Always looking for a way out

Students at Berkeley are supposed to take 12 units to be fully enrolled, and each unit is supposed to represent 5 hours of work a week. Since most classes are 4 units, the University expects the students to be taking 3 classes per semester. I am pretty sure this is what I did, although perhaps one semester took a 4th class on a pass/no pass basis.

Anyhow, most of the students today take 15 units, or even 18 units, which is totally crazy. And so we, the instructors, get lectured all the time about how much of a work load our students have. Very rarely is it mentioned that this is their own choice; no one has told them they have to take such a heavy load. They sign up for the classes they want to take, and it should not be my job to assign less just because the students have figured out that they can graduate sooner if they stuff their schedules.

But no matter what I assign, they always find a shortcut, utilizing what is called "minimizing effort." In other words, they are always looking for a way out of doing all the homework they are assigned. Read as little as possible, write as little as possible, invest as little time as possible. Now sometimes this is for academic reasons, but other times it is so that they can have more time for their extracurricular activities.

Anyhow, I don't really mean to gripe about it. Students will always be looking for a way out, that is just how it is.

Ah, to be young and carefree again....

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ég hélt að þetta væri séríslenskt fyrirbæri. Ég er nefnilega bæði fjögurra drengja móðir og grunnskólakennari og get endalaust furðað mig á þessu. Það á að fá allt ókeypis og líka einkunnirnar.
kv. Halla
January 28, 2012 at 9:02 PM
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