Inside Higher Ed hosts a number of great blogs each day, and unfortunately it has taken until now for me to discover them! One post that I want to feature today was written by an author lamenting the state of Universities today. In this post this English professor reviews a new book by Craig Brandon:
The Five-Year Party: How Colleges Have Given Up On Educating Your Child and What You Can Do About It
This book sounds really interesting. I probably won't be surprised with anything the author has to say, who among us doesn't know that a lot of schools are simply 5 years of bars, brawls, and babes. Oh alliteration, how I love thee. Hopefully my readers attended a school where they learned something and know what alliteration is ;)
This article just reinforces my disgust with American culture. The American university has become one giant party with minimal to no learning going on. We'd rather engage in drunken frivolity and watch Jersey shore, instead of engage in a world that is desperate for competent and ethical leadership. Here's my favorite quote from the article:
Rich people, as you learned when you read The Great Gatsby (unless you went to a party school and didn't read it), tend to be irresponsible.
Just to clarify, the author in the preceding sentence described the entire American culture as Rich. So its not just the "rich" college students, it's also middle class and lower class who are partying all the time. Rich kids just do it with better style.
Anyways if you want to read the whole post you can find it here:
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/university_diaries/party_on
3 comments:
While at times I do think your skepticism needs some seasoning to bar itself from hopelessness you have stuck an indelibly poignant flaw of the American society which seems to be universally ignored or perhaps it is rather justified as our culture moves to value individual will/choice above all else.
Did that sound edumecated enough for you? NWC didnt leave me hurting that bad...
Sounds like a good read.
the title ticks me off to start with. why, oh why are high school grads not expected to take responsibility for themselves????? the title should be The Five-Year Party: How Colleges Have Given Up On Education and What You Can Do About It.
I think that the idea that parents are still responsible for their grown children is more than half the problem here. if people don't have to take responsibility for themselves - why would they? why should they? i heard that other day that people in their early 30's should be learning to take responsibility for themselves, their jobs and their relationships. i guess Ben and I were WAY ahead on that one. and so were you and Hannah, and Ben and Sara . . . etc. oh, i could rant for a LONG time here. anyway . . . sounds like the book and i would mostly get along really well. once i got past the title . . .
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