Campus Media

Students facing stress: What a institution of education can do to help

By: Osigah Kakhu
Every college student dreads the first sign of stress they’ll receive in the first week of the Fall Semester. Looking at everything you’ll be doing in the next three to four months is enough to exhaust anyone before even the first assignment of the class is handed out. This is usually the worst for freshman, who have the reputation for sprinting to classes, and exclaiming over grades that they think will drop them so severely into failure they will never pass the class. “The first year of college is hard for everyone- adjusting to classes, people, life, and responsibility can be a very difficult task especially if you are not prepared.” (Cox 103) Time management and priorities the most difficult systems to adopt and one can end up doing poorly in college if they do not have the correct mental tools to get through. If you sleep in, or take long to get dressed, you can end up missing some of the most important moments of class, not to mention missing class all together, or being out of the dorm on time but not knowing where to go, and if you are an international or out of state student and you don’t know anyone who can help you, adjusting and learning the ways and places of the school can be an extremely difficult task. With all of this academic, social and mental organization to memorize, it is easy to be overwhelmed and stressed. Thankfully, the college is prepared and well equipped with anything the trails of university can throw your way. Organized peer study groups, counselors and tutors are all means that the University has provided to its student in order to keep us calm, cool and collected. Organized peer groups and encouraged and now with apps on phones like “group me,” you can discuss the class with everyone who attends or is registered in that class to ensure that the classwork and homework are discussed to insure that everyone is on the same page and is doing the work as expected. Even in person, the students can research, ask and answer questions, and come to a consensus on work that needs to be done and how to do it. This type of studying is not only a great social and academic outlet, but it also is a way to make sure that no one in the class is left behind. Counselors are provided by the school, but serve more than one purpose. There is a various number of types of counselors, consisting of academic, social and even counselors who cover issues such as in the admissions office. “These counselors reduce stress in students by assuring that all aspects of their school life can be monitored and aided in any mean.” (Cox 140) Whether the student has financial or roommate problems, there is a counselor available to discuss these issues with them and o help them in finding the best possible solution that will keep the student content and comfortable. The academic counselors keep the student on track and make sure their G.P.A is in a good place and their academic standing is intact. these counselors also show the students the right way to go and how to flourish in their majors and minors. “Counselors who cover the admissions office usually cover issues relating to money, FINANCIAL AID, SCHOLARSHIP and internships, paid or or otherwise, These admission counselors help the student not only stay in school but to continue getting an education whether it is through an internship or work.” (Cox 20) Tutors, which can be provided by the school or elsewhere, relieve the student of stress by helping them in areas of frustration. These tutors make sure the student understand the concepts in the subject they are learning to help the student in doing well in school and away from any type of academic probation or other issues. The movie I choose complemented me and my sources findings. In the movie “Accepted”, directed by Steve Pink, there was a student named Sherman Schrader the third, who is accepted in an extremely prestigious school. Though he is intelligent enough to succeed in the school, there are many other factors which hinder his performance and happiness. In this case, the young man is interested in joining a college adored fraternity, Though this does not work out in his favor, the viewer can understand his potential stress as he is forced to choose between his long time friends and his dream fraternity. In the movie the young man chooses his friends and succeeds in being happy with who he is and relieved that he did not join the fraternity. During the movie though, he was bullied, harassed and threatened, which can make anyone feel an immense level of stress. Where fraternity hazing and bullying is no longer allowed because of the dangers it possesses, stress and frustration are eminent among schools. Many students feel as though they are unable to do well in school, and that they are less intelligent than the other students that attend the school. Because of this, stress levels grow and happiness and self-esteems lessen. According to the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors, Anxiety and Depression are at the highest they have been since 2007, which shows that stress is affecting the students more in since 2013, than it has for the years 2007 to 2012, and drastically. Also according to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, 23% of students that took have purposely injured themselves by mean so hair pulling, burning, cutting or hitting themselves, 30.3% have seriously considered suicide, and 8.8% have made a suicide attempt. College can be a very stressful and challenging time for all students, freshmen and seniors alike, but the adjustment to a college education after high school is an extremely different process or re-socialization that every freshman has to experience. Because of this major adjustment, many negative things can be brought up in the life, academic experiences and even social experiences that can make a student a danger to themselves. With the realization of these dangerous statistics, colleges and universities across the U.S have implemented counselors and tutors who work endlessly to ensure that the students are safe from harm and as safe from stress as possible.

