alt Hacker NewsFor some reason that doesn't make me feel better.
If college is supposed to prepare kids for the real world, we should be creating environments that simulate the real world as much as possible.
Creating a consequence free semester is the polar opposite of how the real world works. In the real world, you get a job, and you're on probation for your "first semester" when the scrutiny is at its highest. You don't get the privilege of easing into the job, you're thrown in. Shouldn't be any different for college kids.
The safety bubble we're building around kids + young adults is not going to end well.
Replies
I'm not sure college was ever intended to prepare people for the "real world." College programs start out with "general" education and get more and more focused on a particular area of study the further you go. Colleges teach you how to research deeply and write on those narrow topics. Prep for the real world would teach you how to pick a place to live and take care of it, how to parent, how to get along with neighbors and co-workers, how to do your taxes, save for retirement, how to take care of your brain and body, etc. No college requires classes like that for everyone
> If college is supposed to prepare kids for the real world, we should be creating environments that simulate the real world as much as possible.
Would you take a motorcycle safety course where the first thing they do is chuck you into "simulated" traffic? It feels too obvious to say, but just throwing people in the deep-end isn't necessarily the most consistent or effective teaching tool for every situation.
I never went through school of any level that tried honestly to prepare me for real world (TM). Absurd academic directions, insisting on stuff that basically nobody ever used regardless of job later, ROTA ad nauseum. Where is communication, some basic psychology, leading, team work, stress management and so on, which is what each of us needs desperately every day? Or ie taxation and social/medical systems, to which each of us exposed extremely directly?
It should be the mission of every school, but somehow they all missed that. Given, teachers were often abysmal themselves in these topics, but things can be learned just like other stuff.
Genuine take: maybe it would be more efficient for the economy and society, as well as better for everyone involved individuall, to make room for the ease in period as well, with a clearly communicated end towards the same, so people can acclimatize?
Speaking as someone who grew up in a slightly more cruel world, but still received way more kindness than previous generations (did not die of previously deadly respiratory complications in childhood, got accepted into gifted children program for enthousiasm, not IQ, got recommendation letters for the same reasons, short sighted, ADHD) in my self evaluation, each time I got a break it spurned me to work harder and try more to "pay it back", and every time I powered through strict evaluation and scrutiny it left scars that overall impede my productivity/would do so if I had not gotten therapy to overcome them .
Nature is cruel, but also inefficient. We have long since started building a "rela world" full of safety bubbles that let us thrive. Why not continue with this one?