From WSJopinion: In this week’s Future View column, students discuss rigor in college classes
There seems to be a growing divide among students in how they view their education. Many are happy to take the easiest road, with little consideration of how that may later affect them. The case of Maitland Jones, the New York University professor who was fired after a student petition alleged his organic-chemistry course was too hard, is a great loss for the university—and all of academia, since he is the man who wrote the standard textbook on organic chemistry. Mr.
While it’s easy to point fingers at lazy students or hypercritical professors, the problem lies with the system itself. As students, we should want to push ourselves academically and take classes that challenge us. It’s often said that we learn best from our failures, but the current system penalizes us for such failures. Poor grades now mean that our law-school application is denied in favor of students who maximized their GPAs with easy electives.
I once received some advice from a professor that puts the problem in perspective: “If you come to class and understand 30% to 40% of the lecture, that’s normal. Understanding comes from filling in the rest with tutoring, reading the book, study groups and homework.” That advice has served me well in my education. If these students found managing the demands of organic chemistry hard, wait until med school.
To be sure, some form of weeding-out is necessary, since not everyone who wants to become a doctor should be one, and there are limited seats in medical school. The problem is that performance in an organic-chemistry course might not be a much better indicator than performance in Latin or Greek. Understanding the subject in depth simply isn’t useful in medical school or practice.
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