Works Cited:

"Accepted - Movie Synopsis, Summary, Plot & Film DETAILS." FilmJabber.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.

"Accepted - Movie Synopsis, Summary, Plot & Film DETAILS." FilmJabber.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.

Cox, Tom. Stress. Baltimore: University Park Press, 1978. PRINT

.HTTP://uncc.worldcat.org/title/stress/oclc/3609261&REFERER=brief_results

STRESS MANAGEMENT. New York, N.Y: Films Media Group, 2005. Internet resource.

http://uncc.worldcat.org/title/stress-management/oclc/707970139&referer=brief_results

Grade Inflation In the College Classroom

By: Samantha Pagnatta

Grade Inflation is a country-wide issue that has emerged recently through lazy students and teachers. I had not learned about grade inflation until I was asked to read “Grade inflation gone wild and “Doesn’t anyone get a ‘C’ anymore” and respond accordingly on the reading forum. Once I had read these scholarly articles my eyes were suddenly opened and I was shocked. Learning these facts about grade inflation totally took me by surprise because of the reasons and who was partaking in grade inflation. Ever since learning these ideas I have completely reevaluated the modern educational system and personally thought about my grades differently. Even though I was aware students were not working their hardest I still believed that we were getting the grades we deserved, but the rest of this essay will prove otherwise.

After reading "Grade Inflation Gone Wild" and "Doesn't Anybody Get a 'C' Anymore?" I generally have a better understanding of grade inflation. Phil Primack's claim in the first passage was that grade inflation has risen so much now-a-days that college students can do the bare minimum and expect a B+. This claim is based on facts because he supports his argument by saying, "Many study less than 10 hours a week-that's less than half the hours they spent studying 40 years ago." Another supporting fact in this passage talks about how boredom sets in and college kids have to pass the time by drinking; the quote that justifies this is, "more than 30,000 first-yeEven though I was aware students were not working their hardest I still believed that we were getting the grades we deserved, but the rest of this essay will prove otherwise.

After reading "Grade Inflation Gone Wild" and "Doesn't Anybody Get a 'C' Anymore?" I generally have a better understanding of grade inflation. Phil Primack's claim in the first passage was that grade inflation has risen so much now-a-days that college students can do the bare minimum and expect a B+. This claim is based on facts because he supports his argument by saying, "Many study less than 10 hours a week-that's less than half the hours they spent studying 40 years ago." Another supporting fact in this passage talks abstudents across the country showed that nearly half were spending more hours drinking then they were studying." The counter argument in this passage is that students are acting out but also making good grades. Stuart Rojstaczer's that wrote, "Doesn't Anybody Get a 'C' Anymore?" claims that the grade worth has escalated since the 1960's and people can no longer define a good job from an outstanding job. This claim is also based on facts and value. At the start of the passage it expresses how a student was upset about received the letter grade of a B, probably because he values his grades so much. A fact I found interesting while reading was, "In 2007, more than half of all Harvard grades were in an A range." The counterargument that I noticed in this passage is that the teachers are giving away these grades like it's nothing because they are scared of what the students will say; but the top officials are starting to get mad about how lax the teachers are being and they are the ones the teachers should be scared of. These two passages helped me see that inflation has become a huge issue and modern day students just expect grades to come to them.

