Margaret Wente’s Globe and Mail article on the existence and characteristics of the entitlement generation in Canada is both opinionated and thought provoking. The author strongly supports that the entitlement mindset is quite prevalent in Canada’s universities, has been nurtured by its preceding generation and has led to students’ unrealistic work expectations. Although Wente effectively communicates her opinions regarding the entitlement generation, her arguments are compromised by poor use of appeal to authority and a polarized approach to the topic.…
As of today United States faces a lot of socio-economic problems. One of the most critical is the alarming rise of college tuition. Universities are operating more like businesses than actually higher learning institutions, student population not being ready to take college level classes (remedial), numbers College graduates are in a constant plummet, and students demonstrate no improvement in skills ranging from critical thinking to writing. In the book Academically Adrift, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa discuss these issues and also propose us how we can solve these problems that require imminent action. This book is an extensive research by these authors to demonstrate what is wrong with American University systems, to support their research…
By the 1950’s, she had won many legal victories, but she was far from context. After 40 years of fighting for women to control their fertility, Sanger was extremely frustrated with the limited birth control options available to women. There had been no new advances since the 1842 invention of the diaphragm in Europe and the introduction of the first full length rubber condom in the US in 1869. She had championed the diaphragm, but after promoting it for decades, it was the least popular method in the United States. It was highly effective, but expensive, awkward, and most women were embarrassed to use it. Even in her seventies, this didn’t stop Margaret from creating something better. She had been dreaming of a “magic pill” since 1912, but…
Due to my uncanny similarity with the group of college students William Zinsser described in his essay “College Pressures,” his words induced within me feelings of guilt and regret. Throughout my years of schooling, there have been many occasions in which I have labored to a maximum which resulted in an almost unbearable amount of stress and panic. Oftentimes, I credited this anxiety to my teachers who assigned many projects and tests; or to the School Board that made continuous changes to the learning curriculum and expectations for “success.” At the beginning of his essay while he elaborated on his thesis, William Zinsser, master of Branford College, countered this thinking, “It is easy to look around for villains -- to blame colleges… the…
Her essay originally was published in the Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors. It has 5 sections and each section is about one full page in length. The first section of her essay discusses the changes in universities’ images and ethics. Students are developing their identities and lifestyles which is why college is important. Several university…
“Defending the unborn against their own disabilities.” Margaret Sanger is known for being a birth control, population control, and a eugenics activist. As a eugenics activist she believed that the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. She was born on Sept 14, 1879, in Corning, New York. Her family had lived in poverty and her father didn’t earn a steady wage. Because her family lived in poverty Sanger searched for a better life, and that way was going to college. She attended Claverack College and Hudson River institute in 1896.…
The ones that do put in the time and effort to earn an education and a credit should not be penalized or beat out of University slots by those who make a few right clicks on a computer. “Many more students perceive their degrees as a professional qualification, a service for which they have paid, which will guarentee them a better job. Good marks then become more important than learning” Smith concludes. However, in fact it is not the grades given that become the most essential, it is the skills and intelligence that are required to be a valuable attribute that Universities are searching for. It is corrupt that the wrong kind of people are being accepted over honest…
The main message as Alexandra Robbins has said is to have, ¨… a massive change of attitudes and educational policies¨ (15). Robbins is trying to make the point that if educational policies don’t change then education will no longer be the same due to children worrying of how they will get to college and not about the actual learning experience. There needs to be a change in attitude and policies towards education because the education system has affected many students’ lives, for example, an estimate of ¨114 percent spike in suicide rates … between 1980 and 2002,¨ due to the pressure of wanting to get into the best colleges for the name (14). This quote shows that stress levels of getting into the most prestigious universities has turned kids…
