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a college degree but couldn't find a job? Not going to be a problem in
China!
The ever practical China's Ministry of Education has the perfect solution to college graduates that can't find jobs: eliminate the college majors producing unemployable people. Problem solved!
Much like the U.S., China is aiming to address a problematic demographic that has recently emerged: a generation of jobless graduates. China’s solution to that problem, however, has some in the country scratching their heads.
China’s Ministry of Education announced this week plans to phase out majors producing unemployable graduates, according to state-run media Xinhua. The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which the employment rate for graduates falls below 60% for two consecutive years.
Link (Photo: Zhu Difeng/Shutterstock)
It's a time-honored practice for politicians and educators to wring their hands over how American students have fallen behind in science and technology. Many have pointed out how large class sizes, lackluster teachers, and non-challenging curriculum in elementary and high schools are shortchanging our students and (gasp!) the country's future global competitiveness.
But who's really at fault here? Could the problem actually be on the shoulders of the vaunted American colleges and universities?
Christopher Drew wrote an intriguing article for The New York Times that examine how more and more students are turned off by science at the college level:
... it turns out, middle and high school students are having most of the fun, building their erector sets and dropping eggs into water to test the first law of motion. The excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg, an emeritus engineering professor, calls “the math-science death march.” Freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students. And then many wash out.
Studies have found that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree. That increases to as much as 60 percent when pre-medical students, who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation, are included, according to new data from the University of California at Los Angeles. That is twice the combined attrition rate of all other majors.
It's all a matter of the lack of preparation from high school, you say? Actually those who are better students are more likely to drop out of science:
“You’d like to think that since these institutions are getting the best students, the students who go there would have the best chances to succeed,” he says. “But if you take two students who have the same high school grade-point average and SAT scores, and you put one in a highly selective school like Berkeley and the other in a school with lower average scores like Cal State, that Berkeley student is at least 13 percent less likely than the one at Cal State to finish a [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math] degree.”
This
is something quite interesting. According to new Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, almost half of all college graduates in the
world come from only three countries: United States, China, and Japan.
Among the 34 OECD and G20 countries, nearly 26 percent of the total 255 million college-educated individuals between the ages of 25 and 64 hail from the United States. China comes in a distant second at 12.1 percent and Japan is a close third at 11.4 percent.
It happens every year -college textbook prices are so high that freshmen go into shock at the thought of paying $100 or more for a book. There are several reasons given for the high price of textbooks: some that the vendors will disclose and others they don’t. First off, texts are expensive to produce, compared to everyday novels.
There’s certainly some validity to this explanation. Yes, those charts and diagrams are expensive to produce, and the relatively small print runs of textbooks keep publishers from enjoying the kind of economies of scale they get on a bestselling popular novel. Any economist who has a pulse (and probably some who don’t) could poke holes in this argument pretty quickly, though.
In the simplest economic terms, the high price of textbooks is symptomatic of misaligned incentives, not exorbitant production costs. Students hold the reasonable stance that they’d like to spend as little money as possible on their books. Students don’t really have the latitude to pick which texts they need, though.
Read the real story behind sky-high textbook prices at mental_floss. Link
We’ve already linked to Mental Floss’ list of weird college courses, but if you can’t get enough of these strange course listings, then you probably ought to head over to Cracked and read about six more of these classes including Super Smash Bros. Melee Theory and Practice.
These classes were found in college catalog listings of courses that are offered this fall at a campus near you. Well, maybe not near you, but some you’d be willing to travel for! Here’s a sample:
16. How to Watch Television
Montclair State
Has that big screen in your living room always perplexed you? Flummoxed by the little rectangle that seems to control its every image and sound? Sorry to say, this class isn’t going to help. Despite its title, “How to Watch Television” is really about analyzing the medium and evaluating TV’s impact on our lives.17. Invented Languages: Klingon and Beyond
University of Texas at Austin
The class explores the Star Trek language and Esperanto, among others. I’m willing to bet there’s a bit of Elvish thrown in there, too.18. The Phallus
Occidental College
I feel like this one speaks for itself, but just in case you need it spelled out for you, here’s an excerpt from the syllabus: Topics include the signification of the phallus, the relation of the phallus to masculinity, femininity, genital organs and the fetish, the whiteness of the phallus, and the lesbian phallus.