The two articles I chose for grade inflation were relatively similar to the articles read for the reading forum. When considering grade inflation, the main thing that sticks out to me is the emphasis put on the nineteen sixties and how that is when the tables turned, in turn academic grades were generously awarded to anyone willing to put forth any type of effort. (Courts.47) All the stats provided are relatively similar, but when analyzing who to place the blame on arguments are coming in from every angle. I personally believe teachers are the deserving scapegoat for grade inflation. For example, if the students are not willing to put forth the effort and invest in what the teacher is teaching then most likely the students will fail the teachers assignments. My point is that the only person being affected (temporarily) is the teacher and his or her reputation as a professional educator. So when this happens and the students get lazy, it is very easy for the teacher to piggybank of the children and become lazy as well. The laziness will result in easy grades, happy faces, and an uneducated youth. It is very rare for someone in today’s society to take a stand to a group of people, so this is why I think grade inflation has taken off. Since the sixties, grade inflation has increased by twenty six percent. (Basiger.90) Back when good grades were hard to come by superiors were much sterner and not as easy to trick into awarding good grades. My second article stated that grade inflation could very well be blamed on the modern difficulty of school work. It stated that the work given to us has been watered down through the generations. Along with being watered down, we have begun to shift toward a school full of busy work instead of comprehensive work. Personally, I can attain that a significant portion of my grades in the past have been awarded through completion and not accuracy. All of these factors contribute to an obvious growing problem in the academic setting.

Legally blonde is a movie that tells the story of a perky girl following her boyfriend to Harvard. The movie is not directly about academics; although when it does discuss education you get the vibe that good grades demand hard work. When doing research about grade inflation I kept on seeing that over a half of Harvard’s grades given are A’s. At such a prestigious academic institution you can infer that grades are not necessarily just given out. Through logical thinking you can understand that maybe everyone has just picked up their effort in school, which is demonstrated in the movie. This counter argument is the threshold that can determine if grade inflation actually exists. I believe through all these examples that the increase in excellent grades can be credited to all the factors I have discussed in this paper.

Through researching grade inflation for a good portion of this semester I think that it certainly exist in modern day education. Although, there are students out there putting in hard work and getting the grades they deserve, I believe some of the grades are given through teachers and students collaboratively becoming lazy in the educational setting. Grade inflation might continue to increase in the future, but school as a whole will hopefully find a way to only award hardworking students with A’s.

Basiger, David. (2007) “Fighting Grade Inflation.” College Teaching. Pp. 88-91. Tandfond.com

Courts, Jan. (2010). “Grade Inflation In The College Classroom.” Foresight, Vol. 12, Iss. 1, pp. 45-53. Emaraldinsight.com

Gender Differences in the Classroom

By: Zach Jensen

In today’s world college students, greek organizations, and the upper level education system in general is put into question every day. When we started these forum posts we were asked as a class to pick a movie about college and analyze it. I picked the movie Neighbors starring Seth Rogan and Zac Efron. This is a movie about a young couple that have just moved into a house and their neighbors turn out to be a group of fraternity men. After reading this you can probably see my topic wasn’t gender inequality at first. My original topic was stereotypes of Greek life at colleges in America. The topic of gender and racial inequality came later after reading an article by Deborah Tannen about the differences of girls and guys in the classroom.

Tannen’s article is more focused on how males have better public speaking skills than females. She makes several other claims that I agree with, such as males tend to speak out in class more than females.Through years of research, researchers and authors have learned that the way females and males perceive college or education in general is all based on influences from different people of things.

In Neighbors mostly showed males as the dominant character in the movie. It perceived the women as mostly the secondary characters such as Teddy’s girlfriend or Seth Rogan’s wife. There was also a lack of women in the movie. I understand that it was a movie about fraternities but there was still a surprising lack of female power. The only female power I saw was the Dean of Students at the college in the movie and she honestly was really laid back about everything and played the “3 strike system.” Meaning the fraternities had 3 chances before they got into serious trouble with the school.

