Going to college unready for it

[Barinthus]

Poor Samuel Clemens's rolling over in his grave. Jack London's crying into his whiskey. John Steinbeck's banging his forehead into some wooden wall. Stephen Crane's rocking mumbling to himself.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


America has produced no literature [worth reading].

(except for science fiction)

Faulkner?

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Mark Twain - Willa Cather - Faulkner - Poe - Henry Miller - Hemingway . . . .

vomit vomit vomit

[Kuciwalker]

Shakespeare

[Ben Kenobi]

Now Canadian Literature would be a different story.

[Kuciwalker]

Does Canada have a large enough population to support authors?

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, we have long winters, where folks have to stay inside. Excellent breeding grounds for writers.

Probably the best in my opinion wrote before then, especially Robert Service. Canada's done a much better job in non-fiction than with fiction especially with Pierre Berton and Robert Michener.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Timexwatch
Engineering majors usually have the easiest time avoiding humanities classes because of their heavy courseload. My roomates never had to take anything beyond introductory English and the occasional humanities/social science class. It's a crying shame because engineers are some of the most godawful writers.

Beyond that, it's how most engineers end up mired in middle management.

Everyone loves to trot out jokes about liberal arts majors that have punchlines like "you want fries with that?" -- but the fact is that most upper-level executives, including CEOs, at most Fortune 500 companies were liberal arts majors. Corporate America actually loves the liberal arts, because a good education in the humanities will teach you to communicate well and to be critical and flexible in your thinking, abilities that are most important in the private sector; it will also teach you how to learn, perhaps the most valuable skill of all, far more fully than any other area of academic study.

Of course, that's not why I bothered with the liberal arts; I've never aspired to corporate work, never done it, and never will. But there it is...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by GePap
Actually Che, from what I have heard about Kuci's High School, and correlating that to my experience, most college classes would not be any better for Kuci than what he got in high school, which is one of the points of this entire thread, that colleges have to bring down their material to deal with the general level of unpreparedness from HS graduates.

Colleges don't have to dumb down material. They can flunk students. High schools can't do that because they will have a hoard of angry parents all over them like flies on ****.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Colleges don't have to dumb down material. They can flunk students. High schools can't do that because they will have a hoard of angry parents all over them like flies on ****.

Colleges are in the same bind, but its about angry trustees and politicians, not angry parents. Small colleges can't flunk kids as often as they should, because they need every last cent of tuition. 2nd- and 3rd- tier state universities (e.g., Western Illinois University, Cal State Fullerton, etc.) can't flunk all the kids they should because they're under financial pressure to bring in tuition and political pressure to provide a kind of constituent service. That's the problem; it's why I was talking about there being too many colleges back on page 1.

[Kidlicious]

RTF,

It's the professors who decide the grades for college students and there is little presure on them from anywhere. High school is much different. Yes, teachers do the grading, but there is a lot of presure on them to pass students.

[Az]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
There is no such thing as American literature.

Kuci, why?

America has produced some of the finest literature of the modern age.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Kidicious
RTF,

It's the professors who decide the grades for college students and there is little presure on them from anywhere. High school is much different. Yes, teachers do the grading, but there is a lot of presure on them to pass students.

Kid, I've been a professor, and an academic administrator, and what you're saying is just bullsh*t. If a school is so good that it can pick and choose its students, then handing out F's is no problem. But farther down the educational ladder, it's a buyers market, and if you're liberally handing out the F's, you will hear about it.

And that's not even taking into account the fact that most people handing out grades at a college are grad students or adjunct faculty, not professors...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Simple fact, okay.

The problem with that theory is that this same "talent pool" of educated women is now directly competing with the entire labor force, thus squeezing them out of their own fields. So you have people coming out of other fields and into teaching, instead of lifelong teachers.

On top of that, there is the increased opportunity for minorities to become teachers, so it's really a wash.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

After reading this a couple of times I think I understand what you're trying to say, though really the whole thing needs a rewriting. I think you are correct that now (my post was about 20-50 years ago but nevermind that for the moment) a lot of people are getting into teaching as a second career etc., which theoretically should / has improved teacher quality. But it is most certainly not a wash. Our economy will never again be able to manipulate the talents of more than half the population so that they are left with only a few realistic choices for the educated amongst them. Good and talented people will be drawn to teaching as they always have, but they will no longer to be forced by necessity.

In short you are wrong, incapable of following what someone else has written and incapable yourself of writing something that can be readily understand. You're a perfect poster child for the decline of American K-12 education in the latter half of the 20th century.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly

Everyone loves to trot out jokes about liberal arts majors that have punchlines like "you want fries with that?" -- but the fact is that most upper-level executives, including CEOs, at most Fortune 500 companies were liberal arts majors. Corporate America actually loves the liberal arts, because a good education in the humanities will teach you to communicate well and to be critical and flexible in your thinking, abilities that are most important in the private sector; it will also teach you how to learn, perhaps the most valuable skill of all, far more fully than any other area of academic study.

Rufus nailed it.

One thing a good liberal arts degree gives you is something called dialectic reasoning. It is known by other names - serendipity, insight or intuition for example. This is where you can synthesise a lot of information and then make a leap to a new hypothesis or solution which breaks the mold and resolves the issues, sometimes in a novel way. This is very valuable for leaders in all walks of life. Dubya for example clearly has none. Good scientists however also have a lot of it.

This is quite different from what I term "technical" or "professional" degrees like economics or law where you operate within an existing framework of ideas, sometimes quite rigid. This is called analogous reasoning. Its like learning a maze to find the cheese.

I got a brilliant education from people just like the good Professor Firefly for which I am deeply grateful.

I've never felt like I really made the most of what I was given but that's probably because the gift of a liberal education is so rich. Its a precious gift, you can't repay it.