The start of the new term brings not just new students and qualifying exams, but another round of introspection and soul-searching among the academic set. Which is a good thing for lazy bloggers, because it provokes lots of interesting articles to link to...
First up is the always interesting Timothy Burke, who is concerned about last year's students:
Right around September, a lot of last year's graduates from liberal arts colleges are discovering that they appear to be qualified for approximately none of the jobs that they might actually want to have. There are exceptions: students who have graduated with very strong, specific technical competencies (usually science and engineering majors) tend to find that there are at least some interesting or financially rewarding jobs to be had.[...]
The problem... is that just about every Cool Job that appeals to folks with interests in the humanities and social sciences seems completely impossible to obtain. When you quiz people you know who have Cool Jobs, they seem to have gotten them in ways that are utterly impossible to duplicate-they were in the right place at the right time, or had a good social/familial network, or had a mentor that they happened to click with. The stuff you see in the newspaper want ads, for the most part, is the Nasty Leftovers.
Actually, this isn't a whole lot better in the science and engineering fields. The Nasty Leftover jobs pay better, but the people with Cool Jobs still seem to have gotten them through some weirdly fortuitous combination of random factors. One of the weird things about this blogging gig is that I've started getting more emails from people asking for career advice. I try to respond to them, but I never feel like I'm being all that helpful, because I'm sort of puzzled as to how I ended up with a Cool Job (for some values of Cool). Some of my undergraduate professors have to be absolutely baffled by my having a faculty job at all.
Moving on, there's an interesting piece at Inside Higher Ed by a professor whose students keep sharing too much (more below the fold):
A student asks me what I am doing this weekend. I respond, "I am going on a date." "Where," he asks? I answer coolly, "Dinner," not wanting to provide details. He responds, "First you sleep with her; then take her out to dinner and get to know her." As a college professor in Portland, Ore., I encounter this candor all the time.
This student is not alone in sharing his views. He and his cohorts are neither cynical nor angry; that myth has been perpetuated by pseudo-intellectual, 40-something bloggers and pop sociologists who think that their anomie is also ours; we yuppies, sadly, have bought the bloggers' angst -- hook, line and sinker.
We shouldn't.
Students' absence of boundaries today alarms us. They casually talk about and experience drugs and sex the way we talk about laundry detergent and books. Their openness is at times inappropriate, but in their willingness to disclose, today's youth are sharing their ambivalences and ambitions.
I haven't gotten coarse dating advice from any of my students, but there have definitely been quite a few moments where I got Too Much Information. No, I'm not going to blog about it-- that would be crass. Let's just say that the article strikes a chord, and leave it at that.
I tend to find this stuff more entertaining than outrageous, largely because my own college experience wasn't all that different from what students talk about. But it is occasionally awkward, especially as somebody without tenure.
On a less weighty topic, Ms. Dr. Prof. Janet Stemwedel, Ph.D. is wondering what her students should call her:
OK, it's the time of the semester when I get a bazillion emails from students enrolled in my classes, and students trying to enroll in my classes, and assorted others. And, the emailers each choose a manner of address out of thin air, since usually they haven't met me yet and have no idea how I prefer to be addressed.
The problem is, I'm not sure how I would prefer to be addressed!
She's soliciting input from the audience. Somehow, I don't think that "J-Stem" is going to win out, but you can go over there and offer suggestions.
Personally, I don't worry that much about what students call me. Weirdly, "Mr. Orzel" makes me a little twitchy, in an elitist I-spent-six-years-in-evil-graduate-school kind of way. Also, "Mr. Orzel" is either my father (who I had for sixth grade language arts) or my uncle (who I had for high school social studies). But I'm OK with "Prof. Orzel, " "Dr. Orzel," or "Chad."
The strange thing is how much this varies from one student to another. Some freshmen come in and immediately jump to the first name, while there are other students I've had for four years who still call me "Professor" all the time. I've even had students call me "Professor Orzel" during a pick-up basketball game...
- Log in to post comments
They don't call you Dr. Oilcan?
I feel soooo let down.
I guess 'sir' is right out, then?