We were then given the assignment to do more reading about what other authors who observed gender equalities thought. I then chose two articles to analyze about gender inequalities. The first article I chose was “Gender Inequalities in Education” which is one of the first articles I found. This article talked about research and perspective on how females are more educationally advanced today than men. In the past, men were seen as more advantage education wise than young women but, it is stated that girls and boys perform differently in different environments and when boys don’t like the learning environment, they’d act out aka “the class clown.” The article uses academic performance; gender gaps from kindergarten to high school and higher education, completing college aspects, family background, and gender role attitudes to distinguish and show how inequality among males and females in the educational environment has changed. The article focuses on how inequalities in education have changed over time in recent decades. The writers’ purpose is to examine gender inequalities in educational performance starting for early childhood development, to the college setting. They also want to see how the changes in gender roles have impacted males and females over time and what sparks these changes. It was noted that boys are affected more negatively than girls by not having a father in the home. (Buchmann and DiPrete)  Another thing I found interesting, in the year 2000, 60% of men were enrolled in college immediately after high school. 66% of women were enrolled in college immediately after high school. (Buchmann and DiPrete) It’s noted that women currently earn 58% of all bachelor’s degrees in the US, with African American women holding the largest advantage and Hispanics coming in 2nd, Native Americans coming in 3rd, Asians coming in 4th, and Whites coming in 5th. (Buchmann and DiPrete).

My second article I found was quite the opposite of the other article. This article, unlike all the others I have found, mostly took the side of the boys in the classroom instead of the girls. The article ,”Gender Inequality Shown in Classrooms, Boys left Shortchanged”, talks about how the years of efforts to create gender equality has once again failed. Now that girls have "caught up" boys are being passed by as the classroom has became a more inclusive environment for girls and a hostile one for boys. Boys are being disciplined more frequently than girls, boys are being disproportionately diagnosed with attention deficit disorder(ADD) and are less likely to graduate from high school. In the current classroom environment, it basically sucks to be a boy.The situation in this article is that boys are now being shafted in the classroom setting and are aren't getting educational equality.

The authors purpose is to expose this and show that just because girls are being treated fairly now doesn't mean that boys are too. Like other article I analyzed, this one also says that women are beginning to grasp the upper hand. After reading this article I see where the authors are coming from and agree that girls now have the upper hand in the classroom. This article connects to my issue the same as the other article did. This gave a little bit of a different approach at the issue of gender inequalities in the classroom even though they both agreed that women are slowly grasping the upper hand with education. This article talks about the needs of boys and girls in the classroom are extremely different. When boys are put into learning environments that don't fit their learning style they tend to act out and are then labeled as discipline problems which follows them all the way through high school. An English graduate student Sami Atassi said “Honestly, I’m not surprised that women are excelling over men, the generalization that girls mature faster than boys has been statistically proven, and boys are paying the price. Culture, language and pedagogy are always and should always be in flux in order to remedy the latest inequalities.” Atassi makes a good point about this issue but with that being said, should boys wait longer to enter school than girls? Do girls really have the upper hand or do boys still hold the dominance?

National Curriculum for College Education

By: Keilah Long
The education in the United States for college education is different in any region you may visit. Some regions may have liberal arts or vocational curriculum while others may be a comprehensive university. College itself encompasses three types: community, liberal arts, or a college within a university. With the many different types of colleges and curriculums in place across the nation, one would believe that they all should be on one curriculum. This begs the question, would a national curriculum be beneficial to college education?

Currently in the US there is no national curriculum in place. Most states and national associations recommend or implement standards for college education. With this in mind, there is really nothing in place to control what exactly students are learning in college. The university system is very decentralized and the states maintain administration of public universities and community colleges. Most states tailor their curriculum around the region they’re in while abiding by the standards for college education. The current curriculum for many colleges across the US has had the same basic courses that were used as far back as the 17^th century. As the US is evolving and centralizing, the college curriculum should revamp itself also.

