When I went to college in the Dark Ages, going to school full time was meant to take up most of one's time. It was expected to be difficult. While most students worked during undergrad, it usually wasn't for more than 20 hours a week, and those of us with campus jobs were not allowed to work more than 15 hours a week.The "working adults" who came back to school generally took one or maybe two classes a semester at most because they were working full time and that was their priority. Both my parents earned their college degrees this way, and they said it was so hard that they wanted to be sure their kids didn't have to go through it. Working full time, taking classes on the side, and raising kids was too much of a balancing act.
Today, expectations seem to be different. Today's students are so very wonderful and special that they believe they can do it all and do it well. When I first started teaching, I remember being aghast that we encouraged people who worked full time to take two classes because our tuition structure made it cheaper. Now I wish more of those students would take only two classes. Every semester, I have no fewer than a half dozen (and often more) students who are going to school full time, working full time or even full time plus a side job, and raising young children.
Of course, they expect that of all these things, college will be the easiest, and it will be the thing that has to be flexible when issues come up with the other parts of their lives. Many of them are using financial aid as a supplement to their incomes. They become very angry with me when I drop them for not attending after they've already spent the money. They become even angrier when they realize that I design my classes the old-school way, where for every hour in class they need to have at least two hours outside of class to devote to reading and studying. Not that I didn't tell them this up front--they just don't believe it or think that it could possibly be that hard.
I'd like to know when it became expected that full-time means something other than taking up most of one's time. Surely these people don't go to work and expect to be paid for working full time if they put in only 20 hours, so why do they think that just going to class and putting in maybe an hour a week of study time per class is full-time work? Why do our academic advisers encourage this sort of behavior? Why do some of my colleagues use college as their own social justice project in which personal circumstances rather than academic ones are the primary consideration?
I'm not saying that absolutely no one could do this kind of schedule, but it should be a rare circumstance with an exceptional person who has the support to keep all those balls in the air.
Well, I was one of those students. I took a full load, was an athlete (my university was Div III, so no scholarships), and worked 20-25 hours a week on the night shift to supplement my GI Bill money. That meant that every single waking hour of my life was accounted for in advance when classes were in session.
ReplyDeleteBut I was also older than the other undergrads and a just-discharged military veteran. So I had a certain kind of single-mindedness about the whole enterprise that most of our students probably lack. It also meant that the quasi-monastic life I was living still suited me. I definitely missed out on the social aspects of college, but I decided that I was willing to sacrifice those.
I know there is no way I could have pulled it off with a spouse and kids, and I also sure as shit couldn't do it again today. I don't have that kind of self-discipline and capacity for self-denial anymore.
And actually think that's the problem here. I don't think it is that the students you describe can't pull it off. Rather I think it is probably that they aren't able or willing to make the necessary sacrifices to be good students and good workers, and good spouses/parents simultaneously. Something has to give, and school is always the easiest thing to let slide. When I get complaints from this type of student, I tell them I totally understand their situation--been there and done that--but I have my own responsibilities to enforce uniform standards for the whole class. So while I sympathize, they need to understand that if I let them slide, then I am failing the 79 other kids in the course. They may not understand sacrifice, but even the most obdurate among them usually understand fairness.
The point I like to make to my students is that if they work a shift instead of coming to class that they effectively have spent 100$ to take that night's session of the class and gotten nothing for while working for nothing (they spent their 100 in wages on the class). But, short term desperation usually trumps long term logical thinking. There are still a full 1/4 of students who exhibit this tendency all the same.
ReplyDeleteMy parents encouraged/supported me through undergrad - it was the best gift they ever gave me and I am grateful for it. Despite using plenty of the time and money drinking, philandering, and generally having a good time, I finished in 4 and never failed a class.
If I had to do it the way my students do I too would probably fail...asses in seats, tuition checks, accepting marginal students with severe mental and emotional deficiencies. Bleed them dry. Ruin their credit. Then they won't be able to finance their childrens educations (like my parents did, using their good credit) and there will be another underclass the next generation to put through as grist for the ever spinning diploma mill. What a racket.
They become even angrier when they realize that I design my classes the old-school way, where for every hour in class they need to have at least two hours outside of class to devote to reading and studying. Not that I didn't tell them this up front--they just don't believe it or think that it could possibly be that hard.