I have the same probelm with names. I much prefer "Brian" as Dr. Postow is one of my parents, Professor Postow is my aunt, etc. But what REALLY bothers me is when students just call me "professor" without any name. 2 collegues of mine were in the dept office one day when a student came in and said "Professor, Professor, Chris." as a way of greating us. All three of us have the exact same title. The difference seems to be that Chris has a plastic shark that he threatens his students with if they don't refer to him by first name...
It seems to work. Go figure.
But what REALLY bothers me is when students just call me "professor" without any name.
A colleague in Political Science said he deals with this by responding "Yes, Student?" Of course, his goal is just to get to "Professor Lastname," which is probably easier than getting all the way to a first-name basis.
That "sharing too much" article strikes me as full of shit, insofar as it's a "kids these days!" piece. I bet there were people exactly like that back when geezers like you were in college. It's just that 1) when you're a student yourself, you don't see inappropriate conversation, because very little is actually inappropriate between fellow youngsters, and 2) you may have been less likely to hang around the people with no sense of social sensibility.
Or else kids these days really are uniquely different in all those ways that are echoed in articles for decades or centuries at a time.
I totally anticipated the Kozlowski response to the "sharing too much" article. Go me.
The article doesn't reflect my experience in any way, but I am eternally atypical. I know of a lot of people who remind me of that article a bit, though.
Names: I just sat here and thought about it for a few minutes, and I can't think of a single instance where I've addressed a professor by either title or name. I usually just establish eye contact and start talking.
I totally anticipated the Kozlowski response to the "sharing too much" article. Go me.
The article doesn't reflect my experience in any way, but I am eternally atypical. I know of a lot of people who remind me of that article a bit, though.
Names: I just sat here and thought about it for a few minutes, and I can't think of a single instance where I've addressed a professor by either title or name. I usually just establish eye contact and start talking.
I'm a bit similar in that I rarely use peoples' names or titles in conversation. This mostly has to do with the way I have a really bad time with faces: I figure that if I never address anyone by name, I won't be expected to address them by name the next time I run into them in a hallway and fail to recognize them. This carries over into conversations with people who I recognize by some other means (usually mannerisms) just so I don't get accused of being inconsistent.
Sorry about the formatting there. I meant to italicize the first three paragraphs, but oh well, dunno what happened.
Mike: That "sharing too much" article strikes me as full of shit, insofar as it's a "kids these days!" piece. I bet there were people exactly like that back when geezers like you were in college. It's just that 1) when you're a student yourself, you don't see inappropriate conversation, because very little is actually inappropriate between fellow youngsters, and 2) you may have been less likely to hang around the people with no sense of social sensibility.
No, you misunderstand.
The problem isn't students "sharing too much" with each other, the problem is students sharing too much with faculty.
I definitely hung around with people who shared way too much information about their personal habits when I was in college (and, hell, you know me from Usenet, which wasn't exactly lacking in virtual exhibitionists). What the author of that piece is talking about, though, is students telling the same stuff to their faculty advisors, which is a different thing entirely.
As a fellow student, well, I'm always in the market for an amusing story. As a faculty member, though, there are some things I'm really better off not knowing.
Other Mike: Names: I just sat here and thought about it for a few minutes, and I can't think of a single instance where I've addressed a professor by either title or name. I usually just establish eye contact and start talking.
What do you do if they're looking the other way? Or reading a magazine? Do you, like, run around in front of them, or wave your hand in front of the page until they look up?
No, I understand what they're saying. I'm saying, back when you were a student, you didn't really get a close view of what people were telling faculty (which was probably about the same).
What do you do if they're looking the other way? Or reading a magazine? Do you, like, run around in front of them, or wave your hand in front of the page until they look up?
I usually either knock on something (mostly applicable if I'm walking into an office or something), just start talking, or wait until they look up.
I probably wouldn't interrupt someone who was reading a magazine or something like that, though.
No, I understand what they're saying. I'm saying, back when you were a student, you didn't really get a close view of what people were telling faculty (which was probably about the same).
True.
But I do get to hear from faculty who have been doing this for a long time, and a lot of them say the same sort of thing. People who have been teaching for fifteen or twenty years are really boggled by some of the things current students will come out and say.