Is Western Society Slipping?

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Vasqez I didn't have time to do this yesterday, but I think I'll put in a plug for today's students, noting the following: - if their grades aren't great they're screwed - both getting in college and coming out - High School education means absolutely nothing anymore. - College degree is barely worth the paper it's printed on 'cause everybody has one - Unless it's an ASTOUNDING college, where only 5% of those clawing to get in actually get accepted - And, you won't get into that college without a 1400+ SAT, which you must start taking as a 10th grader these days - And don't forget that without "diversity" you are nothing - so you better play sport and be an officer in a few clubs as well 'cause grades alone ain't gonna do it - And if mommy and daddy can't help out w/ trips to practice and letter jackets and college-prep courses and SAT-prep course your hurdle is 3X higher - and AP classes are still tough, but nowadays you take the AP exam and the college you choose doesn't give you class credit for it but rather simply bumps you into a higher/ more difficult class so your reward is simply more work I myself love to spit upon the slacker generation. But, as time has marched on every generation of Americans (and I would think all first world folks) have had more demanded of them faster and better than the generation before. That trend still continues, and applies to school and work, most likely. Plus, in America we have the added bonus of being the first generation (my generation, Gen13, just younger than GenX, also called GenY, or Gen Why?) in history to make less money than our parents did (Boomers, for me). As to getting out of school knowing more, I will say one thing. The greatest accomplishment of my generation was that we discovered it is NOT important to know the specifics - such as the text of the Gettysburg Address - so long as you can *find* the information in 5 seconds.

Hey I AM one of today's students. I'm in my 3rd year of Uni. I know we are a bunch of slackers I often feel guilty about it but never change. Anyway it's slightly different in Europe than in America but I am tryina get the grades and am secretary of the badminton club
Yep I agree about knowing the actual facts not being so important but it does depend on your degree - I sure hope that a surgeon with a medical degree knows some of his facts when he's operating but yeah basically on my computer engineering degree a lot of my direct knowledge will be obsolete in a few years but it's the mathematical and analytical skills that you use all your life. Also hopefully my programming skills will be useful for a bit longer too

[ 01-22-2003, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[Attalus]

Just using Piestrider as an example, homework is worse than when I went to High School. Of course, he does go to school in Waxahachie, where they are pretty tough.

[Timber Loftis]

I asked a fellow attorney about this question. His reply was that it was not possible for school today to be easier than it was when he went in the 70's.

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: I asked a fellow attorney about this question. His reply was that it was not possible for school today to be easier than it was when he went in the 70's.

Hehe I guess we have to specify which country we're talking about. The standards have certainly slipped in england and are lower than in other countries in europe in general. Another example of this is that in Germany the basic university degree is 5 years, in england it's 3 years. You are expected to do a lot more for your bit of paper. In Hungary you can't get a degree at all unless you have a language certificate (in Hungary they have their own system for languages with three lvels: lower, middle, higher). You need at least a medium certificate in a major foreign language to get ANY degree at all. A medium certificate means that you can pretty much talk, read, write and understand in that language enough to live there. Higher is like expert at a language. These are just a few examples of standards and requirements being higher. Why do you think Germany is so succesful?