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fakepalindrome · 4386 days ago · link ·
"Combining the hours spent studying and in class, students devoted less than a fifth of their time each week to academic pursuits." This doesn't surprise me. I think we need to accept the fact that college is about more than just academics. Still the "academics" portion should be greater than 1/5th!
I think this is an important and insightful study, but I also think that the commentators and authors are missing a lot of the point in their own data. The teaching methods in college are fine. What isn't fine is the business-like manner in which the schools are run these days. If it were up to the profs, there would probably be twice the work in most courses, and they would simply fail those who couldn't keep up. Unfortunately we have this situation where 1) colleges have had their funding slashed so they have no choice but to recruit and maintain as many students as possible, and 2) politicians encourage everyone to go to college, no matter what their background or academic interests may be. The result is that universities aren't special anymore.
I'm not surprised in the difference between liberal arts and business/communications/education students. If you choose to study liberal arts, its probably because you enjoy the subject matter, and thus have a personal incentive to succeed. The others are more vocational, and are more likely to be taken up by those who just want to get a particular job.
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fakepalindrome · 4386 days ago · link ·
I don't know, I feel like a lot of people end getting LA degrees because they have a specific artistry while people that get business degrees often do so as a safety net. They may not have any idea what "particular job" they want to get, they just know that a business degree is usually a safer bet than a LA degree. Such was my case.