TrueUnpopularOpinion

This is a generalization, to a degree. As a university professor, I've seen a steep decline the academic quality of college freshmen for the past 10 years. The culture has changed significantly. A recent conference I attended statistically pointed this out as well.

The issue isn't intelligence. The current generation of college freshmen is extremely bright, but they appear to have four weaknesses that hold them back from success.

1. They lack critical thinking skills. I believe this is because they were raised with access to any given information at any given time. An answer is a Google search away and there is no reason to evaluate it any further. They seem to be great at answering "what," "when" and "where" questions but terrible at answering "why" and to some degree "how" questions. In other words, "The answer is the answer," nothing more matters and no further thought is required.

2. Flexibility to tolerate things they aren't interested in. It is extremely common, in my experience, for students to skip assignments they find uninteresting, but to become highly engaged in the assignments they find interesting. Unfortunately, not all course work can be enjoyable. This also encompasses attendance.

3. The belief that no matter what happens, things will just work out. Since Covid, the number of students who will turn in absolutely no course work or very little has tripled (I don't have the source at hand). The belief is that "I attended some classes, so I should pass," "I turned in some work, so I should pass," etc. This isn't how things work. Another interesting thing, that is somewhat relevant, is that we can see everything a student does on Blackboard or Canvas. We can see what they click on, when they click on it, etc. This generation has a stark divide between students who obsessively check their grades and those who never do, with the latter group growing.

4. There is no passion for university. It's just the pursuit of a piece of paper which will ultimately mean less than the experience and connections you're supposed to develop. This is more of societal issue that older generations, have created.

5. EDIT: This one I initially forgot. Students aren't taught the skills to develop or identify the skills they're missing. Often then just want instructions on how to do something and find no interest in the journey to find the answer. This often leads to students not able to substantiate their opinions and arguments.

Now, I'm not putting down the younger generation. They're extremely passionate about things that are important to them. Somewhere, society failed them. We either failed raising them, educating them and/or preparing them to take the first steps of adulthood.

Feel free to disagree, as much of this is speculation, but this has been quite the topic in conferences and meetings this year.

TL;DR The current generation shouldn't chase a piece of paper if that's not what they want to do as they won't get the experience that they need to make use of it.

Edit: spelling

I also apparently cannot spell compatible. Enjoy the laugh!