I really don't understand why things are so different than "back then", as all I can think of is that there was no social media in the 70's and STD's would not kill you. There were drugs, there was drink, lots of music and the remnants of getting one's ass shot off in SE Asia. Same courses (Shakespere, Calculus, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, History, ...), same experience of going from a sheltered home life to unsupervised time often in the big city. Where it was up to me to schedule my time and handle my required events.
What am I missing that makes things so different and so difficult today? This isn't meant as snark, merely that I didn't have kids and I'm really curious as to why there's such a generational difference.
I fully understand how individuals can crash and burn as they did it then as well.
Everything has become far more competitive and it is now far easier to crash and burn. I had a professor recently be disappointed that I only have a 3.9 GPA because that meant they'd have less funding if I was to do research for them. Thankfully it didn't matter because I couldn't justify foregoing a well paid internship for that position. This is at a university with very little grade inflation - in many classes the average is a D among those who don't drop out in a department with a sub 20% undergrad graduation rate.
At the same time if you want to get ahead in many fields you'll be expected to do 20-40 hours of unpaid work a week, while maintaining crazy high averages. Outside of STEm you often also have to get pretty high academic standards if you ever want to actually use your education. And if you fail out with accumulated student debt where applicable, that's a massive setback that might mean you permanently miss out on financial milestones.
At the same time, the internet doesn't forget, so it's also a lot easier to permanently crash and burn socially.
One anecdote about increasing competitiveness: some paths to phd sciences involve now “post bac”. You spend a few years after your bachelors working in a research lab to get your name on a paper and a reference letter to get you into a top PhD program.
This postbac, coupled with longer postdocs and tougher tenure track, mean the academic path is getting harder and harder to realise.
Getting a job right after your PhD is by definition an entry level job — it will be a first one (and it will pay poorly, unless you are going to quant finance — and you can go there without a PhD too).
So getting a PhD to get a better job makes nearly zero sense. You only need one if you plan to stay in the academia (I do, but it will be extremely hard).
This is a little odd. There are at least three top-level comments here wondering why anything should be different now from how it was "back in the day", as if that were what the article is about.
But the article doesn't appear to suggest that anything has changed. In fact it says things were much the same when the author was at university in the 80s.
It's a short, sympathetic comment piece that seems to be intended as a kindness to people who are about to start at university for the first time, surely that's all.
Pace of work, expectations. I got a 2.ii. 79-82 and have worked non-stop including in academia. It's impossible to progress in academia beyond the trivial level without a PhD now. My dad was a full tenured head of department and professor with no PhD. (UK Professor, not US 'any teacher is a professor') -that was just becoming less likely. Now? its functionally impossible unless you have somebody magic like Musk doing a side-gig.
Your past is un-erasable. My time in Uni included many things I leave behind me. I can name-drop the UK comic who could have been "sent down" for keeping a York University duck in a cardboard box under his bed, which is luckily (for him) undocumented. Animal cruelty? he'd be in deep shit with the BBC. Or the politician's son arrested for minor dope offenses. Now? Its on tiktok forever. You really cannot progress in some fields (politics) if you enjoy university as much as I did.
My Uni experience was fully funded by the state. The state did not demand repayment, and arts was fine. Have fun. Now? the likelihood of a debt you can't service for a poor choice of subject is very real.
Truly it's NOT the same course. My field, comp sci, only existed as a part degree at the start of my course and was full degree by the end, we had 10 students and tutorials were 2-to-1 (2 students to one lecturer) and we complained it wasn't the oxbridge experience of 1-to-1. It's simply not comparable to the experience of learning in a modern university. The complexity of the field was tiny by comparison.
Eng lit was somewhat the same, still stuck in "modern means 17thC onwards but stops at 1871" but now, eng lit comes with trigger warnings. You can't read half the canon because it's racist or classist or sexist.
Also, the gigs were better. But I digress..
Some of it was "we were the top 10%" so it was already ordained we'd be future leaders. Now, 75% of the age group go to uni, and it means less for probably more work.
I respect any modern student. I would seriously doubt I would do well in a modern university context.
yes, much of the drink/drugs/partaaaaty was the same. And learning to cook. I would argue we paid less % of our stipend as rent, significantly less. I survived 3 years on unemployment benefits including having my rent paid over summer. I know students now who are functionally homeless and live in squalor out of a car and eat ramen every day.
TL;DR the expectations on the modern cohort ARE higher than most postwar 1950s/1960s/1970s graduates. Perhaps the modern cohort is closer to the post WW1 who had to live with not having fought and died, and had very high expectations placed on them (especially women)
I count myself as extremely lucky that I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I posted on Usenet before realizing the implications of the Internet being a permanent record. That was sometime around 1990 while I was in grad school.
It was still possible to get a job as a programmer after taking one course, and knowing a single language well, but not any libraries, OS's, or frameworks.
Most of my usenet stupidity, and the flame wars which got me chucked off JANET mailgroup for a month (along with another person who now is a reasonably senior policy advisor on UK internet policy) got lost when Google decided usenet history was boring and deleted the archives they'd acquired from the previous hoarders on tape.
If you were "stupid" before 1987, you are probably safe. In the 88-92 window it's a mixed bag and after 95, you may never escape your mistakes.
> now, eng lit comes with trigger warnings. You can't read half the canon because it's racist or classist or sexist.
This is a gross misrepresentation both of what trigger warnings are for and what the actual relationship of undergraduates and courses to the texts are. And it's undoubtedly based on nonsense coming out of a very small number of American universities.
