College Level Work: Don’t Shave

By Professor Doom

     Many times now, I’ve asserted that most of what is done in college nowadays is bogus, neither preparing students for jobs nor giving them much in the way of higher education. I’ve even cited studies showing most college courses have no requirements, i.e., require no work from their students.

     It’s easy to sit in my chair, wave my hand at a department and say “it’s all crap.” How about I simply demonstrate just how bad it is?

     The easy target will be Women’s Studies, sometimes called Gender Studies…but we all know that these are “yay women, heckyah!” type courses. Anyway, I’ve always been stunned at how ridiculous the assignments and coursework for these types of courses are. I’ve had students hand me lollipops for course credit, or wear stupid t-shirts, or, well, just ridiculous stuff that no reasonable person could call “challenging work” like what’s supposed to be done on campuses.

     But that’s just my eyewitness testimony. Let’s take a look at a recent news piece that actually talks about a Gender Studies assignment as though it weren’t ridiculous:

University offers female students extra credit for not shaving their armpits

     As I’m wont to say, I can’t make this stuff up. You take the course, and get “bonus credit” if you don’t shave your armpits for that semester. You also have to write about your feelings in a journal. Nothing wrong with getting in touch with your feelings, I suppose, but paying $10,000 a year for the privilege seems a bit much. A whole letter grade to write in my own journal? Does anyone get this assignment wrong? The writer of the article sure doesn’t think this is a pretty weak assignment.

      Anyway, to get an extra letter grade, a female just has to not shave her armpits for a few months. Males aren’t left out—they can get the same amount of credit if they DO shave. Their entire bodies. 

     It’s so funny, these courses are supposed to be about fairness, and yet, somehow, this “don’t shave” thing has been going on for years without anyone noticing that females don’t have to work (sic) nearly as hard as the males for extra credit. Shaving my body would be a major task, for what it’s worth, although I’d probably lose five pounds or so.

      It’s so funny, times 2, “extra credit” means work you’re doing that above and beyond what’s necessary for your course. If “don’t shave” is so strenuous that it’s extra, how can anyone think the regular coursework is hard in comparison?

     Somehow, it gets nuttier, but only if you talk to the students involved:

   “…  Furthermore, by doing this kind of activist project I was no longer an armchair activist theorizing in the classroom.”

     She’s serious. Not shaving your armpits is “activism” now. How about actually standing in front of a women’s hospital and protesting loudly there are no men’s hospitals? Oh wait, this is one-sided fairness.

      Still, surely there’s a real women’s issue that could helped with some real activism? I stopped shaving last November…didn’t occur to me for a minute I was engaging in any sort of political commentary.

     And…it gets nuttier:

“It really was a life-changing experience,”

     I can’t make this stuff up. They actually speak like “not shaving” is totally relevant. She should donate part of her genitals to women who’ve been affected by “female circumcision” to get a better idea of what a life-changing experience can be. Or maybe she could work as a prostitute for a while, or at least follow a crack-addicted prostitute around for a few weeks…these are the kinds of activities that totally would be worthy of extra credit, and would change her life far more dramatically than “don’t shave for a while.”

      And…it gets even nuttier, and lines up with today’s discussion:

“…declined to participate in the project during the first two classes she took…but took the plunge during her third opportunity.”

      This student has taken THREE courses where she could get college credit for “not shaving.” A look at the course catalogue at the student’s institution reveals that there’s no way she could take three courses without taking at least a 2^nd year course in gender studies. Really, there are that many Gender Studies courses.

      The point? “Don’t shave for a while” qualifies as 2^nd year course work in gender studies.

      Let’s compare this to second year coursework in a, well, more respected field, in a course I teach on campus:

Input Derivative Principle for Laplace Transforms:

L{f⁽ⁿ⁾ (t)} = sⁿL{f(t)} – s^(n-1) f(0) - … - sf^(n-2)(0) – f^(n-1) (0), for s > a

     It takes hours of actual work for a student to master everything going on in that concept (and it’s not even worth a letter grade), and there are many, many such concepts in a real second year course. And yet the Gender Studies course has so little in it that “don’t shave” is considered going above and beyond the usual work.

       I’m not saying either coursework necessarily helps much with day to day life, but can anyone honestly tell me “don’t shave” is remotely as difficult a concept to master and understand as the Input Derivative Principle for Laplace Transforms? 

