My wife is an adjunct professor at a college. She teaches online classes in finance, economics, and an intro course in the Microsoft Office suite. The Microsoft class is a good one, because the state of Florida requires one semester of computer education in order to graduate, so there are a lot of students who take those classes.
The policies of the courses are set by the college. Every professor has the same policy- no late work is allowed, no cheating, etc. This is to make sure that the lessons are the same for everyone to ensure consistency.
The class covers a different program every few weeks: Office, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. The assignments go as follows: they are taught how to use the features of the program, then are given a file that they have to make edits to. The edits that they must make are spelled out, the student then makes those edits, saves the file, and turns it in to the professor. The file has a digital watermark to ensure that students aren’t merely sharing the file and turning in each other’s work. They have two weeks to complete the assignment- it’s due on Sunday night at midnight.
In her Microsoft class, she has 90 students. The first assignment was due at the end of the second week, consisting of making 25 edits to an Excel Spreadsheet. It’s an intro class, so the edits aren’t difficult. Still, this is what happened:
- fully 24 of them didn’t turn in the first assignment, and instead sent her an email asking for more time. Because the spreadsheet is being edited in the school’s environment, she can see how they are progressing. 21 of the 24 students didn’t even begin to work on the assignment until the day it was due.
- Five students didn’t turn in an assignment, nor did they bother to message her as to why. They didn’t even attempt to work on it.
- Another 6 students were caught turning in assignments with other students’ watermarks.
- Then there was the student who takes the cake- he sent her an email complaining that he got an A on the first week’s assignment (introduce yourself to the class by posting an intro to the class discussion page), but now has a 23% in the class because he didn’t do the assignment, but that’s not fair because he doesn’t even OWN a PC or a Mac, and it’s not fair to penalize him for being poor and not owning a computer. In an online class about computers, when there are computers free for students to use in the campus library. He complained that the assignments should be able to be completed on a cell phone.
Fully 40% of the students in her classes are failing because they didn’t even TRY to get the assignment done in the two weeks that was allotted for them to complete it.
So my cranky assed wife spent the day dealing with students’ emails about why they didn’t get their work done, and why they are failing her class. For those of you in the workforce- these people are going to be working with you any time now, and this is the work ethic you will be dealing with.
37 Comments
Himself · September 4, 2024 at 7:53 am
I can’t fathom why a college student would have to go to an MS office class. Don’t we spend tons of money for this in high school?
These days, it’s like a class on how to use a pen or pencil. And two weeks for editing a spreadsheet? Good lord, that’s an hour’s time. I’d argue these are skills they should’ve had before being admitted to college.
That said, they all should fail. One, because it’s a teachable moment about the real world, and two, because they should’ve knocked it out the day they got the assignment.
I blame the high schools. They give all sorts of extra chances. My kids school did. They’ve become accustomed to mulligans. They think they deserve them.
Himself · September 4, 2024 at 8:03 am
I suspect this is typical with the start of the fall semester. Freshmen figuring out actions or inactions have consequences.
That said, I used to teach technical training courses and had students that were like this. Only I would get to tell them it didn’t matter to me whether they got certified or not. I was there to present the course. Your company paid $3K plus travel, plus a week off work for this. They’ll have the problem, not me.
I’d probably give them a makeup assignment, this one time. This class cost X. If you fail it, you will owe that money. When you re-enroll, your tab will be incremented. So calculate how many burgers or baskets of fries you’ll have to make to compensate for your laziness when you fail out of school.
Unknownsailor · September 4, 2024 at 9:26 am
I graduated college in 2020 with a CS degree, and was 20 years in the Navy before that. Before I enlisted, I was college for 2 years. College of today is much easier than college was in 1989, my first time around.
I also had to take one of those basic MS Office computer classes, and the biggest problem I had was that the software the class used had particular ways it wanted you to do things, which were 99% of the time not the way I did things while using MSOffice.
I also got to see the writing of my classmates in basic English, and the quality was, to be charitable, very poor. I wasn’t much of a writer the first time I was in college, but between then and now I have been arguing on the internet, in comment sections and on forums, so the second time around I found writing English papers easy. I spent more time editing them for grammar than pounding out the words. 🙂
TakeAHardLook · September 4, 2024 at 9:31 am
If we do not hold these entitled, Precious Little Snowflakes up to some standard of quality and independent thought/work now, imagine what they will become in the workplace in a few years:
They will become exactly like the worthless little slimes that you see, all about you, in the here & now.
