I can't make sense of what college should be today. Can you help?

4 days ago by qyron to c/justpost

I enrolled in college last year after a two decade iatus. Same college, same degree. But somewhere down the line, something went somewhere and I feel at loss.

School was just school, for me. It wasn't especially hard, it wasn't especially easy. There were teacher, books, tasks to do and present and that was it. Simple. Linear. The first time I enrolled in college, the system was pretty much the same, regardless the scholl being entirely online.

When I enrolled last year, the model was radically turned upside down. I now had virtual classes (as in work groups inside a subject) and the system feels gamified. There are weekly goals, tasks, etc. But not individual tasks. Nor do I have a book or books I can read to follow the subject. Class material is micro-dosed, dispensed along the semester. I had around 80 pages of reading material throughout an entire semester. There were movies and YT videos along the way to supposedly complement the reading material. But it all felt banal. I failed the because I wasn't able to fit in the scheme.

Another year another semester and now the system is even more gamified. It feels like a real-time experiment on the students. I have to present myself, how I like to be addressed, what do I do for a living and save for the end of my introduction something surprising about myself. The motto is that by sharing and cooperating, we will be achieving better and more productive academia. What? I don't need to get to know anyone and viceversa; I'm a faceless number behind a keyboard, hundreds of kilometers away from anyone else from that course.

What purpose does this serve? I want a book to read, questions to answer, clear cut objectives. Not an online feel good experience. What has happened?

I've bought the ticket, I'm doing the trip to the end. I can adapt, eventually, but this makes no sense.

And for clarification: I do not risk going into debt by enrolling and not passing any classes, which is bound to happen this semester. I pay around 100€ tuition by subject I enroll and I've enrolled in two this semester, which I pay in monthly installments.

Can somebody point to some resource where I can do a test to gauge my aptitude towards possible career choices? It's a bit moot but I feel at a total loss.

impairedimperator 3 points 4 days ago

A pleasant idiot is more employable than an asshole genius. Colleges are catching on.

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qyron 3 points 4 days ago

I'll grant that yet stupidity only strives up to a point. A functioning society requires knowledge and expertise. A degree represents the achievement of higher education, more complex, more profund. I feel confronted with a system prepared to coddle idiots.

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DrSoap 2 points 14 hours ago

I'm back in college 15 years since I graduated with my first degree. Im back in school for a career change. My old job was physically taxing and in health care. I got burned out because I'm unwell and my body couldn't keep up.

I'm trying to get a bs in game development so I can have a sedentary job that I potentially enjoy.

Id love to compare notes on the college experience with you. Things have really changed since the last time I went to school, a lot I feel for the worse.

The education quality has really gone down imo. I had a bs in neuropsychology my first time around, but I feel like a coding heavy program would be just as hard. But it's not. It feels like I'm not learning anything.

My professors are coming in wearing very skimpy clothes. They are barely teaching, seem like they are people who were just hired off the street who have either never played a videogame or are unqualified in some other way. The students are rude and have no respect for authority. I feel like I learn in a whole semester what I can figure out in an one hour YouTube video.

I keep second guessing if this is a mistake. Maybe I should have been an accountant or something.

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qyron 3 points 13 hours ago

Reading your words, it does appear we do not have that much to tell apart our experiences.

I must add the college I'm enrolled in is exclusively online and was originally geared towards older students, usually already working people returning to pursue higher education. Regardless, there was a sense of formality. There was the institution itself and then there was the notion of the students being much more mature than the average college student.

Nowadays, I see constant pleas and addresses from the teachers, both written and in short video form, droning on how AI is pervasive but how students should make efforts to engage on the tasks by their own efforts. It is ridiculous. It is infantilizing. It disrespects the core notion of self achievements. I am at a point where I fear the degree I may one day gain will be worth as much or less than the words used to spell it.

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