     Tuition runs around $10,000 a year at ASU, where, apparently, the second year students learn “some people find hairy armpits on a female unattractive” and think they’re getting a college education. I’m serious.

     As always, I point out that accreditation, which supposedly legitimizes the education at an institution, does nothing of the sort, and is a huge deception to the taxpaying public that’s supporting it. Administration, which in the past took responsibility for the care of young people and actively worked to improve education, now is only interested in extracting as much money as possible from the kids, using any means necessary.

      Across the country, young people are burying themselves in debt, quite often for absolutely ridiculous coursework and indoctrination that will give no personal growth, no job skills, and no measurable increase in any ability.

     Anyone who bothers to look can see it.

    

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

90% of Community College isn’t College

By Professor Doom

I’ve been looking at another community college to demonstrate, once again, my claims that much of higher education is bogus are quite valid. Anyone who cares to look at the course offerings at LACC can see this…and it’s odd that I seem to be the only one in higher education making the effort.

Last time I showed that “College Algebra”, what once was a remedial course, is actually a second year course at LACC. This is rather surprising, since in many other parts of the country, it’s still a first year course. Shouldn’t someone ask why the same material just keeps getting redefined as ever more advanced? Educationists are forever bleating about how they’re improving education, but objectively that isn’t the case.

So, let’s count up all the courses at LACC and see just how much of it is actually college level material, as compared to material that’s already offered in the high schools.

There are 131 sections of math classes on LACC campus. I promise you, the lower level courses have many, many, more students than the upper level sections, but let’s just look at the course offerings.

118 of those 131 classes, 90%, are pre-college level. Note that this is the same as  the 90% “high school and lower” course rate I found at another community college. You really think it’s a coincidence? Primarily, community colleges take hapless teenagers in, swirl them around for years in useless coursework, then flush them away once the loan and grant money runs out. One could argue it’s well over 90%, since each class has an associated lab further taking up “higher education” resources.

7 of those 131 classes, well under 10%, are first year courses. Hawaiian Punch is often criticized for being “10% real fruit juice” and thus 90% crap. Community colleges are 90% crap…where’s the criticism here?

6 of those 131 classes, not even 5%, are actually 2^nd year courses, and probably would count as such at a university. This 2 year college has been in existence over 80 years, and not even 5% of the students there make it to the second year of college. Imagine a high school where 95% of the students don’t start taking senior classes until they are at least 98 years old, to get a nice image of how ridiculous this is.

More realistically, LACC has lowered their course offerings to the 3^rd grade, rather than do the real education of raising students to the college level. Would a high school with a 95% failure rate still be around? Would a high school that redefines “can read at a high school level” to “can read at the 6^th grade level” really get away with yearly receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer support? And yet a community college that does such things can do so, without criticism.

I conjecture the primary reason for the lack of criticism is the people just don’t know what’s going on there. I’m doing what I can to fix that, of course, and it’s a simple matter for anyone to look at the course offerings and see I’m not lying.

People are sold on going to community college, but realize, more than 90% of community college students, quite obviously, never actually do any college work or have even a slight chance of gaining any college level skills. These students, more accurately the taxpayers, pay exorbitantly for college credit. All that taxpayer money that goes to “higher education” instead funds wildly overpaid administration while students shuffle around taking the same crap their parents already paid dearly for their kids to learn in public schools. Why doesn’t accreditation or some other agency have a problem with this sort of double dipping?

Anyone that’s bothered to look can tell most of higher education is fraud. Community college, especially, is a trap for a great many students, who simply don’t know what they’re signing up for. It sure is cheaper than university…but just how much do you think all that 8^th grade material will be worth when applying for a job? Students that have taken 2 years of coursework at LACC could easily still require 4 more years of coursework before they could get a 4 year degree at a university.

So, please, be wary of going to community college, or sending your children to it. You totally can get an education there, but you must be very, very careful to pick the right programs and courses. Administration is not your friend in this regard and has set up a massive array of chaff courses to both confuse you and waste your precious time and money. They get paid salary that is 5 to 30 times as much as you, gentle reader, to do so.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

It’s Official: High School is now 2nd year of College

By Professor Doom

So last time I was looking at a third community college, in Los Angeles, to see if maybe the fraud I’d seen at community colleges in New York and Louisiana was in California as well.

Instead of seeing things were as bad as in the first two states, I see it’s worse.

 At LACC, they’re selling high school material as 2^nd year college work. This is nuts. Any accreditor that bothered to even look at the course offerings could see this. Oh right, accreditation is bogus and has nothing to do with education.

