Sorry for the light posting - I've been flitting about, spending way too much time in airports. (My carbon footprint is a constant source of guilt.) I've recently spent a lot of time hanging around various universities, which always reminds me of just how good undergraduates have it. They manage to live a purely intellectual life, with nothing to do but explore the world of ideas and wander around libraries so vast they'd make Borges blush. (Meanwhile, their professors are begging for grants and grading piles of papers.) The students also have schedules fit for philosopher-kings, with every Friday off and classes that rarely begin before 10 in the morning.
But how they complain! I'd mock these spoiled kids, but I was the exact same way. I also whined about my Friday seminar, or the professor who graded on a curve, or that ten page paper I had yet to write. It's the destiny of every 20 year old undergrad to be ungrateful, just as it's the destiny of every graduate to be nostalgic.
There is, however, one important difference (at least it seems important to me) between my academic experience as an undergrad and the experience of most students today. When I suffered through big lecture classes, and the schedule of every science major is filled with such tiresome affairs, I had to attend every class simply to take notes. I had to dope myself with caffeine and then try to pay attention to the heavily accented grad student talking about organic chemistry. I knew that, when I had to study for midterms, I'd need my most illegible notes for guidance.
But students today don't have to take notes, at least not in the same way. I was recently informed that many professors now post all of their lecture notes online! (I realize this is not a new trend, but I'm way behind the curve. I still think that listening to Arcade Fire makes me cool.) This is craziness. If all the notes are online, then why does anyone ever go to class? It's not like professors are such scintillating performers. And doesn't this defeat the real purpose of an undergraduate education? It's easy to be misled into thinking that the real purpose of taking organic chemistry, or "The 19th century English Novel" is to learn about benzene rings or the writing habits of Charles Dickens. But that's an illusion. What nobody bothers to tell you is that you will forget everything, that all those chemical equations will be purged from your hippocampus shortly after the semester is over.
Rather, the real purpose of all those big lecture classes is to teach you how to learn. You are being given an education in education, forced to develop the kind of thinking habits that will allow you to synthesize, memorize and analyze information later on, in real life. The content of the lecture notes is virtually irrelevant. What's important is the fact that you know how to take notes in the first place.
So don't complain, kids. You have it even better than me, and I had it pretty damn good.
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I still take notes the old fashioned way (on printed handouts of powerpoint lectures, ha!), but my prof posts mp3s of each lecture, too. Still, I don't think it's the same as actually going to class. But it would do in a pinch, if you missed class, etc.
"So don't complain, kids. You have it even better than me, and I had it pretty damn good."
Sorry, grandpa. :p
If I had know college life would be like that I would have gone.
I found that professors prepared notes that resembled a skeleton of their lectures, which allows the student to concentrate on taking notes that ties the material together rather than feverishly trying to scribble down every word out of the professor's mouth. Depending on downloaded notes without any of your own additions is basically the same as merely studying from the book with an idea of what the professor thinks is most important.
The best way I found was to take notes in class; then, the same day, transcribe my notes using a manual typewriter. I would add to the notes, annotate them from the text, etc. Clearly the demise of the manual typewriter explains the downward curve of learning in the USA.
I'm nearly a year post-graduation and I already miss the academic life. I kept all my books (thanks to the Core it's an even bigger pain in the ass to move). Someday I'll revisit them and the information I spent cramming will all just flutter back. Correct me if this is naive; I should know nothing in the brain "flutters."
Have you seen any of the lectures on iTunesU? They have whole free courses from big universities. Just scrolling though the catalog, I'm like a kid in an MIT-stocked candy store.
I always equated college to running. You can train yourself and run a marathon on your own, but it's more likely to get done if you have a trainer there to hold you accountable for the work it takes.
I won't argue with you that undergrad life has less responsibilities than grad/faculty, but I think you are vastly exaggerating how low-stress it is. As far as schedules, I have never had a semester without an 8:00 class at least 3 days a week, and I often have lab until late on Friday afternoons. I was on campus for over twelve hours every day this past week, between classes, labs, work, and meetings for organizations. I am not whining, because I chose my major and my activities knowing it would require work, and I wouldn't be on this path if I didn't enjoy it. Again, I am not claiming that the load is unfair, I wouldn't switch an easier major/career path even if they paid me, because that's not where my passion lies. I am a big fan of your blog, but I found this post more than a little bit patronizing and frustrating. Just as with anything else, undergrad years are what you make of them, not everyone chooses to party and float their way through, some people do research, go to seminars, work to support themselves and buy those $120 textbooks, etc. While I agree that grad school does involve more intense pressure, responsibilities, and stress in many areas, I would think that some people work harder as undergrads than others do in grad school, it all depends on the individual and their specific situation.
