for the antiwar protests and the school shutdown when Kent State happened on May 4, 1970. Kent is local, only about 60 miles away. Colleges shut down all over the country.
Oberlin is a liberal activist place with a long tradition, and a very good school.
By the way, the original article on this is in the New Yorker, and much more broadly addresses student activism today, not just in Oberlin. A better piece, much more in depth.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/the-new-activism-of-liberal-arts-colleges
TacoD
(581 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)112nd
a la izquierda
(11,803 posts)about students and the whole BS idea that they're consumers...rather apropos to this discussion.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/05/college_students_are_not_customers_a_political_shorthand_that_needs_to_die.html
Heeeeers Johnny
(423 posts)I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of those signing the petition have zero interest or
participation in "activism", and are only on board with the idea as a way to skirt on their
studies and excuse away their mediocre grades.
QC
(26,371 posts)trustees, and legislators have been pushing for years.
I'm not going to wag my finger at the spoiled, entitled kiddies here. They have simply learned the lesson that supposedly older, more responsible people have taught them.
hunter
(38,353 posts)
Rex
(65,616 posts)You are paying for a degree in advanced education. Well at least that was the goal at one time.
rocktivity
(44,588 posts)Oberlin was America's first integrated college from its conception, so this story is particularly disheartening.
rocktivity
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)and essays, testing centers could be implemented, but they would cost money.
clarice
(5,504 posts)Matrosov
(1,098 posts)Not for the guarantee to receive a degree
If their studies and their activism are clashing, they have decide which is more important to them. Setting priorities and making compromises is part of adult life.