ReplyDeleteThe rule-of-thumb is to double the credit hours and spend no less than that studying. A four-credit course means eight hours of studying a week, minimum.
I agree that many so-called 'non-traditional' students are spreading themselves too thin. I take only one course a semester in pursuit of my MS, for which I've endured a lot of criticism. But it allows me to actually learn the curriculum without having to triage two classes when final exams and projects are all due in the same week and I have to work overtime.
Taking one three- or four-credit course is like having a part-time job. Taking two is like having a full-time job. Some people can handle having two full-time jobs. I've heard all kinds of stories from people who remember their fathers coming home from work, bolting dinner, and going right to their night job. But those people are few and far between.
Our international students are forbidden from working more than 20 hours per week, although most of them are so studious and hardworking, they'd have no problem handling it.
My domestic student classmates often complain about how much studying needs to be done. Monday classes are the worst. Everyone complains about having to give up their Sundays to study and do homework. Just because I don't have a husband and children doesn't mean I like giving up my Sundays any more than anyone else. I just don't complain about it as much since I've already factored in the doubling-the-credits hours needed for each class I take.
I am grateful that I was able to get my BA and MA full time and work on campus 20 hours a week. I don't think anyone should work full-time and go to school full-time. I realize that many students feel they have no choice and I feel sorry for them. Typically these people just want the degree to improve their job situation rather than because they want the knowledge. It's easy to be dismissive of these people, who are often the 'working poor,' but if you're a wage slave being nickled-and-dimed at some low-level job, it is not surprising that you'd want to qualify for a better job ASAP. Four years of full-time study instead of six or more part-time might seem like your only course of action.
I don't think there is an easy answer to this question.
why do they think that just going to class and putting in maybe an hour a week of study time per class is full-time work?
ReplyDeleteThey don't. They think that just going to class and putting in maybe three hours a week of study TOTAL is full-time work.
Bless you, P.P. I have a lot of students who take my classes seriously, but it's the outliers that we remember, for better and for worse.
I'm at a lousy CC in New Mexico, and I KNOW nobody advises students to take it easy on the loads. I had one student last year who has 7 kids under the age of 16, who works 30 hours a week at a cookie store in the mall, and who was trying to add my class to give her 18 hours in the semester. I said no because I was full up, but who the eff told her to try in the first place?
ReplyDeleteI feel that many colleges are happy to take the money, and whether or not students can HANDLE the load is left to them to discover, and then turned into a problem for us as instructors who have to deliver the bad news that showing up 70% of the time and occasionally turning something in isn't worth credit.
I had to work 25 hours a week while going to school in order to maintain my health insurance. I didn't really need the paycheck (I had taken loans to cover tuition and I had no time to spend money on things like movies) but the 25 hours kept me from having seizures. It was an absolute must.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I worked my ass off and got a 4.0. We've covered before that I have a philosophy that means I work hard enough so that people never blame my condition for my personal failings. It's a great motivator.
So I've done the 16 credit hour semesters with 25 hours of work (and volunteering so my grad application would look good). But I did it. And I don't think most people could. I went weeks without doing laundry. I slept 6 hours a night. It was a shitty, shitty time.
I appreciate when students tell me that can't do XYZ, but every story I hear is always less than I had to do as an undergrad. I sympathize, but secretly I judge them for not working hard enough.
I feel like I'm that person in grad school.
ReplyDeleteI currently:
A) run a small english department
B) run a writing center
C) am working on a major project for a conference with some friends
D) am working on a book proposal that we finally got a bite from a publisher on
E) am working on 1 print publication
F) am working on 3 webtexts
G) teach 3 classes a term
H) Am supposedly married
I) am putting finishing touches on my dissertation
and, oh yeah
J) I'm doing a national job search.
Just freaking SHOOT ME. Why did I sign up for all this? Oh yes, I want to get a better than average job out of a middling graduate program. Also because A and B and G have paid for the last year of my grad program (my GTAship would not have, it cuts out before our credits are up) and well, money.
Yep sorry I refuse to be broke. Screw that.
The research is because I'm passionate about it. The rest because I feel like I have to or because it (seriously) has improved my chances on the job market based upon feedback I've gotten so far.
Was I this student as an undergrad though? Heck no.
