I wrote the following essay in January and submitted it to a certain public radio news program that considers the sheer totality of Things. After editors therein declared it “hot” yet “way too in my face,” I went on to do other stuff with my life. I just found this and was like, “OK, I will post it after I edit it a bit.” Enjoy.
Sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa offer a dismal portrait of contemporary American colleges in their new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, who are sociologists. For two years they studied like 2,300 students. What they discovered made them absolutely lose their minds.
Sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa offer a dismal portrait of contemporary American colleges in their new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, who are sociologists. For two years they studied like 2,300 students. What they discovered made them absolutely lose their minds.
45% of college people showed no improvement in critical thinking after two years of being at one. Half the kids didn’t take a single course requiring 40 pages of reading. A third didn’t take a class that required 20 pages of writing, pretty much ever.
The article I am looking at doesn’t say if those from the half that can’t read overlapped with the dudes who don’t like writing and shit. The thing laid out visually would be a Vans diagram, named after the shoe company. You take two circles (hoops won’t work) and overlap them and then figure stuff out just by looking at it. Cool, huh? Well, since the article doesn’t say I gotta think maybe some kids had both circles and blew one off. Like, they had to write 20 pages and then just didn’t have time to read 40. That would be understandable since you’d have to be Eisenstein to do both in the same semester. Otherwise, there is simply no excuse why today’s students can’t handle one hard class at a time.
The article made me too mad to finish. And honestly? I didn’t read the book. Books aren’t my thing. If “Professors” Arum and whoever want my attention, they can tweet about it. Or better yet, they should make a Youtube with a bunch of B.A.S.E. jumping tricks to keep me into it. And maybe add some chicks. Yeah, tons of chicks.
Still, their point that kids are dumb as fuck is well taken. Kids got to realize that being lazy will cost America loads, at least in the long run.
When I was in college, I read books all the livelong day. Whole ones, too: shit about the past, shit about science, shit about volleyball. Whatever. I didn’t care—as long as I learned shit.
To this day I love learning shit. Even though I basically graduated from college back in the 90s and have the Offspring tattoo to prove it, I still get a Fact-of-the-Day email every day there is one. Here’s this morning’s: do you know what H2O is? Google it. It will fuck you up. (SPOILER ALERT. If you still want to guess, imagine the answer I’m about to type is upside down so you can’t see it. It’s water.)
So to any college kid listening right now, I have a message: pull your pants up. You look like a jag off. Also: stay in school, study hard, try not to sleep in class, do actual homework now and then, study hard, and don’t drink any more than is reasonable. Unless you're on a really cool campus. Hey, ride the snake if you gotta, but don’t get too crazy. Right now they got something like 1.2 billion assloads of Chinese people over in China who'd be more than happy to knock Uncle Sam out of the pole position and make us the new number…
Wait. I know this.
Two. Yeah, number two.
The article I am looking at doesn’t say if those from the half that can’t read overlapped with the dudes who don’t like writing and shit. The thing laid out visually would be a Vans diagram, named after the shoe company. You take two circles (hoops won’t work) and overlap them and then figure stuff out just by looking at it. Cool, huh? Well, since the article doesn’t say I gotta think maybe some kids had both circles and blew one off. Like, they had to write 20 pages and then just didn’t have time to read 40. That would be understandable since you’d have to be Eisenstein to do both in the same semester. Otherwise, there is simply no excuse why today’s students can’t handle one hard class at a time.
The article made me too mad to finish. And honestly? I didn’t read the book. Books aren’t my thing. If “Professors” Arum and whoever want my attention, they can tweet about it. Or better yet, they should make a Youtube with a bunch of B.A.S.E. jumping tricks to keep me into it. And maybe add some chicks. Yeah, tons of chicks.
Still, their point that kids are dumb as fuck is well taken. Kids got to realize that being lazy will cost America loads, at least in the long run.
When I was in college, I read books all the livelong day. Whole ones, too: shit about the past, shit about science, shit about volleyball. Whatever. I didn’t care—as long as I learned shit.
To this day I love learning shit. Even though I basically graduated from college back in the 90s and have the Offspring tattoo to prove it, I still get a Fact-of-the-Day email every day there is one. Here’s this morning’s: do you know what H2O is? Google it. It will fuck you up. (SPOILER ALERT. If you still want to guess, imagine the answer I’m about to type is upside down so you can’t see it. It’s water.)
So to any college kid listening right now, I have a message: pull your pants up. You look like a jag off. Also: stay in school, study hard, try not to sleep in class, do actual homework now and then, study hard, and don’t drink any more than is reasonable. Unless you're on a really cool campus. Hey, ride the snake if you gotta, but don’t get too crazy. Right now they got something like 1.2 billion assloads of Chinese people over in China who'd be more than happy to knock Uncle Sam out of the pole position and make us the new number…
Wait. I know this.
Two. Yeah, number two.
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