To reiterate I am not complaining at all about being an undergrad, I agree with you that being at a point in life where the whole purpose is to learn is wonderful, and I wouldn't trade these years for anything. I am afraid this reply will be written off as just a whiny kid claiming that "I really DO work hard!", seen as justifying the views in your post, but that's not it. I just wanted to pop my head in, because I feel like this post gave a pretty idealized view, undergrads do work pretty damn hard (even if it is not the same level as grad school) and we deserve a little more credit for our efforts than you present here!
(By the way, I also take my own notes. In classes where profs do try to use new technology, it is often much more of a complication that it's worth) ;)
I think there's an old-fogey (perhaps even Luddite) undertone to lots of this commentary about the demise of note-taking. In my observation of undergrads today, it's not so much a demise of *learning* as a shift in habits. Many undergrads I see do indeed just print out their professors' powerpoint slides (which are often on offer)or relisten to lectures and then only afterwards do they make their own notes on the printouts, but that doesn't mean they're not learning how to learn as they (merely?) listen and watch in class.
I would not deride the importance or legitimacy of the auditory mode. Indeed, as an undergrad in the 80s I had such horrific handwriting that I had to make myself switch hands to slow myself down & thus make my writing more legible to myself. While I couldn't *not* take notes (as indeed many kids don't do today), I might actually have gotten more out of some classes if I hadn't been forcing myself to process what was coming into my brain by writing my own responses down immediately. Now as a mature (as the euphemism goes) graduate student who types along to most classes, lectures, presentations, I'm still processing in the (old-fashioned?) write-along way, but the difference for me is that I'm *typing* and what I have in the end is legible and filled with URLs and images, too. --Mimo
It's funny that you say taking notes is most important because I am convinced that the taking of notes is what hinders comprehension more than anything.
The taking of notes pretty much means you're not listening and that you're not actively trying to understand. Instead, you're just copying things down quickly and ineffectively, missing important points along the way.
I am a "senior" grad student (35 year old PhD candidate) and recently made the same (horrific) discovery about how much Things Have Changed. I attended a summer school last year that was 11 days of 9-5 powerpoint lectures (each an hour long) and it became clear that this was the preferred mode of giving a university course. I was horrified. There is no other word for it. I was also exhausted in a way I never have been (in my entire life!) from "learning". I felt like I'd been steam-rolled, and that far, far more material had presented than I could ever hope to assimilate in the time alotted.
I ranted and raved about it for several weeks. This actually turned out to be productive because it was pointed out to me (as is said above) that some people learn best by listening, so for them this is a great improvement--no more need to pretend to take notes, feel bad about not taking notes, or try to take notes and find it hindering. I had never thought much about the variety of learning styles before then.
My concern is that for those of us who learn by the written word (more on this below), we are left with no real options. A lecture given by powerpoint by definition moves at a faster pace than a person can keep up with, meaning there is no way for me to "learn" in class. Just scribbling occasional notes in the margins of a printed slide doesn't do it for me. In college, when I was "in training", I could write nearly verbatim the professors' words using a kind of shorthand I developed over the years. The lectures went at the speed of the explanation. What concerns me is that a lot of students probably don't realize they are learn-by-taking-notes types, and might not discover this when notes are handed out.
A further note about learning by writing--in my case, this is very specific to writing, not typing. Typing is too abstract for me and somehow my brain doesn't process the information. When I've tried to take notes by typing, I come away with nothing (except irritation at how loud my keyboard is). And yes, I still write first drafts of everything on actual paper with an actual pen.
To summarize: People who learn by listening can listen in on old school lectures and new school lectures. People who learn by writing and taking notes are now left with a reduced set of options.
This issue is a huge pet peeve of mine. I've actually been trying to figure out some kind of little study to do on this, because I think the impact on people with different learning styles is pretty profound. I'm concerned about the usage of powerpoint in grade schools. I don't mean to be a luddite, but I do think the questions need to be asked.
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