thoughts on higher education

[rivendellrose]

In honor of the housemates going back to school today... something that will make everyone who's ever filled out a FAFSA (the hideously complex application that's required of all American college students who want to be considered for federal financial aid) happy: Among the changes proposed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is "Simplifying the process of applying for financial aid by partnering with states to use existing income and tax data to help students complete the application in half the time."

Hallelujah and amen.

Also: "There are disturbing signs that many students who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and thinking skills we expect of college graduates."

As anyone who's spent any time on the campus of a major state university will, I'm sure, agree: DUH. Here's a thought - why doesn't this woman sit on that "Creativity" class that I had to record last year? That'll give her a real good notion of what kind of morons we're letting graduate with degrees.

And now, happier things.

Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett
The Telling, Ursula K. Le Guin
Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett
Daily Life in Civil War America
Joys of Motherhood, Buchi Emecheta
Stiff, Mary Roach
Just Add Hormones
Second-Class Citizen, Buchi Emecheta
Culture as Given, Culture as Choice, Dirk Van Der Elst
The Swamp Thing: Saga of the Swamp Thing, Alan Moore etc.
The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria, Victor C. Uchendu
And a Time to Die, Kaufman
Carried to the Wall
Jingo, Terry Pratchett
The Middle Man (vol. 1)
Fast Food Nation
Fantasy Girls, Elyce Rae Helford
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol 2, Alan Moore
Kitty and the Midnight Hour
Spook, Mary Roach
Autobiography of a Fat Bride, Laurie Nataro
Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (!!!)
Rules for the Unruly
Guests of the Sheik, Elizabeth Warnock Fernea (!!)
Smoke and Ashes, Tanya Huff
Fast Girls, Emily White
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Pledged, Alexandra Robbins
Somewhere to be Flying, Charles de Lint
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Smoke and Mirrors, Tanya Huff
Consuming Kids, Linn
Dancing at Armageddon, Mitchell
Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
The Birthday of the World, Ursula K. LeGuin
The Last Days of Dogtown, Anita Diamant
Club Dead, Charlaine Harris
Blood Price, Tanya Huff
Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin
Blood Trail, Tanya Huff
The Thief-Taker, ?
Expendable, James Alan Gardner

Big extra special recommendation attached to that last one - if you are on my friends-list and you haven't read this book, go out to your local library and find it right now. It's fabulous sci-fi with great concepts that, yes, surround some honest-to-goodness interesting and innovative science, fun writing, and fabulous characters.

And while I'm recommending, I also suggest people hunt down Janet Kagan's Mirabile. I'm rereading it right now for sheer love and nostalgia (Janet Kagan's books pretty much ruled my childhood), and I'd forgotten how tight the writing is, how real and quirky the characters are, and how much fun she has with the concept. Again, good sci-fi with emphasis on the 'what-if's of colonization, and a knack for human nature to back it up. You won't find it new, sadly - everything she ever wrote seems to be out of bookstores with possible exception of her one ST:TOS novel (also well worth it, but I won't subject you to too much childhood nostalgia... except to say that she made me like Kirk), but used bookstores or a good library database hunt should turn it up. ♥

Comments

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

Jingo! My favorite Pratchett book ever. ^^ The Kite Runner is also on my to-read list, but I'm afraid that's not getting looked at for a few months, now. :/

"There are disturbing signs that many students who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and thinking skills we expect of college graduates."

I've edited papers for my ex-roommates. And I would just like to say DUH!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Jingo was amazing. Wonderful political commentary, great moments for Vimes, Carrot, Nobby, Colon, the disorganizer, and Vetinari... just fabulous. ♥ And I can't wait to hear what you think of The Kite Runner. It's a really remarkable book, very much worthwhile, and it zips by pretty quickly once you get into it.

I've edited papers for my ex-roommates. And I would just like to say DUH!

I'm glad it's not just state schools, then. *Sighs*

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

Vetinari is made of awesome in that book. I ♥ him. And everyone, really. I love the whole Carrot of Arabia thing Pterry has going on. ^^

And no, it's private schools, too. And what was the saddest part, my one roommate who wrote really terrible papers (I did as much rewriting as editing) actually went to a fairly exclusive private school in Philly. I despair for the future sometimes, I really do.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Vetinari is just plain made of awesome. I so much love that character. "Carrot of Arabia"... yeah, that pretty much covers it. XD

Don't take this wrong, but that really makes me feel a lot better. Not like I'm happy that you guys have to put up with this kind of idiocy, but I am glad that it's not something that my paying the extra money for Dickinson, Simmons, etc, would have gotten me out of. I already get irritable enough about some of the craptastic aspects of my state university education (can you say 'not equally prepared for graduate school? I can...'), so at least this way I know I couldn't have escaped morons who can't write.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I think they're more of the exception. The good thing with private schools is that they can be really picky. The bad thing is that you do end up with some spoiled rich kids and legacies.

I honestly don't know how they've made it this far. Maybe it varies by major, but my coursework has been insane and it requires a lot of writing. And good writing.

Or maybe I'm just an insane perfectionist who can't tolerate low grades. :) (We actually just got mentioned in an article in the NY Times that says girls are more likely to be driven and academically competitive than boys.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. I went to summer school at a prep school in NH back in highschool, and I heard some really interesting stories about legacies and other rich kids at the schools of my various friends there.

Honestly (and this sounds insane after five years, two degrees, and departmental honors...), I think my school's requirements weren't nearly enough. And that depresses me - that after all that time I still feel like I didn't really get the kind of challenge I need to prepare me for future academic work.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

:( Boo for that. Kind of makes me glad I'm doing honors thesis, though. Because I know it is going to be a truly insane amount of work, but I think it's really good preparation for a master's program.

Heh, and we have our share of prep school kids. Most of them are pretty good students, though. One of my friends from my freshman dorm went to a boarding school in Connecticut and he's as hard a worker as anyone. And come to think of it, I actually only know about 2 legacies. Hmmm....

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I did an honors thesis, too. Unfortunately, not so much on the useful preparation, despite my advisor's efforts. The excuse, as near as I can tell, is that we can't fit as large of projects as private schools because we run on the quarter system instead of semesters. So my 'thesis' seems to have run about as long as most people's regular quarterly papers, from what folks have told me.

There are definitely a lot of good, hard-working folks at prep schools. It's just funny to hear the stories of the ones who aren't... ;)

[ex_mrs260625]

I've edited for *grad* students and I'd just like to say "Duh."

I'm really lucky that my parents taught me to speak properly. That and my book-a-day habit in school gave me an intuitive grasp of correct grammar. After I left college (without a degree) I mastered the finer points by discussing writing with people better educated/more experienced than I, and by reading style guides and grammar books.

The only grammar I learned in school was the difference between a noun and a verb. They did teach some grammar in English 110, but not in a way that did me any good.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I learned more about parts of speech and grammatical terminology from taking foreign language than I did from my highschool English classes, and all but one English class in college was no better. I learned what a dangling modifier was in my senior year of college, from my Scandinavian studies professor, not from my honors seminars in English lit.

Fortunately, before all of that I had the same experience you did with grammar - parents who spoke well and encouraged me to read a lot, and a neurotic habit of devouring books. To this day I can't understand how people can read and not instinctively apply what they see to how they ought to write.