older than average student
Unlike the other melo contributors I am not gainfully employed, but instead am nearing the end of the first year of a master's program. I enjoy life as a 40 year old student, although there have been moments when I've felt very old. This is my second time through graduate school, the first time ending with a PhD in chemistry. When I began my program last September I had been out of school for 13 years, and it had been 22 years since I began my undergraduate studies. Keeping in mind that memories are not nearly as accurate as we'd like to believe, my melo advent will consist of my thoughts on what has changed on campus since the late 80's.
It goes without saying that the younger generation is wired. Wow, are they wired. Wireless, actually. I'm hardly a luddite but I was stunned to observe the nearly-constant texting, IM-ing, chatting, facebook-browsing and general universal connectivity. In fact, the most consistent complaint that I hear from my classmates is that there are insufficient numbers of outlets in the classrooms, and the lighting is bad for viewing a laptop monitor. One class was held in a decrepit old university building that lacked Wi-Fi. The horror! Frankly, if I were a professor my classroom would be a laptop-free zone. While access to google or wikipedia is occasionally useful, the amount of note-taking that gets done on laptops is minimal. Even more shocking to me is just how blatant students are about using chat during lectures. There's no effort to be discreet and professors are much more tolerant than I would expect.
A positive side to all of this new information technology and a clear difference from my first time through college is the ease of research that is facilitated by the incredible availability of information. I believe that this is the single most significant difference; I never go to library. Instead I'm able to do my research from home, at any crazy hour of the day or night. And then I send my completed assignment to the professor via email. For someone who formerly took notes and made photocopies from bound collections of journals that were stored in the bowels of the library, and then typed a paper (remember typewriters?) this is a remarkable and wonderful change. My background as a scientist exposed me to many specialized databases, and for me the amazing range of information sources provided by the university is a great big wonderful information playground. This brings up another generational difference; many of my classmates believe that searching = google. It drives me crazy when I work with them on group projects. They're ignoring an unbelievable resource, one that is far better than they'll ever have in the corporate world. In fact I had a long discussion with one of my professors about this topic. She felt that in spite of the availability of information that the average quality of academic work has declined as a result of indiscriminate use of google.
And then there's the issue of grade inflation. It does appear to be real, although after experiencing it I don't think that it matters much. In my program it is nearly impossible to get a grade lower than 3.0. However, in order to maintain good standing with the graduate school, all grades must be 3.0 or higher, so a 2.9 is effectively a failing grade. In spite of the fact that the grade range is compressed between 3.0 and 4.0 the ranking of students remains legitimate. Additionally, if anything I've found it more difficult to get a 4.0 than it was back in the 80's. As far as I've observed, 4.0's have been reserved for truly exceptional work. A related issue is that of workload and expectations. There's no question that my current program feels easier than my work as a chemistry PhD student. However, the disciplines are quite different so I'm not sure that a comparison is completely valid. All of my, ahem, life experience does seem to be good for something, too, as I clearly am able to work more efficiently than most of my younger classmates. On the other hand, on several occasions I have been surprised at how accommodating professors are when students have come forward with (at least in my opinion) quite lame reasons for needing extensions or regrading of an assignment.
Ubiquitous information technology has dramatically changed academic life and I believe that this is the single most significant difference between my university experiences. Professors also appear to be generally more accommodating of student's desires than they were in the past and perhaps the expectations are lower. However, something that never changes is that as a student you get out of your studies what you put into it. Some of my classmates appreciate this fact, and some of them don't. As one who didn't appreciate it back in 1988 I can't judge them too harshly.
