Dear College Students
(In the United States, that is.)
This is a reminder that, statistically, half of your professors are adjuncts, which means that they work part time, at an average of $2500 per course (not per credit hour, per COURSE, for an ENTIRE SEMESTER), which in some areas amounts to less than minimum wage. In order to make ends meet, many adjuncts work at multiple campuses, teaching up to seven classes at a time. They have to be re-hired every semester. They have to wait until the registration period is over before finding out if they will get any classes to teach. They make up substantially more than half of the instructional workforce at some institutions, but they have no role in governance, no voice with the administration. In many cases, they have no library or computer privileges, no professional support, and no office in which to meet with you.
Adjunct faculty are disproportionately women and people of color.
If you think this likely has an impact on the quality of the education for which you are paying increasingly exorbitant tuition, then you are correct. You and your parents owe it to yourselves to find out what your university’s adjunct hiring practices are. If you are a high school student considering higher education, ask administrators for this information and let them know that it matters to you. Support the efforts of adjuncts to unionize. Universities in the US increasingly operate on the retail model of education. They see students and parents as the customer, and the best way to get them to change is to let them know that the customer is not happy.
“Let us turn to a clinical example. Elaine, a U.S. born Korean American female college student, grew up in Texas. Her father is a professor and her mother is homemaker. An academic dean referred Elaine to Ms. Han because she was at risk of failing her first year in college. In a tearful presentation, Elaine reported, “My parents have sacrificed everything to raise me here. If my parents had stayed in Korea, my mom would be so much happier and not depressed. She would have friends to speak Korean with, my father would be a famous professor, and we would be better off socially and economically. I wouldn’t be so pressured to succeed. They sacrificed everything for me, and now it’s up to me to please them and to do well in school.” When asked the reasons for her academic probation, she responded, “I didn’t do well because at a certain point, I didn’t care anymore, about myself or anything else.”
Elaine’s case is an illustration of an intergenerational transference between the immigrant parents and child, which might be usefully described through the logic of melancholia. The loss experienced by the parents’ failure to achieve the American Dream - to achieve a standard of living greater than that which they could have putatively achieved in Korea- is a loss transferred onto and incorporated by Elaine for her to “work out” and to repair. In particular, Elaine reenacts these losses through her relationship with her mother. Elaine’s depression is a result of internalized guilt and residual anger that she not only feels toward but also identifies with in her mother. Through this incorporation, she also functions as the place-holder of her mother’s depression.”
Elaine’s case is an illustration of an intergenerational transference between the immigrant parents and child, which might be usefully described through the logic of melancholia. The loss experienced by the parents’ failure to achieve the American Dream - to achieve a standard of living greater than that which they could have putatively achieved in Korea- is a loss transferred onto and incorporated by Elaine for her to “work out” and to repair. In particular, Elaine reenacts these losses through her relationship with her mother. Elaine’s depression is a result of internalized guilt and residual anger that she not only feels toward but also identifies with in her mother. Through this incorporation, she also functions as the place-holder of her mother’s depression.”
— A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia - David L. Eng & Shinhee Han (via anuradha18)
You want to know what’s happening? Korea’s education system is literally the most rotten piece of shit to ever exist.
Let me explain the context of the poster on the left.
The average time a kid spends in school in the US is 900 to 1000 hours per year, spread between 175-180 days (x)
In 2007 there were mass student protests in Netherlands because they increased the hours spent in school to 1040 hours per year, or 8 hours a day, 130 days a year. (x)
Korean high schools, on the other hand, enact a 3150 policy, 225 days of school with 14 hours a day, or from 8 am to 10 pm (x)
Also due to the private education sector of hagwons and the fierce competition of Korean high schools, basically after school kids go to hagwons, or personal academies, till 2, 3 in the morning, fit in maybe 4, 5 hours of sleep and go back to school. (x)
It was only in 2012 that schools went from having classes on Saturday excluding the first and third Saturday, and it was only in 2007 when they changed from having class every Saturday. (x)
This system is literally the epitome of the factory schooling system which comes as a result of a capitalistic schooling system and it works kids too hard which is one of the reasons Korean school kids are some of the unhappiest of pretty much any OECD country. (x)
For the photo on the right, physical punishment is not fully banned in Korea.
