A comment on "The average college student today. How things have changed" by Hilarius Bookbinder

It takes two to tango…

It takes two to tango…

I do not authorize psychological nor psychiatric formulations, interpretations nor diagnosis, etc. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice nor advice of any kind.

Not trying to steer the pot, this of yours is a great piece, but it seems Universities in the US are doing what they are supposed to be doing, you explained they are supposed to stay open for the good Students. So, I assume a thing to do over achievement is just to stay open, just in case good Students can´t get credentials on their own, or somewhere else.

In México for around more than an decade and a half we have a Bachelor degree giving program by just passing one single exam, in two parts, that all University students, I guess soon or already done, must pass too. It is called the EGEL from CENEVAL.

From what I gathered, originally it was meant for those with working experience and an unfinished degree.

Some degrees require formal attendance for 1-2yrs, like Medicine. And all degrees require Social Service: 6 months to a year after graduation of Community/Governmental work for the benefit of the common good, right... to be given the title, and in some cases the License.

So, Administratively we Mexicans have choices, obviously it misses the Socialization, but from the goon use, it can be done alone, no need for other people to be physically present...

I did not know that, I guessed Frat Parties were the thing.

Also, since my guess Labor Productivity has not decreased nor has impacted negatively Economic Growth in the US, apparently, it might be Students and Employers are actually working according to Market Rules: it works baby.

Both make adaptations and markets, I guess, I am not an Economists, do work like that. But it could be market signaling, asymmetries of information are not being transmitted to prospective or already College Students: a lot study things with low employability or low wages.

It happens in my Country, around a decade and a Half ago our President Calderón did try to convince, induce?, lead Universities to not have as many Lawyers, Architects and Physicians as they put out. Among others. It was a Noble effort of him, and his Human Rights changes to our Constitution too, honor were honor is due…

I checked official statistics from the Secretariat of Economy and 90% of Architects do Dog Care Work in México, according to the US-MEX-CAN treaty classification of economic activity when it was the 90s treaty. It had definitions...

Eighty percent of Lawyers do not do Law. There were several others, that its just a sample.

When I was a teen it was common knowledge Bachelors did a lot of cabby work, even Masters and PhDs did. Now perhaps even in the US are gig workers, taxi licenses are expensive…

But Musicians did Music 95% of the time, and Actors and Actresses in around 85-90% actually Act/Perform. Dancers were around such high percentage, don´t know what kind of dance though.

Per those incomes, averages, they all earned the same, then around 1-2 minimum wages, across the board for many graduates, it was amazing to see it, showing to me an efficient market?, I guess, whatever you do in the long run earns the same.

And the minimal value of minimum wages: survival of the workers...

Except Musicians and Actors/Actresses worked less hours and were more involved in Touristic sectors. And Actors/Actresses did earn a little less and worked a little less… “Not much work to go around” (From I Claudius from the BBC).

I did not search Philosophers, it might be interesting.

But at the same time University Guilds, University associations like the ANUIES reported around thrice such income, it has done regularly for years if not decades, but I am not sure for how long.

A big, huge disparity in two statistics about the same thing: average income of College graduate workers with the same degree. ANUIES is a private NGO for Private Universities in México, but still, come one!.

My guess promotional statistics ignore under or unemployment that the Secretariat of Economy can correct, I guess, I found evidence on that dispersed and incomplete in another Governmental site.

For instance from the Department of Labor, in México, per year there are around 1,000 new Architect Jobs, our biggest University, per my accounting, I found no single number, I had to add their different sites, admits around 1,100 students for a Bachelor in Architecture.

So, obviously, from all Universities in México the Architect graduates must be multiples of a 1,000, so most will not work as Architects, congruous with the 90% of them caring, bathing and walking dogs, and it does support Guild promotional Wages are False. At least in Architecture...

• So a reasonable guess, assuming equilibrium, 9 out of 10 Architecture Bachelor Graduates in México care for dogs, somehow, and probably cats too, they are way more loving and lovely. And assuming some more, there are 10,000 Architecture Bachelor Graduates each year in México, more or less. A lot of assumptions, but it takes digging and maybe not all Data is there to confirm…

If that were the case, that whatever College Graduate skills are it has no impact on their productivity, the implications for Qualified Human Labor although prima facie surprising are nothing new: Shitty jobs.

It kind of makes sense to me, and perhaps to other people about the Economic Value of College and upper Education.

And if Universities presence becomes an end on itself, or of itself?, then it makes sense alternatives like the EGEL from CENEVAL will not be available for US persons. Right?.

As a personal note, since I wrote this far, I know all of this because I was planning to take the EGEL to receive a Bachelor in History, as it happened there was a wave of Plagiarism exposures in Academia and a significant some were History Faculty.