Cambridge have gone freestyle: https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/cours... "Uniquely, we do not have a syllabus: instead, students work with their supervisors to devise a programme of study for themselves. There are few English departments left in the world that allow you to study the full historical range of literature in English, and we pride ourselves on the strong grounding this gives our students."
"In the first two years of your degree, you cover the full historical sweep of literature written in the English language from the medieval period to the present day" - this sounds like a really large amount of work!
So what you're saying is I exaggerated for effect? Undeniable.
Do you think a modern 2020s student experience is like mine, or yours? I think it's both harder (higher expectations, more course width) and potentially lower value (increased competition) and arguably less fun.
Aside from pointing out my hyperbole, what do you think to the primary question?
Well played. And yes. I doubt he even remembers. Hassling the ducks on the lake is one of the 'you will be sent down' tickboxes now. If you can find the Tory ministers son, you get full marks.
Some people go to university because they have one goal in mind, and want to achieve that - at all costs.
I dormed, and went to school clubs with a few students that saw Uni. as their ticket to riches and prestige. They’d aim for tech, banking, law, and similar jobs which require a minimum 3.5 GPA where I live.
For them, this often meant all work and no fun. Staying in the reading halls late on weekends, prioritizing grades, internships, club positions, etc. over everything.
Ironically, some of these would often lament over the “easy” majors just fucking around, sounding bitter and jealous, while trying to come off as superior. (The worst being some of my engineering peers).
I had a great time. Grew a lot, found new interests, lived life, and met a lot of different people. I was definitely a bit too ambitious as a freshman, at the cost of the “student experience”.
Didn’t get the grades I expected, and decided to just relax and have more fun.
Surprisingly the grades didn’t drop too much, so I managed to maintain over the minimum level for some of the jobs I wanted. And I ended up working alongside some of those 4.0 students, as there are many ways to land the same jobs.
School is what you make out of it. Finding your place can take time…yes, some people are lucky with finding their gang, clique, place, etc. pretty fast. For others it can take a much longer time.
I’m looking at going back now,
Probably older than the average student, and on one hand I don’t have any of the typical temptations/distractions and no exactly what I want Tom get from it.
Unfortunately, everything about the institution assumes you’re a barely out of high school kid who’s groomed themselves for university life.
For some people, focusing on good grades can be a fun and fulfilling student experience as well. I believe this highly competitive environment made me a lot more resilient to stress and taught me to manage my time effectively. If not at uni (when most people have few other obligations), when else should you learn this?
To each his own, but I sincerely hope people use their college/university years to experiment and try out new things - and don't solely focus on grades, at the expense of everything else.
For most, it's the first time they're on their own - and last stop before professional life starts. When one door opens, another door closes.
This is about British culture. While I never spent time at UK schools, my impression has been that expectations of active social life are greater in the UK than in the USA. That said, the attitude he describes seems similar to the popular idea of university life in pre-baby boom USA.
If you simultaneously enforce on the younger generation the idea that a) you must be successful and b) you cannot be allowed to to undertake any remotely risky activity or think for yourself it's not surprising that the first time they have to manage themselves they struggle
Oh! This connects some dots for me. THAT'S where most of this anxiety is coming from.
By driving risk out of kids lives even small risks feel like a life or death situation. And without getting used to them as a kid it's paralyzing because mistakes can cost you a job or car or home.
And to a lesser extent making success/excellence required just doubles down on all of that.
I keep seeing articles reminding us how hard various things are for young people and keep asking myself, "Who ever said it wouldn't be hard? Being young is hard. Life is hard." But obviously someone is saying this or it wouldn't be a thing, right? The author himself admits to implying it to his kid.
Is it generational? I could see how for example, boomers and gen-X, who grew up in relatively good times (in the USA, at least) could be conveying higher expectations to their kids while the older generations (Silent and Greatest) could have been more cautious about assuming things would be good.
My parents lived through the great depression and WWII. Their attitude was not "things will be great!" It was more like, "If you're diligent and frugal and focus on what's important, you can be happy, but shit could go bad at any time so keep your eyes open!" [Edit: they both went to college and grad school, btw, but their attitude was that you go there and work hard, and if you do well it'll be fun sometimes.]
But I don't think these attitudes transfer through generations. I'm wondering if I've given my teen unrealistic expectations about being happy, just because I've been fairly happy. I've tried to take the attitude that she shouldn't sweat it when things don't go great because that happens to everyone and we can get through it. But maybe she interpreted that as, "It's not really normal for things to be hard, so if they're hard for me, it must be my fault."
The right hardship is likely to pay. But only in hindsight can we look back and say what the right hardship was, and that's the tricky part. However, enduring the exact same hardships your earlier generations endured because it worked for them has never paid. Fortune has always favoured those who do something new and different.
I always wonder why most of UK and US colleges work like boarding schools, with on-site living. Obviously it is expensive! Just like boarding schools.
Most of universities in continental Europe are simply buildings scattered through the city. You can stay with your parents or rent cheaply, and this is the main reason why education costs here were never a problem.
I remember taking an entry exam for university back in my home country. A few hundred people in a boiler room. It was brutally hard. I probably failed.
No one complained.
You just got up off your butt, dusted off the shame and studied harder.
Everyone with the complaining these days.
Of course university is supposed to be hard. To weed out the lazy people. It’s supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy.
What now? Push for easier grading? More gender studies degrees so no matter how the exams turn out your answer is always right?
What am I missing that makes things so different and so difficult today? This isn't meant as snark, merely that I didn't have kids and I'm really curious as to why there's such a generational difference.
I fully understand how individuals can crash and burn as they did it then as well.