Since 2011, Seoul, Gyunggido, Gangwondo, and Julla Bukdo have banned the use of direct physical punishment, or basically hitting kids with either tools or physically with their body. That being said that’s basically only about half of South Korea.
Also, indirect physical punishment such as making kids to planks, make them kneel with their hands up, making them run laps, or of the sort is still fully acceptable in all Korean schools. (x)
Anybody who’s a Korean in a Korean school right now already has experience with getting beat by a teacher and some kids still have to deal with physical punishment by teachers.
So you’re ready for art school, and you’ve got your top pick all sorted out; Art Institute looks great, right? WELL it might seem that way. What you don’t know is that there is a lot of really sketchy things going on behind the scenes, things that have…
So you’re ready for art school, and you’ve got your top pick all sorted out; Art Institute looks great, right? WELL it might seem that way. What you don’t know is that there is a lot of really sketchy things going on behind the scenes, things that have…
Hey guys!! I’m making this post for all of the other students/college students who are like me.
I have a really hard time keeping track of my homework assignments for each class/when they’re due, and sometimes that causes me to get assignments done late because I start jumbling up when shit for which class is due. I know paper agendas are a thing, but sometimes I have projects that aren’t due for weeks, so having when it was assigned 3 pages back isn’t going to help me remember it/keep track of when I should do it.
However! I found this nifty website called myhomeworkapp.com!!!
Basically, you can input your classes/class times, and your homework, and set when your homework is due, and it will sort out when you need to get your homework done, and even tell you if you’re late on any of your assignments. It’s even color coded!
You can even set it to when it should remind you to work on your specific homework assignment, set certain assignments to different priorities, and even highlights ones that are due soon (see the one up there that’s in orange, since it’s 2:30am here, that’s technically due today OTL).
I didn’t even have to make an account, I just hooked it up to my facebook account because I’m a lazy motherfucker!!!!
But yeah you guys should give it a shot if you’re like me and have a really hard time keeping track of homework/when you should work on it/scheduling in general, and paper agendas aren’t flipping the bill.
Sorry for the click-bate-y title, but this is kind of really important. While tuition is going up, the people actually doing the teaching are being severally underpaid. What follows are some particularly upsetting excepts:
Over three quarters of college professors are adjunct. Legally, adjunct positions are part-time, at-will employment. Universities pay adjunct professors by the course, anywhere between $1,000 to $5,000. So if a professor teaches three courses in both the fall and spring semesters at a rate of $3000 per course, they’ll make $18,000 dollars. The average full-time barista makes the same yearly wage. However, a full-time adjunct works more than 40 hours a week. They’re not paid for most of those hours.
…
Some professors in his situation became homeless. Oliver was “fortunate” enough to only require food stamps, a fact of life for many adjuncts.
“It’s completely insane,” he said. “And this isn’t happening just to me. More and more people are doing it.”
“We have food stamps,” said the anonymous adjunct from Indiana. “We wouldn’t be able to survive without them.”
“Many professors are on food stamps and they go to food donation centers. They donate plasma. And that’s a pretty regular occurrence,” Merklein told Salon.
…
“As soon as they hear about you organizing, they go on the defensive,” Merklein said. “For instance, at my community college, I am being intimidated constantly and threatened in various ways, hypothetically usually. They don’t like to say something that’s an outright direct threat. … They get really freaked out when they see pamphlets around the adjunct faculty office and everyone’s wearing buttons regardless of what professional organization or union it is. They will then go on the offensive. They will usually contact their attorney who is there to protect the school as a business and to act in an anti-labor capacity.”
The most telling phrase in Merklein’s words are “the school as a business.” Colleges across the country have transitioned from bastions of intellectual enlightenment to resort hotels prizing amenities above academics. Case in point: The ludicrously extravagant gyms in America’s larger universities are home to rock climbing walls, corkscrew tracks, rooftop gardens, and a lazy river. Schools have billions to invest in housing and other on-campus projects. Schools have millions (or in some cases “mere” hundreds of thousands) to pay administrators. Yet schools can’t find the money to hire more full-time professors. If one follows the money, it’s clear that colleges view education as tertiary. The rigor of a university’s courses doesn’t attract the awe of doe-eyed high school seniors. Lavish dorms and other luxuries do.
Anyone going to college now, consider organizing for your faculty. They are at risk of being fired for it, you are not. The university might be more willing to listen to students demanding the education they are paying for. Make noise for the people making your degree possible.