It is obvious that Arthur E. Levine’s article, “Sure Changes for Colleges in the Future,” wrongly suggests that the future of education will be questionable. Levine writes that “educational passports” (283) will be needed to track down a student’s educational records. He also questions whether “faculty will become increasingly independent of colleges” (282), and whether “degrees will wither in importance” (283), because of the variety of new ways degrees can be earned. All these points that Levine speculates on seem to be far fetched and inaccurate in describing the progress education is making in our world. It is misleading to say that “degrees will wither in importance,” when employers are constantly choosing people who have a better educational background than others. Furthermore, “Educational passports” (283) are not a good way to record a student’s educational achievements, because they fail to record the learning that happens outside of a classroom. Likewise, would students actually watch faculty members on “weekly PBS programs”(283)? It is almost impossible to believe that Levine’s “Sure Changes for Colleges in the Future” is written with considerable concern for education in the future, because of the extreme improbability of degrees withering in importance, educational passports replacing degrees, and faculty becoming more popular than their colleges.…
The middle of the 1960’s approached and nearly six million students attended college in America. This tremendous increase in attending higher education forced institutions to grown, and quickly. Size changed how Universities operated. Instead of becoming more welcoming and homey, they transformed into unfriendly and bureaucratic. With the sudden growth in student body, American universities lacked the proper facilities. With few dormitories, students were housed in “student communities” surrounding their…
It might seem risky to pay very much for college education for some people, however the career potential of those experienced higher education is usually deemed higher than those without it. Taking a heavy debt to go for higher education may unreasonable to some people, but it is a choice of what kind of future career one is looking for. If one wants to climb on to the highest position in a company’s hierarchy, investment in higher education would benefit one in a long run. Moreover, higher education improves an individual's quality of life. Studies show that, compared to high school graduates, college graduates have longer life spans, better access to health care, better dietary and health practices, greater economic stability and security, more prestigious employment and greater job satisfaction, less dependency on government assistance, greater knowledge of government, greater community service and leadership, more volunteer work, more self-confidence, and less criminal activity and incarceration. Therefore, it is a personal choice of future, it is difficult to bear the expense, but for those who choose to fight the difficulties, distinguished future…
Tamara Draut, director of the Economic Opportunity Program analyses this issue through personal experience in her essay “The Economic Crunch”. In this essay Draut claims that college is more of a vice than a reward and believes it's the lack of funding that caused this. Meanwhile, Anya Kamenetz, a recent Yale graduate, observes this issue from her own perspective in her essay “Waking Up And Taking…
Robin Wilson had quite a compelling article, showing the potential contrast with the debt vs. the quality of life and stability a degree can provide. Wilson overall points show that the American dream we are all striving for has changed. She is able to demonstrate this through the use of several anecdotes. Wilson interviews with various professionals to see how they use these degrees to better themselves. In doing so she highlights various pros and cons of having a college education vs. the amount of debt they are now responsible for.…
“It’s just extremely disappointing and aggravating to have paid all that money and have nothing to show for it other than debt.” proclaimed Michelle Polyakov, an English graduate from Drake University. Polyakov obviously feels that college is not worth the cost and that all someone has to show for the education is debt. College has been deemed, by some, that it is not worth the cost because of the financial loss, the future job security, and the need for “blue collar” jobs. Finances, job security, and the need for manual laborers are all major factors in the debate of college and its cost. The reason being is because not all people are meant to go to college, or their situation just isn’t ideal. College is a privilege, and not every job requires you to have a higher form of learning, but most do. By viewing the debt of a student after graduation, the job security of graduates, and the need for manual laborers, one can infer that college is not worth the cost.…
There are multiple kinds of stress college students face throughout their education career. While spending time in college it can also be both educational and stressful. Numerous stress causes college students face primarily is academic performance. Students intend to do their best to keep there grades up in order to keep there scholarship awards or any kind of funding provided. Financial stress, many college students face this stress. Involving the trouble for insufficient money to pay for tuition, as well as funds needed to cover the costs of living. Even the students who are qualified for financial aid to cover there college costs, knowing later on they will be having to face paying back a large sum of money post graduation. College students…