Find all 22 of them at mental_floss. Link
If you want white tiled floors and cleanrooms, these are not the labs you’re looking for. PopSci has ranked their choices for the 25 most awesome college labs, and the diversity and locations might surprise you. From the experimental mine for demolitions students (who learn to “blow things up extremely well”) at the Missouri University of Science and Technology to the geophysics program at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory–where students wake up before dawn to hike to the top of one of the world’s most active volcanoes–these awesome hands-on programs put your five credit hours of making Punnet squares to shame. Featured careers include game design, rainforest biology, oceanography, brewery and alien-hunting. Link
Image: U.S. Geological Survey/Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
It’s been a very long time since I was a college student, so this was something new to me. There is talk on some campuses about an “old law” that says a house with a certain number of females living there is legally considered a brothel.
The story is often told to explain the absence of sorority houses on certain campuses. But for as many times as the tale is told, these laws have never actually been documented anywhere. In 1998, a group of eight Tulane University students searched through municipal and state law books going as far back as the 1800s and came up empty. I did a little digging of my own closer to home; I couldn’t find any laws in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or the municipalities where I went to school.
This is a completely strange concept to any single mother with daughters, or anyone who ever lived in the old-fashioned dormitories that were segregated by sex (I have lived in both situations). Have you ever heard of such a thing? Read more about housing laws that do and don’t exist at mental_floss. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user albioncollegespecialcollections)
Over at the Neatoshop, we have some cool personalized bobbleheads and portraits, but I can’t help but wish that we were able to add Dr. Jesse Weiss’ custom action figures to our shop, but for now we will have to appreciate his collection of action figures based on his colleagues at The University of the Ozarks.
Link Via The Mary Sue
An article at The New Inquiry is a conversation between a college-level philosophy teacher and a person who writes college papers for money. Much of it concerns the prevalence, ease, and mechanics of cheating on papers, whether the work is plagiarized or commissioned. But this explanation of why so many students cheat saddened me:
I think that the system, grading in general, grading as a gold standard of employability, college as the necessary step between high school and employment, all of these things alone aren’t necessarily wrong. But when you get them all together in this network, and college is going to define your future, the grades will determine where you go, one, for a fifth of you, those of you who are going to grad school or law school or med school. For the rest of you, to get that job, you need that paper that says, “Diploma,” which means you need to pass. That’s all that matters.
If the only purpose in going to college is to get a diploma (not knowledge, not an education, and not good grades), then its no wonder students assume that you should get one just for paying the tuition and arranging for the required papers by any means necessary. Link -via TYWKIWDBI, where you can join the discussion.
(Image credit: The “Gold Guys”)
The PC version of Portal 2 launched today. Obviously, there will be a drop in productivity in all sectors, and no reason to bother holding class. Geoff Pado’s professor gave in. Link -via reddit
by Mike Adams
Department of Biology
Eastern Connecticut State University
Willimantic, Connecticut
It has long been theorized that the week prior to an exam is an extremely dangerous time for the relatives of college students. Ever since I began my teaching career, I heard vague comments, incomplete references and unfinished remarks, all alluding to the “Dead Grandmother Problem.”
Few colleagues would ever be explicit in their description of what they knew, but I quickly discovered that anyone who was involved in teaching at the college level would react to any mention of the concept. In my travels I found that a similar phenomenon is known in other countries. In Eng- land it is called the “Graveyard Grannies” problem, in France the “Chere Grand’mere,” while in Bulgaria it is inexplicably known as “The Toadstool Waxing Plan” (I may have had some problems here with the translation. Since the revolution this may have changed anyway.) Although the problem may be international in scope it is here in the USA that it reaches its culmination, so it is only fitting that the first warnings originate here also.
The basic problem can be stated very simply:
A student’s grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year.
While this idea has long been a matter of conjecture or merely a part of the folklore of college teaching, I can now confirm that the phenomenon is real. For over twenty years I have collected data on this supposed relationship, and have not only confirmed what most faculty had suspected, but also found some additional aspects of this process that are of potential importance to the future of the country. The results presented in this report provide a chilling picture and should waken the profession and the general public to a serious health and sociological problem before it is too late.
more …
These unofficial spring break merit badges can be sent to your friends via Facebook. The Lobster badge is for someone who didn’t use enough sunscreen. The one on the right is called Icarus, for your friend who went after someone who was too hot for them and was then shot down. See all ten badges at MyEdu. Link -Thanks, A S!