If you are touring colleges, ask what percentage of the faculty are adjucts. Ask what they are paid.
If you are not in a position to do these things, there are two petitions in the linked article to sign.
and honestly if you can read about shit like this and still be against unions I don’t know what to tell you.
college is catered towards the able bodied and able minded. school applauds people who can stay up all night, skip meals, and work endlessly. that kind of extreme contribution is expected. why are disabled people being squeezed out of academic institutions? why should I feel inferior because of some arbitrary and ridiculous standard?
College Board line of reasoning
- College Board: Pay for this test we made to measure your aptitude for college
- College Board: Oh, you want to do well on said test? Pay for materials put out by us to do it
- College Board: Pay us to send your test results to colleges. We won't even use paper; it's electronic
- College Board: Pay us to take a test that certifies mastery of college level material. Take college level classes to get into college basically. But pay us
- College Board: Pay us to send a lengthy, confusing financial aid application to colleges even if you don't get in. Pay us more if your parents are divorced
- College Board: Pay us
- College Board: We're a non profit organization
College Board: Pay for this test we made to measure your aptitude for college College Board: Oh, you want to do well on said test? Pay for materials put out by us to do it College Board: Pay us to send your test results to colleges. We won't even use paper; it's electronic College Board: Pay us to take a test that certifies mastery of college level material. Take college level classes to get into college basically. But pay us College Board: Pay us to send a lengthy, confusing financial aid application to colleges even if you don't get in. Pay us more if your parents are divorced College Board: Pay us College Board: We're a non profit organization
I never understood why it’s an F if he gets more than half out of 100? Unless it’s more than 100. If you get more than half the answers right how is it an F?
Average American Grading Scale:
A+- 97-100
A - 94-96
A- - 90-93
B- 80-89
C- 70-79
D- 60-69
F- 59 and under
And in some places in America it goes by a 7 point scale, so it’d be
A - 100-93
B - 92-85
C - 84-78
D - 77-70
F - 69 and below
Now you understand why American kid’s feel like there’s no point to school. If you have a 100 question text, and get 79 of them correct, that’s a C. That mean’s your Average Intelligence on this particular subject. And it get’s even worse when you have only like… a 10 question quiz. If you get two wrong? that’s a B. 80 fucking %. Now tell me again why American school’s are easier?
next time you try to tell americans that we’re stupid
i’m gonna remind you
that our “average” is your “A”
#is that true?
Yep I was shocked when I heard this in a different post but a Google search pulls up a ton of sites backing this up.
Shit son I woulda passed College Algebra with an A in the UK. And I spent the end of the semester in perpetual fear that I would fail and have to retake the class.
And basically as an American you’re expected to get 80 or higher. Technically 70s are considered ‘average’ but there is such a level of pressure to get a B or higher, that Cs have become equal to Ds. Basically anything under 60 you might as well gotten a 0, and anything between 60-80 is considered practically failing. So basically schools have to be designed to make sure majority of students are getting 80s or higher on specific topics, which means you’re spending all your time going over a few choice facts a billion times and there is very little room to teach anything else. Which explains why American schools are of such low quality. The insane demand on the students ends up wrecking their education. Not only do you not have time to teach them anything, but they end up hating learning. Even outside of school your life is dedicated to memorizing these few dumb facts because your homework ends up taking hours of your time. A teacher from one subject says they expect you to spend 2 hours every night on their homework. And if you’re studying 5 subjects and they all demand that 2 hours? Good fucking luck, because if you don’t have straight all 80s or higher you’re not getting into a good college and college degrees have somehow become the minimum requirement for getting jobs.
I spent most of my junior year of high school in a state of constant panic that I was going to get a C in Honors Physics much less fail the class. If I got a C on my report card, I was grounded until the next one. I lost count of the times I’d wake up at five in the morning to take the early bus to go in for zero hour before school actually started for the day
Some are even more strict. At my beauty school, anything below a 76% is failing. :c it makes test-taking extremely difficult when we get to things like anatomy and the skin disorders and diseases chapters.
So I’m friends with Michael Grant (author) on facebook and he posted this a few hours ago and I think you should read this as it shows that even some adults are seeing the problems with school, that we are not alone in feeling we aren’t ‘learning’ in the best way we could. Michael Grant’s one of my fav authors and this gave me even more respect for him.