The US has slowly been centralizing many of its transportation systems, broadcasting systems, publishers, and textbook manufactures. “In American life as a whole there are many centralizing tendencies that influence education” (Punke 345). As the US centralizes its railroads and television networks, when will college education be the next centralizing trend? “To assume that educational instructions at any level can stand apart from such national developments is to assume that they will be isolated­- and ignored” (Punke 346). While the US is centralizing its different features, the legal developments seem to be siding with a national curriculum.

Some legal developments have promoted a centralizing movement not only with college education but primary education. Mainly the legislation that has been passed relates more with salary, school terms, lunch programs, grants for buildings, teacher’s certification, and different state aids. Harold Punke noted in National Curriculum that:

“With the setting up of junior colleges we are seeing the merger of counties or perhaps the beginnings of regional consolidation… The importance of regionalism depends partly on the extent of regional control and support, as compared with state control, of institutions that serve on a regional basis.”

(344)

With community colleges in place along with universities and liberal arts colleges, one can conclude that all the colleges should centralize their curriculums.

            Community colleges are a place where you can achieve an associate’s degree or prepare yourself to transfer to a four-year college. Community college’s curriculum is either career based or continuing to a university, which may or may not benefit the student. While some students are fine after achieving their associate’s degree, the other students have to deal with transferring their credits that they’ve already received to an institution that may or may not use those courses as prerequisite. The lack of a national curriculum hinders the transfer as they look to achieve a bachelor’s degree.

            At one of the best schools in the country, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, they receive an influx of transfers every year. Some transfers only completed one year while most have received their associate’s degree. When the transfers meet with their advisors, they come to the sad reality that some or most of the courses aren’t prerequisite that their major needs. They are stuck to either take summer classes for the next two years or stay extra years in order to complete their bachelor’s degree. This not only is an inconvenience for the student but also is very expensive, especially after completing two years at a community college.

            A national curriculum would benefit the transfer and other students achieving a bachelor’s degree by having the same courses for the first two years across the nation. “The two-year general-college curriculum does offer a desirable common background for all students at a university, in whatever division they may be planning to continue their education, there is no reason to restrict it to a single university…the two year general-college curriculum [can] be the minimum requirement for entrance into any of the degree-conferring divisions of a university.” (Chambers 140) With a national curriculum in place across the nation transfers, would not be compelled to only apply to universities close to the community college but could apply anywhere their degree plan may take them.

            Besides the benefit of transfers alone, a national curriculum can benefit students all around. A national curriculum for colleges can help students who may be unsure of where they may be heading in life. The first two years can be used as a “finding yourself” moment where students can see what they may want to do for the rest of their lives. With all the prerequisites the same for the first two years, students can use this time to make sure they really want to major in their specific division. L.P. Chambers supports the need of a national curriculum in A General-College Curriculum by stating:

“The student needs not merely a few contacts with subjects outside his ‘area of concentration,’ but a well rounded picture of his physical and social environment- especially the latter, for one cannot understand the events of his day or evaluate the policies of his government unless he knows the historical, social, economic, and psychological backgrounds of political events.”

(135)

            “Centralization of the curriculum assumes that centralization is undesirable- that unwholesome domination by the federal government will follow. There is little evidence to show that such ‘dominance’ has been contrary to the educational welfare of children-if one looks at school lunches, school buildings, [and] teacher evaluations.” (Punke 347) Making a national curriculum would not be hurting the student’s quest to receiving their bachelor’s degree, but helping them by centralizing all two-year courses across the nation to better the education for college students.

Works Cited

Chambers, L. P. "A General-College Curriculum." The Journal of Higher Education 18.3 (1947): 135-40. JSTOR. Web. 30 Mar. 2015

Punke, Harold H. "National Curriculum." The Elementary School Journal 68.7 (1968): 343-48. JSTOR. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.