Psst, freshmen! Are you feeling stressed? You’re not alone: a survey revealed that this year’s incoming students are the most stressed in 25 years. The economy, it seems, is to blame:
“Students know their generation is likely to be less successful than their parents’, so they feel more pressure to succeed than in the past,” said Jason Ebbeling, director of residential education at Southern Oregon University. “These days, students worry that even with a college degree they won’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage, so even at 15 or 16 they’re thinking they’ll need to get into an M.B.A. program or Ph.D. program.”
Other findings in the survey underscore the degree to which the economy is weighing on college students.
“Paternal unemployment is at the highest level since we started measuring,” said John Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at U.C.L.A.’s Higher Education Research Institute, which does the annual freshman survey. “More students are taking out loans. And we’re seeing the impact of not being able to get a summer job, and the importance of financial aid in choosing which college they’re going to attend.”
“We don’t know exactly why students’ emotional health is declining,” he said. “But it seems the economy could be a lot of it.”
The class of 2013 perform a medley of songs from The Wizard of Oz for the annual Nykerk Cup competition at Hope College. Sure, they sing well, but where are they hiding all those props? You can also watch the performance of their competition, the freshman class. -via Buzzfeed
University of Central Florida business professor Richard Quinn delivered a lecture he hoped he would never have to. He had uncovered indications that many of the class of 600 seniors had cheated on an exam. Quinn said the entire class had to retake the test, and challenged the cheaters to confess, in which case they would not be kicked out of school.
He said: “I don’t want to have to explain to your parents why you didn’t graduate, so I went to the Dean and I made a deal. The deal is you can either wait it out and hope that we don’t identify you, or you can identify yourself to your lab instructor and you can complete the rest of the course and the grade you get in the course is the grade you earned in the course.”
Prof Quinn also added a requirement for those who came forward complete a four hour course in ethics. In return there would be no permanent record of the cheating.
So far more than 200 students have admitted to cheating.
A video of the 15-minute lecture is included with the story. Link -via reddit
The author of The Shadow Scholar makes a living writing custom papers for college students, from admissions essays to graduate theses. He makes more money than most of the professors who assign the work.
You’ve never heard of me, but there’s a good chance that you’ve read some of my work. I’m a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can’t detect, that you can’t defend against, that you may not even know exists.
I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I’ve worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.
In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company’s staff of roughly 50 writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.
It’s not plagiarism, as each paper is paid for and written to specifications with the understanding that the author will receive no writing credit. But the student does none of the work to produce the paper. There’s a serious discussion at Metafilter on whether this activity is wrong or not. I was surprised that there was any question as to the ethics of hiring someone to do your college work, but I graduated over 30 years ago, and the world has changed a lot since then. What you do think? Is this cheating or just another path to your goal? Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Jonathan Barkat for The Chronicle Review)
How would you advise a student who decides she wants to go for a PhD in English literature? Not that it matters; the student doesn’t really want advice, just a written recommendation. Despite the computer generated audio, this animation made me laugh. Warning: it might hit disturbingly close to home. Link
Forget sitting in a stuffy classroom – here’s the college major for outdoor enthusiasts and fun-lovers everywhere: Adventure Recreation.
Yes, that’s right:
Adventure sports like scuba diving, snowboarding, white water rafting, and bungee jumping are big business. People are wanting controlled ways to break out of their normal nine-to-five office life and these sports on fun mini-breaks and vacations are the perfect release. Who is going to supply these cubicle monkeys with their fun though?
If you have a passion for adventure sports and enough experience to train others, you might want to look in the undergraduate programs at Green Mountain College in Vermont that aim at helping people like you in establishing their own businesses in the area of adventure recreation where they can train newcomers to the sports and just show people a fun, exciting time that is a bit out of the norm.
Read more about weird college majors over at Road Tickle: Link
US college football conferences have reshuffled their membership this year. That’s the subject of a tough Lunchtime Quiz today at mental_floss. If you know the history of the conferences, you just might do well. I didn’t. Link
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As they welcome the incoming freshman class, colleges across the United States are finding that nowadays they have to do something they never had to do before: kick the helicopter parents out.