A cross-section of young America exists in your wife’s class at this moment. Look how they expend what little effort they wish by delaying, creating excuses, cheating and whining about how the assignment “is not FAIR.” A charge of “racism” cannot be far behind.
I do not envy your wife’s position here. If she holds the line and Flags the cheaters, the late ones, etc., they will be at the Dean’s office in no time flat, whining & complaining–parents threatening–and she will then need to CCW for the occasional young psychopath-in-the-making.
Reminds me of this wonderful gem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo0KjdDJr1c
Steve Shaffer · September 4, 2024 at 9:32 am
Been going on for years already though the percentages may be going up.
Skyler the Weird · September 4, 2024 at 10:58 am
All of my zoomer family members and all of their friends whether male or female are on some type of anti anxiety meds. It’s a ‘pandemic’.
Jess · September 4, 2024 at 11:13 am
Yep. I had many of those students over time working as common laborers on construction sites. Some straightened out, but others were fired for their lack of self-control and a having no work ethic. Where they ended up is anybody’s guess, but I solved my problems with them as soon as I could. I do know some saw the light, and finished their college with the knowledge their other option didn’t have air conditioning, or coddling.
Reader · September 4, 2024 at 11:43 am
We fire people for performance…should fail and expel them for lack of performance and charge them full cost of admission for the semester.
Divemedic · September 4, 2024 at 2:45 pm
Why do that, when allowing them to retake the class means having them pay for it a second time?
Slow Joe Crow · September 4, 2024 at 12:04 pm
What are these students supposed to be majoring in? My son was in engineering and was very good about doing assignments on time. Then again freshman engineering is designed to weed out the ones who won’t succeed in upper classes
Michael · September 4, 2024 at 3:16 pm
Slow Joe if you don’t mind telling us WHEN your son was in freshman engineering?
It would be a little encouraging if it was in the past few years.
Only the Trade School folks around here have that hard nosed PASS and be employable or we FAIL YOU as not to damage our schools name.
Slow Joe Crow · September 5, 2024 at 1:39 pm
My son graduated in 2020, and has been working ever since
Michael · September 4, 2024 at 1:02 pm
And unless your wife’s class is an anomaly (I suspect it isn’t) these are our future ™ workers and leaders to keep our lights ON and Water Purification working safely.
(Scribbling notes to self-More Water filters and solar panels STAT)
Guess we’ll do alright (need I add a sarc tag here?)
Jonathan · September 5, 2024 at 10:00 pm
In college in 2002 I had to take a basic English class… Other students were atrocious then, I shudder to think about now!
This is the reason that from now on I’m only going to live in a house with a well – I don’t trust anybody else with my drinking water!
IcyReaper · September 4, 2024 at 1:18 pm
I have a friend that retired a few years ago and was enjoying it. Then his former company who he has helped out a few times when they had issues, called him to ask if he could do some hiring interviews. Seems they made the mistake of having all straight females in HR vs a couple lesbians in case you need them and now there appeared to have been a surprise pandemic of pregnancies at same time and they are now having the babies at close to same time and with all the maternity laws, the company is stuck.
So he went in and did them for a week, not sure how many he did. The stories he had of the line of morons that were applying was worthy of a movie but no one would believe it.
It came down to a main question as to whether these kids are either stupid or lazy. All considered themselves very special and deserving of a living wage but couldn’t state a number for that, didn’t really want to be in a office environment but MAY consider a day or 2 to show up but the rest should be work at home with no customer interactions by phone or video was desired unless nessasary. We all know what that means . Much like your wife’s class project. None had any real social skills or critical thinking skills something that’s needed in his job to deal with customers who are companies themselves on multi millions dollar projects.
A good portion of them had the same opening question of the interview for him when they asked what the interviewers pronouns were!!!
So he made a list for the company and then made separate notes on his assessment of these applicants futures for the boss that if is ever shown would cause issues. He assessed a fair amount of them stood a chance as long as McDonalds and Starbucks kept hiring…
He then talked to the boss who is the company owner and an old friend also to advice him, it basically came to, its time to sell the company while its still worth something. Because if these are the only choices for employees the company is doomed so bail out now while you can get a decent price for it. Before the companies reputation is shit.