Let’s continue to review the course offerings:

Statistics  (227). It’s hard to tell from the description if this is really college material. I strongly suspect, however, that this is a very weak course—students in this course don’t need to have passed high school algebra to take this course. A reasonable person would wonder how this college math course doesn’t require high school math. Since everything in this course I learned in high school after I took high school algebra (and I didn’t take any AP math courses), I’m going to not call this college, but opinions can vary on this one course. 16 sections.

Mathematics for the Liberal Arts Students (230). The title alone tells you what kind of course this is, and the course description lets anyone know that it’s a very simple course well below high school. 2 sections.

Calculus for the Business and Social Sciences (236). It’s funny, this used to be the freshman math class for incoming, very weak, college students, and now it’s a 200 level (i.e., second year) course. Very curious, and many students that took calculus in high school have told me this course is much weaker than high school. What used to be a first year math course is now a second year course. Just 1 section, but I’ll call it college material.

Trigonometry (240). This is 11^th grade material for many students; some will take it in 10^th grade or senior year. 3 sections. I encourage any who doubt me to pick a university campus that even offers pure trigonometry as a college course, and see with your own eyes it’s not a second year course, and neither is the next course, the one I’ve been looking for:

College Algebra (245). At last, we come to college algebra, or as math faculty know it, “The algebra you should have learned in high school.” Every topic listed in the course description, I learned in high school. The course is actually missing a few topics common to other “College Algebra” courses I’ve seen elsewhere, but those seem to be covered in the many, many, non college sections I’ve covered earlier. 3 sections.

I really need to emphasize this. This is the algebra I took in high school. This is the remedial algebra I taught at a university in the 80s. This is the first year college course I taught at university in the 90s and 21^st century.

And now it’s a second year course. It’s official: community college is high school now; a person graduating with a 2 year degree from LACC will probably take this course as capstone material, and be at the level of many high school students I’ve known. Note: high school students, not high school graduates, as the algebra in this course is generally learned at the 10^th or 11^th grade.

When a student from LACC goes to university with his 2 year degree, the university is going to laugh at the student thinking he’ll only need 2 more years for a 4 year degree. “You fool,” will say the university, “you’ve just spent the last two years in high school, paying dearly for the privilege, and now you are at best as good as the high school graduates who just came here in the first place.”

And community college administrators lure suckers in by saying they’re “cheaper than university.” It’s not cheaper if everything you did at the community college goes right in the trash.

I want to point out: mathematicians have been notorious for trying to keep standards in higher education, and despite their struggle, “algebra” has now turned into a second year course at LACC. Mostly they’ve lost because Educationists have been taking over the math classes, for what it’s worth.

I’m just looking at math here, but does the gentle reader honestly believe Gender Studies courses are filled with 2^nd year material? I’ll be looking at such a course soon, though Gender Studies is hardly the only fake course on campus. Thorough studies have shown many college courses are content free and have no requirements. You just pay your tuition and get your A…and that’s at accredited schools.

No wonder so many waiters and parking lot attendants have worthless college degrees. They were suckered into thinking high school was “higher education.”

Rather than provide higher education, our institutions of higher education have “redefined” higher education ever downward. It isn’t simply that college today is equivalent to the high schools of thirty years ago…it’s that in many cases, college today is equivalent to high school of today.

How can anyone look at this and not see fraud?

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

The Community College Fraud, part 2

By Professor Doom

So, last time, I was looking at the course offerings at LACC, and saw that a huge amount of resources are devoted to teaching 6^th grade and lower math.

Let’s continue to see what “higher education” this community college offers:

Elementary Algebra (113) and Elementary Algebra (114). Because students are so far behind, administration created courses like this that go slower—when you’re behind, you catch up by going slower, right? There are 10 sections of this (7 sections for 113, and 3 for 114---even greatly watered down material doesn’t see many students pass, especially the fake students of the Pell Grant scam). It’s college credit at LACC, but we’re way below high school here, roughly the 7^th grade.

I repeat: this is material students see in the public schools around the 7^th grade, 8^th grade for the slower students, and it’s “college coursework” here.

Elementary Algebra (115). Again, this is the same bogus math course of 113 and 114, just pushed together into a single math course. If accreditation were serious, they’d ask why students are being screwed into taking 113 and 114 when 115 does the same thing in half the time. If accreditation were even halfway serious, it’d ask why the material common 7^th grade in the public schools is “college credit.” There are 17 sections of this course.

