> > an education; their professors are education
> > providers in the way doctors and nurses are health-care providers. As
> > such they feel completely free to demand maximum quality for their
> > buck.
> Exactly on track--education as a commodity. That may be training,
> but it's NOT learning. What is the purpose of a university?
I think many of the typical undergraduates in college now (ie
18-22 year olds) are there for a training, to be competative in the job
market. A high school diploma doesn't cut it for people wishing to make a
satisfactory living. That is not to say that they do not enjoy learning,
just that there is more involved in this degree than education for the joy
of learning.
> > They
> > feel completely at ease holding a TA responsible for their own bad
> > grades on an exam or a lab report. They feel that if they failed to
> > perform well, then it is the problem of the provider, that the
> > provider did not do
> > his or her job, and that they, as consumers, have every right to
> > demand better performance.
I do agree with this observation. I hear it in my classes. I
think there are several issues at play here. One is that a lot of the big
state universities like the Univ of Arizona that I go to - undergrads see
tuition going up, new buildings going up, all the focus on research for
professors and grad students - so it leaves us wondering where our money
is going, since we are here for an education. I do find it rediulous to
hold an instructor responsible for a bad grade- but the instructor still
has to be held responsible to some degree for the quality of the material
presented. There is a certain level of you get as much out of the system
as you put in, but if the instructor is not putting anything into the
class to begin with - the student is going to end up running circles
around themself. (I'm having a frustrating experience with an instructor
in a math class this semester...:))