So if by chance things do get spicy, these kids are basically fucked and can look forward to lives as sex slaves or manual labor or being served as dinner And all of these kids had degrees from supposedly well respected universities but no life skills or knowledge that would be useful at all.
Elrod · September 4, 2024 at 1:23 pm
Wha your wife is experiencing is true on almost every business front.
Yeah, we’re screwed. Anything these kind of people touch will be FUBARed to a degree that will be astounding.
Which makes me wonder – if they screw up my chocolate milk shake at Phreddies Phast Phood it’s not world ending. But what if they, somehow, make it into medicine? Or law? Or engineering? Or……
Yeah, we’re screwed.
Steve · September 5, 2024 at 6:15 am
The Florida International University pedestrian bridge collapse provides a case-in-point example of that.
TRX · September 4, 2024 at 2:28 pm
Next step: butthurt students get together and petition the school administration to have your wife replaced. That has reportedly worked in a couple of Ivy League schools when students blew off the coursework and then were outraged they didn’t get a passing grade anyway.
Extra points if they can claim some kind of minority victim status.
Divemedic · September 4, 2024 at 4:06 pm
The great part is that she has no leeway here. The syllabus is written by the school and must be followed exactly by every member of the department. The cheating is caught automatically by the computer, and that’s that.
TRX · September 5, 2024 at 5:32 pm
[thumbs up]
Illinois Hound · September 4, 2024 at 3:06 pm
Surprised these kids didn’t at least have a grasp of MS Office coming out of high school.
Back when I started my engineering career in 1984 there was no such thing as PCs. Everything was done on a mainframe computer. Eventually, sometime in the early 99s they switched to individual tower systems tied back to a server. We didn’t get laptops until somewhere around 2000.
When Office came out we were on our own to learn it.
I sure hope these kids are incoming freshman with no study skills. They are in for a rude awakening.
Rick T · September 4, 2024 at 3:52 pm
These basic skills classes are a mixed bag from what I’ve seen. My wife is doing coursework at the local community college and has had to deal with this BS but the startup process was brutal. Programs not available, assignments not consistent, ‘lecture’ videos can’t be found. They are money-grabs for tuition but money-sinks getting the supporting infrastructure up and running.
MS products in the cloud don’t work quite the same as the old PC versions just to make things even crazier.
Dan D. · September 4, 2024 at 6:02 pm
Such a wide brush of arrogance in this thread. Buddy asked me for help in algebra this week. He spent years in the “sandbox” killing people. We’re in our 50s. Second buddy jumped in to teach him Boolean logic in Excel, he’s in his 70s.
Is he a retard? Loser?
I’m in my third career, immediate response medicine. How many of you have powdered TXA in your trauma bag, if you 1911 types even have a bag beyond some Walmart crap? Or willingness?
The smell of inability pollutes this thread. I don’t like to be negative but man, this is just a circle jerk of, like I said, arrogance.
It is distasteful to DM.
Divemedic · September 4, 2024 at 6:09 pm
They cheated. There is a digital watermark on the file. It is a serial number that is unique to each student. The computer software compares the watermark that is turned in to the watermark that was sent to the student. If the watermark that is turned in is a match for another student’s watermark, the two conspired cheat. There is no other explanation.
That isn’t arrogance, it’s catching someone cheating.
TakeAHardLook · September 4, 2024 at 6:41 pm
In my day in college that would merit expulsion. No excuses. No appeals.
EN2 SS · September 5, 2024 at 6:47 am
LOLOLOLOLOLOLMAOLOLOLOOLOL
Trailer For Sale Or Rent · September 4, 2024 at 7:44 pm
I first posted this at Aesop’s place, and I might as well repeat it here.
In the 1960s and 1970s, I attended a private school in Charleston, SC until 10th grade, when I was “invited to leave” for smokin’ in the boys’ room… I then went to a government school, where the chemistry teacher couldn’t write a coherent sentence. After that, I homeschooled, and completed my 12th grade schoolwork several months early, sometime in mid-March.
The teachers at the private school were 95% men, mostly WW2 and Korean War veterans, and, while they had a sense of humor, they were serious men who took no shit from the students.