In order to separate doting parents from their freshman sons, Morehouse College in Atlanta has instituted a formal “Parting Ceremony.”
It began on a recent evening, with speeches in the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel. Then the incoming freshmen marched through the gates of the campus — which swung shut, literally leaving the parents outside. [...]
Moving their students in usually takes a few hours. Moving on? Most deans can tell stories of parents who lingered around campus for days. At Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., a mother and father once went to their daughter’s classes on the first day of the semester and trouped to the registrar’s office to change her schedule, recalled Beverly Low, the dean of first-year students.
Link (Photo: Brian C. Frank / The New York Times) – via Fark
Prepared by students at Kansas State University, this short video summarizes “some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime.”
The methodology is explained here, along with a textual summary of the contents. Responses to the video on a variety of education-related websites range from praise and sympathy to disagreement and dismissal.
Via Libraryland, where there is also a response by faculty at the University of South Carolina.
If pop culture had its own university, we’d have many experts on the faculty -and quite a few that will give you a laugh. Pictured here are just a few of the science department staff. Wait until you see who’s in law! Click to enlarge the picture at the link and you’ll get the full roster. I heard that the original chart was developed at 4chan’s /tv/ board, so it may have many creators. Link -via reddit
Mental_floss presents a sequel to an earlier much-enjoyed quiz about movie and TV characters who went to college. In today’s Lunchtime Quiz, you’ll be given a television character, then you select which real college he or she was supposed to have attended. Just by guessing, I scored 40%. You will do better! Link
What’s the point of going to college if you can’t find a good job after all that education? So, to put its money where its mouth is, the Lansing Community College in Michigan is offering a money-back guarantee to its students:
Beginning in May, people who take six-week courses in certain subjects will be guaranteed a job within a year — or else they’ll be refunded their tuition money.
It’s a radical idea, particularly for a school located in Lansing, Mich., where unemployment sits at 11.7%. Lansing Community College, the third largest community college in the state, has 30,000 students a year but is looking for more. The new money-back guarantee will apply to the four most in-demand technical jobs in the area: call-center specialists, pharmacy technicians, quality inspectors and computer machinists.
You might remember Biola University professor Matthew Weathers from his Halloween prank video last year. He also went the extra mile for April Fools Day. Even the university president got involved! -via Buzzfeed
The NCAA basketball tournament brackets were finalized last night. I am happy to see that Kentucky is a #1 seed, and the management at mental_floss is happy to see that Duke is also a #1 seed. But there are 64 teams in the tournament; some aren’t that easy to place. In Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you are challenged to match tournament colleges with the states they are in. I scored 75%. Link
Yesterday, students at the University of Mississippi voted to update their image with a new mascot. The previous mascot Colonel Reb, who resembles a antebellum plantation owner, hasn’t been seen at a game since 2003, due to his Confederate symbolism. Who, or what, will the new mascot be? The athletic teams at Ole Miss are the Rebels, so the logical symbol would be Admiral Ackbar, the highest ranking member of the Rebel Alliance in the Star Wars universe. Only time will tell if the students and administration at Ole Miss will embrace the campaign. Link -via Geekosystem
High school seniors Kenny, Martina, Ray, and Carol Crouch, quadruplets from Danbury, Connecticut were all ecstatic when they found that all four were accepted into Yale University.
The Crouches’ perfect batting average represents a first for Yale — the first time in anyone’s memory that it has offered admission to quadruplets. It is also, of course, no small milestone for the siblings, who were born more than two months premature. (Ray was the last to be released from the neonatal unit, more than four months later.)
They made up for that rough start. Their class rankings range from 13 out of a class of 632 (Kenny) to 46 (Martina) — and they have sky-high SAT scores (including Carol’s perfect 800 on the verbal part of that exam).
The siblings have until May first to decide whether to accept Yale’s invitation. They say their decision will depend on financial aid. Link
(image credit: Christopher Capozziello/The New York Times)
Many college students use laptop computers to take notes during class. The student in this video, as a prank, took an old mechanical typewriter to a lecture for that purpose. The professor gets quite perturbed and asks him to mute the sound effects.
via Gizmodo
