Law in Contemporary Society

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OurBrokenSystemofEducation 12 - 12 Mar 2009 - Main.MolissaFarber
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 I was struck by the part of Professor Moglen's lecture yesterday on our education system, and I wish to address some particularly troublesome thoughts that I've had regarding our higher education system (university level and beyond).

Prof. Moglen said that in general, professors don't care about their students very much. Instead of learning about their students, they would rather sit around in a faculty lunch and discuss how intelligent they are. While as an undergraduate, I had sinking suspicions of this sentiment, it was only until I worked as a graduate student TA that I realized the pervasiveness of this truth. I pursued a PhD? in engineering in part because of my love for teaching, and I was shocked to realize how few professors truly care about it. As a TA, I have worked for professors who rehash each year's lecture on dull powerpoint presentations despite repeated critical evaluations of their ineffectiveness, delegating almost all aspects of evaluation (including all test writing, grading, and office hours) to me and almost all aspects of actual learning to the student himself. In fact, while conversing with fellow graduate students, I have heard of certain professors openly declaring that they cared nothing about their undergraduates, that they were a pain in the ass, and that they would rather do research. And this was at a university which was consistently ranked in the top 5 in the nation and liked to boast of the success of their graduates in that particular field.

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 -- AlexHu - 06 Mar 2009
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Alex, in the spirit of beginning to critique and edit the quality of each other's writing, there were a few aspects of this post that, in my opinion, made it less persuasive than it could have been:

  • You use a lot of definite terms, including variations of "simply" and "obviously." This makes your argument seem overly simplistic and unconsidered.
  • "A quick reflection" - this turned me off. "A quick reflection" suggests that your thoughts on this subject are not well thought-out.
  • "Allow me to briefly explain":
    • Just do it, don't ask permission.
    • It wasn't especially brief. That's not bad, just don't use the word "briefly" to describe it.
  • I liked the story you shared about being a TA. It would be more effective if you shortened the sentences.

-- MolissaFarber - 11 Mar 2009

 Hi, Alex. I think you identify a problem that concerns many students. It doesn't seem that you clearly locate how it is that universities obtain their prestige medals. And maybe this is because you would agree with me that the current, irrational system of allocating reputation does not lend itself to much meaningful explanation. You mention "top of their fields," "best companies," and "Fortune 500 CEO's." In straining to track the common thread connecting these "standards" of prestige, it might be possible to ultimately conclude that prestige is based on what students end up doing after acquiring their degrees. But instead, the "REAL factors" that you reveal toward the end of your post are the criteria that should be the things that inform a university's real quality (and we shouldn't label it prestige).

Revision 12r12 - 12 Mar 2009 - 02:40:04 - MolissaFarber
Revision 11r11 - 11 Mar 2009 - 17:57:06 - KristineVanHamersveld
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