I wish now that I had appreciated what I had, because a 1970s graduate of that private school is much better educated than most college graduates of today.
wojtek · September 5, 2024 at 12:14 am
Somehow I am not surprised. In fact, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. From what I can figure out, less than 60% of young American population these days gives college “a try”.
Here is a sample of Polish statistics:
– in 2004 there were 356 thousand children born in Poland (according to our stat.gov.pl),
– in 2023 there were 337 thousand students accepted to colleges (according to our ministry of education).
Now, this is not a perfect measure, as people of different ages start college at the same time, there are many Ukrainians and other foreigners, etc. On the other hand a nontrivial amount of people left Poland since 2004, including kids, and Polish kids can study for free in the EU and many do that.
So approximately 90+% of population is going to college in Poland these days.
At the same time only 84% has IQ of 85+.
Which means that there are really interesting cases that you wife probably has not yet seen.
Aesop · September 5, 2024 at 5:59 am
All the failing students should be referred to the academic dean for immediate expulsion, on the perfectly logical grounds that they are not capable of performing at college level, and probably couldn’t perform at grade level in high school either. There should be academic drop boards at all colleges, and one cheat, or two Fs, or three Ds anywhere should be grounds for permanent irreversible removal.
When you let people into any college who shouldn’t be there in the first place, this is what you can expect, for going on 40+ years.
No points for guessing how many of those whiny failing students also check a diversity box or three.
Praytell, would this be a two-year Community College, AKA 13th grade?
Steve S6 · September 5, 2024 at 8:57 am
It’s the money, not the academics that rule.
wojtek · September 5, 2024 at 11:12 am
“All the failing students should be referred to the academic dean for immediate expulsion”
I believe this is a response that does not take the reality into account. The type of college we are talking about, which I am assuming is primarily a teaching school (research universities do not offer courses like “business computer applications”) makes its money on retaining students for as many courses as they are willing to pay for, because the money comes either directly from tuition or from government subsidies. Either way, expelling these students does not help to balance the university books. They are young students, starting college, and there is a certain cost in admitting them. That cost will not be recovered within the first year.
Fail them and make them retake the class is the name of the game.
PPM · September 5, 2024 at 8:05 am
Do the people who actually are useful choose a more advanced class that fulfills this requirement? That’s the only thing that would make this not an accurate cross-section of the general population.
Divemedic · September 5, 2024 at 8:17 am
I don’t know, but I took CGS 1060, basic computer literacy when I got my first Bachelor’s. The course my wife is teaching is CGS 1100, Business Computer Applications. They are all courses that align with the requirements of computer literacy to graduate. I would imagine that the only people who would take more advanced courses would be computer science majors.
DT · September 5, 2024 at 2:39 pm
My wife is also an adjunct professor – in statistics. I’m sure the tales our wives could trade would be familiar to each other. So many of these students aren’t even properly prepared for high school … Sad and funny at the same time.
If things are this bad in the serious sciences, how bad are things in the softer disciplines? Glad I’m old enough to be out of most of it …
jimmyPx · September 5, 2024 at 3:27 pm
The thing these dumb kids don’t realize is that if you work a white collar job today, you HAVE to know MS Office
Management and Sales live by Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and Word docs.
I’m with Aesop, if you can’t or won’t pass a simple class like that, you have no business in a college.
Steady Steve · September 5, 2024 at 8:16 pm
All available info would suggest that we are headed for a depression. Jobs of any kind will be really scarce and employers will only hire those who are competent just to remain in business. That is the fire that will forge some very strong people from those that can get a clue fast. Just as it did an earlier generation. The weak and clueless either will not survive or will remain at the bottom of society.
Dirtperson Steve · September 5, 2024 at 9:16 pm
I went back to college for my MBA on my employer’s dime. I turned 40 during the experience. I drove an hour each way to class 3 days per week, leaving right after work, and still was father of 2 and husband. Most of the class was kids that rolled straight from an undergrad business degree.
Many of them complained about how hard the work was and that it took up too much time. I thought it was as easy, if not easier, than high school. The only ones focused were the few adults like myself and the asian/indian kids. The rest were just there for another 2+ years of partying. Those are the midlevel managers in corporate America now.
Thankfully I’m retiring soon. I just applied for an adjunct business instructor position at a tech school. We’ll see how that goes. Your wife’s experience has reminded me what I will probably deal with.
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