When I was in college I took full load of classes worked a full-time job and a part-time job. It sucked. I slept an average of 25 hours per week and forgot what weekends were like.
ReplyDeleteStill I managed very nearly a 4.0 and was able to get in to law school (in my second to last semester I added studying for the LSAT into the mix).
Working full time and going to school full time was the better preparation for law school than any class. Now, attending classes and only working part time (which is frowned upon) seems so leisurely that I don't know how I put in the work I did during the undergrad years.
I agree with Archie. It is the motivation that is lacking. Working full time and going to school full time is not impossible, but it is by no means easy.
The situation Darla describes is the one that we are seeing more of in CCs. Over the years I have had exceptional students who worked 40 hours and took 12 hours in classes on top of that. A couple had 4.0 averages. But it's all three at once (full-time job, full-time college, raising multiple young kids, often as a single parent) that is the issue. I can see being able to do any two of those things if one were really good at time management and had appropriate support. But to do all three well seems an unrealistic goal. Something has to give, and most of the time that something is college because once the financial aid check is cut, the student has been paid, whereas slacking off on the job means a lower paycheck and slacking off as a parent often means immediate, uncomfortable consequences.
ReplyDeletePatty, we must have different size thumbs! I was always told in college that it's two hours studying out of class for every hour spent in class, and that's what our freshman orientation teaches students as well. Realistically someone could probably pass my classes with a one-to-one ratio, but to earn an A or a B, most likely the student would need more time.
EnglishDoc, that's what Patty said. No less than eight hours studying for a four-credit class is two hours outside for one inside.
ReplyDeleteBut I think the motivation factor referenced was illustrated by a recent discussion on forum of my local paper. Libraries, like all entities, public or private, are hitting financial walls. According to my literate locale, we should get rid of the libraries because, and I quote, anything you need is on the Internet.
ReplyDeleteMany -- of not most -- of us worked at least part-time while undergrads; some for sustenance, some to afford a large pizza instead of a small.
But today, in this eBay nation, there is an expectation that you should just be able to point-click-graduate.
It is ironic that in that mix, however, employment hasn't been painted with that brush. People still seem to understand you have to work for a paycheck.
Higher education, on the other hand, nahh, you just sign up and osmotically are elevated to the next rung on the SES ladder.
My apologies. I'm so used to the three-credit model that I read right past the first number and just looked at the second!
ReplyDeleteEnglishDoc, that's what Patty said. No less than eight hours studying for a four-credit class is two hours outside for one inside.
ReplyDeleteOur three-credit courses are about three hours a week of lecture, so yeah, that'd be six hours a week of studying - double the classroom hours which are generally the same as the credits at my university. And that's the guideline for doing okay in the course, not for getting an A.
@ Aware and Scared
ReplyDeleteThose arguements of the Volvo-driving class only have value IF they are willing to give cheap laptops to everybody in town who doesn't have one AND they are willing to have WiFi EVERYWHERE. Or course, these people are also Libertarians, so they just want to shut the library down because any government service (besides the fuzz or the army) is "socialism."
They can take their Rothbard and cram it where the sun don't shine.
@ EnglishDoc
I knew crazy people like that at my first CC, Crusty Desert, back in the 1990s. One guy was doing 15 units on top of two jobs and an active dating life and he was blown away that anybody was doing less. Conversely, another person worked at two jobs a preceeeding semester, quit both, and did 20 units in a semester so that he could transfer to the CSU campus in town*. Is it sane to go to school like that? Hell no, but some people have no patience.
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* A certain university that is THOUGHT to be the party school on the border, but is mostly made up of commuter students.
The rule of thumb I'd always heard is 2-3 hours of prep for every hour in class (or credit hour; we didn't have credit hours, but yes, it's the same thing). By that math, going to school full time is more than a forty-hour-a-week job, even if you don't have any commuting time. Some people can, indeed, juggle that along with another full-time job (paid or unpaid), but 3 full-time jobs (or 2 plus coping in a language other than one's first) is too much for almost everyone.
ReplyDeleteI share the math above with my students, but only a few pay attention. I have had some success, however, answering emails asking to get into my section (one among many of a required course) on the basis that it's the only one the student can fit into his/her schedule by asking when the writer has scheduled prep time. I rarely get an answer to that query.