The Changing Student

The students we find waiting in our classrooms today are very different from those we saw just a few years ago. These students have grown up in a world that has overwhelmed them with information and in an environment that has created a population that sees no value in gaining information simply for the sake of possessing it. The resulting attitude is one of knowing the information is there for the taking whenever it is required so why worry with it now. Growing up in world with a constant bombardment of external stimuli has also given us a generation of students with little patience for reading text or listening to lectures. No value is placed on intellectual pursuits solely for the sake of knowing. They want a sound byte and a quick video clip, which will result in a quick conclusion to the matter at hand. Each course they take is seen as a stand-alone stepping-stone leading to a certificate, which will open the door to employment opportunities. They come to us ill prepared for academic work and may even have a sense of entitlement that says if they just show up at appointed times they will move through the system.

We are seeing a much larger percentage of non-traditional students in our classrooms. By non-traditional we are talking about those students above the age of 25 who have already been in the work force and may have already started a family. Many of these students are either returning to school to complete a degree or to work on a postgraduate degree to help them move up the economic ladder. Others have lost jobs due to a changing economy and are looking to education to prepare them for some other occupation. In years past, these non-traditional students were among the best because they had seen the value of education in the real world, but today many instructors are reporting that this is no longer the case. They may feel bitter for having to start over again and resent that they are not seen as having value in the work place without some sort of certification. Since most of them are working and supporting a family, they expect their education to work around these other obligations. Education is seen as just another thing on a long checklist of things they need to do and not as a long-term investment for the future.

With both groups of students, the result is students who are not really engaged in the learning process. They do not comprehend the necessity of taking what has been learned in one course and carrying it over to other courses or to the next level of study.

Much of the above may be seen as an entirely negative overview of the current crop of students in the higher education today, but not everything about the students of today is bad. They are very intelligent and have some very altruistic characteristics. They have grown up in a world that is vastly different than most of us were familiar with from our days as students. They process information differently and have a different approach to problems they confront when compared to past generations.