Things have certainly changed.

The last time I was seriously in a classroom, the Internet was just a few strands, and the web was nothing more than a vague notion in Ted Nelson's fevered dreams, and the most powerful and intelligent electronic device available to me, in a classroom or otherwise (other than via a DECwriter terminal) was an HP-41C calculator, so I have no experience with classroom websurfing.

I do have a lot of experience with classroom lectures, though, both boring and otherwise.

I don't take in information very well through my ears. When someone verbally asks me to do a list of things, I usually request that they email it to me. I have two problems with lectures--one is that I have a lousy memory, which means taking notes, which I hate. The other is that the baud rate is so low, compared to reading the same information. I've never understood why anyone gets much value out of going to listen to a professor drone on, sometimes verbatim, from a text book that you have at home and can read much more quickly.

For example, I know several programming languages, with various degrees of facility. I've only taken one programming class in my life (ALGOL), and that was because it was a graduation requirement. Actually, I was supposed to take FORTRAN, because I was an engineering major, but no one told me that, and it seemed to satisfy those who handed out the diploma. And I'm actually glad that I took ALGOL rather than FORTRAN, because being a structured language, it instilled a lot of good programming habits that I've noticed many engineers don't have.

But I digress.

My point is, that when I was in college, I only attended class if: a) the prof was entertaining, and/or provided information that complemented the text; b) class attendance was directly reflected in the grade; c) I knew no one else in the class from whom I could get assignments; or d) there was some hot girl in it who I was trying to get to know.

So it makes little sense to me to be websurfing during a lecture, unless I'm in class for reason (b) and/or (d) and no other. What's the point in attending class if you're not going to listen, or ask questions?

To me, it begs the larger question of what many students are doing in college at all, other than because it's just what everyone else was doing, and Mom and Dad are paying for it.

Last year, I decided to go back to school (after 15 years) to get my teaching certificate. The only reason I was able to do this and continue at my job was because the classes were offered online. This was a truly wonderful thing, especially when I was taking "Principles of the Multicultural Curriculum" since I could make faces and talk back to my professor's lecture notes with impunity. **g**

Strange you should mention that, but I also skipped about 90% of undergraduate lectures. My technique was to get the texts, read them all in the first few weeks of the year, and then only go to lectures (or tutorials) if there was something I hadn't understood.

Yeap me too. Sitting there listen to somebody explain something to me and it mostly floats in one ear and out the other for me.

I think you may be too hard on the students, Rand, with "other than it's just what everyone else was doing, and Mom and Dad are paying for it." There is intense pressure these days to coerce every single high school graduate to go on to college. Everything from guidance counselors who refuse to give you the time of day if your plans don't include college, to that nutty incident out in California where students who hadn't enrolled in college were not allowed to attend their graduation ceremony.

These days, it's damned hard to get a decent job without going to college first. I think this is due in large part to the general decline in quality of a high school education. I think the only reason computing related fields managed to miss some of that was because the technology moved too fast for universities to keep up. You know that high schools simply aren't doing the job any more when entry level secretarial positions are requiring a bachelor's degree.

So kids who wouldn't need to go to college if their high schools had not dumped them on the street untaught go on and spend thousands of dollars to learn the things they should have learned in a public high school. And you end up with kids who shouldn't need to be in college, wasting their time and their parents' money in order to get a piece of paper that says they're employable.

OK, Celeste, but if it's important for them to go to college, it should also be important for them to learn something there, for the same reasons.

Unless you're saying that the diploma is empty symbolism. If that's the case, then we have a different problem. My sense is that college, for many, is just a social activity.

I wouldn't call a diploma empty symbolism; I'd say its more about the equivalent of a high school diploma from the 50's. My point is more along the lines of - this isn't really so much the fault of students, but of a society that keeps prolonging childhood. From what I've seen, a college degree has become the equivalent of a high school diploma... and so the lowered maturity and attention span of the students who are in college isn't much of a surprise to me.

When my parents graduated high school and turned 18, they became adults, and were expected to support themselves. When I turned 18, I was expected to do the same, and as a result became a freak among my friends - because not one of the kids I knew in high school (class of '93) started supporting themselves until they were 23 and out of college. Less than a generation later, and my little sisters' friends all expect to attend both college and graduate school at their parents' expense, and don't anticipate actually being responsible for themselves until they're nearly 30.

So I wouldn't call college useless - I'd call it high school all over again.

I teach at a 2 yr. college in CA. The learners are LAZY. They often CHEAT. The ones that plan to transfer to a 4 yr. college are saving some money and don't want to work as hard for their first 2 years. They all think the diploma will get them better job. When I provide internet learning options, 50% prefer it to regular lectures. The others are so stupid, (these are engineering students!), they prefer to come in person to get spoon-fed the information from lecture and have the chance to ask questions to try to find out what will be on the next quiz or test, etc. I have even had students ask me to give them a copy of the test ahead of time...! Real nervy. If the class is difficult the drop rate soars outta sight... Despite all that, I do get a few good ones each term and I'm paid well, so I'll keep showing up...