All Play And No Work

Academics Fall By The Wayside For Today's College Students

(CBS) 
Each semester the procedure is the same; course content often seems promising but rarely actualizes into class sessions that examine the material with the sort of depth that would elevate subject matter from interesting to stimulating. Because students at my university appear to be driven more by career aspirations than they are by serious intellectual curiosity, this results in a "pre-professional" breed.

At other institutions, students' motivations may be different but the pervasive attitude is shared across campuses: time in the classroom is seen as a means to an end; the learning process itself is not seen as inherently valuable and as a result the caliber of class discussion suffers.

Professors also perpetuate the problem (perhaps unknowingly). Sensitive lecturers, all too aware that students are so busy with everything but their courses, are often understanding of this predicament and so this translates into accepting a lot of mediocrity.

Even at institutions that one might suspect attract larger groups of serious academics, the reality is the same – most students just aren't engaged in their disciplines. A friend, a senior at the prestigious Amherst College in Amherst, MA, concurs: "I think the problem exists here: there's a small hardcore [group] of students that really seek to challenge themselves for learning's sake… and they basically number one in ten."

He went on to suggest that while indeed students and professors perpetuate the problem, the nature of what college has become can virtually predict students' lack of focus on academics.

"College is an outmoded concept. The ideal of the past of a college as an institution of learning is extinct. Today, rather, college is a necessary step that one must take to do a huge array of things," he said.

"Instead of the apprenticeship, today we have colleges. Except, unlike the apprenticeship, you hardly learn anything related to your chosen profession in college," he said.

At the end of four years the result is mediocre academics. I'm not admonishing the supplementary experiences students have and suggest we hole up in the library for the duration of college. I am just wondering if perhaps we can harmonize the work and the play a little more and at least try our hands at Soc. 101 – Classical Sociology Theory, to complement our future ambitions.

College is supposed to be a testing ground for ideas, a safe place where students can pursue any intellectual question, lose themselves in alternative lifestyles, and most importantly, experiment. If academic institutions have simply become a convenient name to adorn a diploma, and a venue to sleep at nights in between other activities, then perhaps we should be more honest about that. Instead of misleading future college students, perhaps universities should more appropriately call themselves Hotel – as in the Hotel of Illinois or Emory Hotel.

Jaclyn Schiff is a second semester senior, studying international affairs when she is not at her internship at CBSNews.com.