So I refuse, and still do to be assigned a Topic to develop and be evaluated on performance, like defending a Thesis, by some "Professor" that could be an unknown plagiarist. Imagine if I dared to check and it turned out to be true!.

At least it would have given me the obligation to report my to be Evaluator!?.

So, I stopped attempting to do that for Moral and Legal Reasons. It seems a legal risk to me…

In the 90s I was a medical student.

During my Bachelor in Medicine I saw one student drawing a heart, a human heart for anatomy lessons as a current emoji of a heart...

A few, few years ago, where I studied, overall since there are at least three places since the 90s, admitted 1 in 75 students, most were rejected. I don´t know in my times though.

Whilst the Bachelor in Piano from the same University, the biggest one in México, had places left untaken for at least some years…

And while I was at UCSF between 1998 to 2001 I met one now Faculty at some northeastern university in the US who was my TA, who was under the wing as Faculty there of a famous Organic Chemistry professor, and my TA, ignorant of how, what and why Medicine works, until today, I guess, expressed the idea, erroneous from my experience, that to filter inappropriate students for Medicine, somehow Organic Chemistry was a good filter.

It is not, those two Folks obviously don´t know which skills it takes to be a Physician, and apparently they felt confident enough in their ignorance to become sort of self appointed filters, like if they knew what learning and doing Medicine actually takes.

He, my previous TA and his whatever professor featured in an article in the NYT sputtering their Ideology still as of last year?, I guess?, because the Senior Professor was, apparently, asked to leave by failing a lot of Students.

This piece of narrative I think is relevant because it shows College Education has other uses than teaching and learning, filtering is one that should not be there. Who and why came up with Organic Chemistry must be a filter for Medical School?.

What were the Legal Basis for such decision, for instance?, mere Belief?. Without Experience?, or from narrated Experience of US Physicians that are buddy buddies?. Culture was argued, but don´t let School interfere with your Education…

And I questioned then my then TA, to no avail, it was like talking to a Parrot, despite he was good, not terrific in Math, my High School mates, specially from the Math club were way better than him.

On that, as another personal note I can claim what my Calculus in High School mates learned, teaching each other under the supervision of an Experienced professor, our loved professor, was better than what I saw was achievable in Calculus lessons for first year College Students from the Videolectures of Profesor Mattuck.

Our professor said we were crazy, literally he said that, but still, 30 HS students in one room being outstanding in a Public School?, let´s get cereal…

So, it seems a valid caveat that US college education is not worth copying anywhere else in the World. And probably their textbooks don´t either and you might have suggested why: You have to somehow water them down.

To compare, our Euclidean Geometry professor in High School wrote his own book, which he sold from the back compartment, the trunk?, of his car, and it was superb, I have not since found a better one and I looked for it a lot in Mexican Libraries, where, unlike the US ones, like Borders, or Barnes and Noble in San Francisco between 1998-2001, they had a lot of College/High School Books on Math, and still there was none to found.

The best I could find in San Francisco in Math were too specialized and belonged to the Yellow Books series from Springer on Math. Hardly the place because most books available covered higher math courses: probability, cryptography, topology and the like.

Take this personally, but not too hard, and it might extend to your College Colleagues, I will read some of your links, I need to get this done, I might correct latter as needed, but it seems you have no useful context to narrate what you are seeing.

Nothing new there, just by being a College Professor with decades of experience does not give what Nature did not gave: the ability to find relevant information to explain how the World is, and how it works. Apparently, not even as a collective…

That, which Education as per the dictum, cannot give:

• “Quod natura non dat, Salmantica non præstat“

Now, I am not saying this to offend you or your colleagues, assuming it fits them, but broaderly (sic) it seems even the Selection of College professor and their training/updating/skills/permanence is way also at Fault in College Education in the US.

Employers need Bodies and Universities College Professors, it fits, it works baby!, productivity has not suffered, markets work, and everyone behaves accordingly…

And to try to land it: If College Students see no value in learning Philosophy beyond getting a Degree, if they see learning in College as a filter for example to get a Job after Graduation, and Universities behave accordingly then it works Baby!…

Nostalgia…

I am, perhaps, trying to present another perspective, as a balance, wishfully, and it suits my narrative: things work as they are supposed to work. Not clearly stated, but it is inferable from what I narrated, I think…

I do wonder, was utilitarianism a concept used or known, even available to Dostoevsky?. Specially as we know Utilitarianism today?.

Can´t you test students on paraphrasing or predicting to reflect understanding?. What would Raskólnikov do if this was the case?, you can generate, I guess a lot of scenarios, and perhaps the implementation of a LLM might fail at prediction, it is considered a life characteristic, even humble spider hunting spiders can do that, but perhaps not a machine…

Thanks.

Federico Soto del Alba.