Scenes from Academia

[brigdh]

Everyone warned me that I would be incredibly shocked at the, let us say, uneducated state of the average undergraduate in my class. I was prepared for this.

Still... how does anyone not know where Tasmania is? And not when asked randomly, but when looking at a map of Australia!

Comments

[beemerbike.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. This is what happens when children are coddled in the suburbs with play-dates and nannies and 'No child left behind' drummed into their heads.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah. At least many of them were appropriately embarrassed at not knowing.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It is! But, unfortunately for hope for human kind, very few people in it are freshmen.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Nah, not really bad., I was just amused that, after hearing so many horrible stories, I encountered something similar on the first day.

But... wow. Those stories are awful and incredible. I weep for the people involved.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

I'll take your Tasmania and raise you fifty. "Why are the dates going backwards?" when a student in my Exploring the Bible class was confronted with a timeline of Egypt. Also, a question asked of me while I was working the front desk at the library, by a ninth grader. "I need to know who dropped the atomic bomb on Japan during WW II." Me: "Do you need the plane? Crew member names? That's kinda a weird question, because, well there's not one person in particular responsible completely for that..." Him: "Oh no, I just need the country." Me: gaping like a fish.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, my god. Wow. So, what did the kid say when you told him it was America?