I bet you’re wondering when this community college will offer high school work.

Me too, but just the above courses merit comment.

LACC is a 2 year college, and they have, literally, 2 years of non college credit and (fake) college credit math courses for students to take.  Most loan programs have a time limit on them, perhaps 4 years. Now, if you take 2 years of non-college material, that means you’ll be 2 years behind in your 4 years of “higher education.” A talented and hardworking student can complete a 4 year degree in three years, but two years? Not very likely, and there aren’t any talented and hardworking students that are taking 7^th grade math in college.

An administrator with integrity would look at this curriculum and think “Wait. Any student we enroll in two years of pre-high school of math will have no chance whatsoever of paying back the student loans, which will run out before the student can get a degree. We are hurting people. We need to not do this.”

That’s the path of integrity, and that can’t come from admin, which only wants growth.

Instead, administration does two things. First, administration tacks on section after section of this stuff. Growth, after all. The fact that doing this is wrong doesn’t stop admin from simply doing more of it, much more, as much as they can get away with.

Second, to prevent people from catching on, admin changes the numbering and credit. 

I must point out again: the 7^th grade work in these courses is actually “college credit.” At least, the students think it’s college credit, but good luck trying to transfer that as anything but remedial work.

LACC is selling 7^th grade material and calling it “college.” Is “fraud” the right word for that?

Let’s look some more at what LACC is actually calling first year college work:

Essentials of Plane Geometry (121). This is the geometry most students take in the 9^th or 10^th grade of high school. 4 sections.

Intermediate Algebra (124a). This is, literally, half of a class, taught over a whole semester, roughly 8^th to 9^th grade. 3 sections.

Intermediate Algebra (124b). This is the other half. 2 sections. It used to be, the remedial classes were slowed down already. To increase growth, administration offers more remedial courses. To increase growth further, they take the slow classes and slow them down some more. Luckily, students can still take the “normal” slow courses:

Intermediate Algebra (125). This is the previous two courses, presented as a single course. Still haven’t made it to algebra yet, but we’re closing in on the level of material a very weak high school graduate might have. Anyone who bothers to look can see this, as the course description reads: “Topics include linear functions, systems of equations, inequalities, polynomials…” I really want to point out here: I tutor high school students, I know what they’re doing in high school. The material in this course isn’t it. 20 sections.

I have to pause here, because there is much in the above worth considering on its own.

Anyone else remember the public service commercial with children in school, asking to learn algebra? Kids, not college students. Learning plain ol’ algebra, not “intermediate,” “elementary,” or “pre-”. Now, in California, students are told that they’ll need to take as much as TWO YEARS of “college” courses before they’ll be ready to take the material that kids used to learn.

 

And what a dizzying array of fake courses. Someone ignorant of what’s going on would have no idea of what these classes are, and an incoming student wouldn’t know that the above joke courses won’t even transfer to most universities as college material.

Just one more course for today:

Principles of Mathematics (215). This is math for elementary school teachers, a course by and for Educationists. As such, it’s not a real course. There’s nothing in here that a high school graduate wouldn’t already know. The course description reads “The main concern will be understanding the structure of systems of whole numbers, integers, and rational numbers.” This material is basically in the “arithmetic” course I discussed in the previous post. Anyone who is curious why the public school teacher can’t add fractions need look no further than this course. 2 sections.

Note the numbering on this Educationist course. We’re now entering the 200 level courses, supposedly 2^nd year courses, although, again, anyone knowledgeable looking at the course content of the above 200 level Education course knows its not a college course, either.

LACC is fully accredited, but, as I’ve shown in detail, accreditation has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the education. It’s a joke in that regard.

In the 80s, algebra was a remedial course on college campuses. Some time in the 90s, it turned into a first year college course. We’re already into the 200 level courses, the second year courses, and algebra is nowhere to be found.

Next time, we’ll see if it’s been turned into a 3^rd year course or not. In the meantime, consider that none of the above, over 90 sections of classes, are college material, that all of it is offered in high school, much of it in primary school, even…and yet students are being sold these courses as “higher education.”

I repeat: everything we’ve seen so far in remedial, first, and second year college courses is material that is taught in the American public school system—a system that is widely held in contempt for how little it asks of and gives to students. All of it, the students have already seen, and now they’re paying a fortune to “learn” it again for college credit.

How is this not a fraud?

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com