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U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

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Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#191

Post by Aurornis »

davidgay wrote: post #168
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are part of hobbies. Very challenging at times, but for example I sleep with my kid hugging me, or I chat with them while in the car, or we do chores while watching tv or something like that. And not every day is packed like that, you can tell your kids "no more than 3 times per week of activties, the other 2 days are for playdates", and that should be acceptable. There are horrible days of the week, but it'…

> Children are part of hobbies. That is a weird (modern?) delusion. Without children, our species disappears in Those who are having and raising children are the ones doing the most for the next generation.

You took an unfairly uncharitable interpretation of that comment.

It wasn’t saying that children are hobbies. It’s saying that time spent with children is enjoyable and time spent with them is not an enjoyable chore.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#192

Post by axus »

ackbar03 wrote: post #123
joezydeco wrote: post #15

When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college, you can expect that they are going to throttle back once they're away from home with way more free time than is normal. From my kid's experience: she was up at 6:30am, in AP classes by 7:30am (three more to go during the day). Classes were done by 3:00, then sports practice…

Sorry if this seems naive but do students in America actually work that hard these days? Modern television and social media seem to suggest they are all on drugs and doing God knows what

Both are true.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#193

Post by mikemcquaid »

technothrasher wrote: post #150

Back when I went to University of Rochester in the early 90's, the entire first year was not included in your GPA. So we still got grades, but they didn't count for anything. But in my junior year, the state of NY told the school that they would lose their accreditation if they kept it up, because they saw it as unfairly raising the GPA of UR graduates versus all other NY universities. So while my class was grandfath…

Studying my 4 year BSc in Scotland: the first two years didn’t “count” to your overall grade and had more “required” modules/classes (e.g. maths for CS degrees).

This had pros and cons:

- it was nice to have a bit more of a gradual build

- this would probably avoid some of the issues here

- if you are lazy like me: you do bare minimum effort first and second year and then get crushed by both workload and lack of foundational knowledge in third year

- if you apply to a US company, some will want to see your “full transcript” and don’t accept “I was too busy playing CS (Counterstrike) to study CS (Computer Science)”

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#194

Post by SiempreViernes »

freeopinion wrote: post #165
joezydeco wrote: post #15

When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college, you can expect that they are going to throttle back once they're away from home with way more free time than is normal. From my kid's experience: she was up at 6:30am, in AP classes by 7:30am (three more to go during the day). Classes were done by 3:00, then sports practice…

Just to present another reality... a lot of kids coast through high school academically. They sleep through classes or play video games on their school-provided laptops, or play on their phones all day. They know about "minimum-F" policies where submitting 0 work earns them 50%. And they don't really care about getting Ds. Then some community support program assigns them a counselor who drags them over some finish li…

When you are contrasting a hypothetical example against an anecdotal example, it is polite to provide some sort of evidence your hypothetical example actually exists.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#196

Post by wolttam »

cm2187 wrote: post #190
cogman10 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty different environment going from high school to college. There's a dynamic change that's pretty sudden where your parents are no long really in the picture for support. What they are trying to do is keep the kids that would otherwise do well but might freak out in the first semester. Seems pretty fine to me especially since those are grades that if we are being honest really don't matter anyways.

I wonder how kids have managed to deal with that for two centuries…

Live in an overall less uncertain environment?

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#197

Post by rayiner »

basisword wrote: post #181
rayiner wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16 year olds aren’t kids. My dad was in boarding school in bangladesh at that age working 16 hour days (which is why I don’t have to live there).

Things change, thankfully.

Why should we change the practice of putting people to work to build civilization when they’re at their physical and energetic peak? In his early 20s my dad helped overthrow the Pakistani government, and by his late 20s and early 30s he was helping tackle the astronomical infant and maternal mortality in the country. Why shouldn’t our young people in America work?

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#198

Post by margalabargala »

cj wrote: post #178
enragedcacti wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If college is supposed to prepare kids for the real world, we should be creating environments that simulate the real world as much as possible. Would you take a motorcycle safety course where the first thing they do is chuck you into "simulated" traffic? It feels too obvious to say, but just throwing people in the deep-end isn't necessarily the most consistent or effective teaching tool for every situation.

Starting your first semester in college shouldn't feel like "being thrown in the deep end". You just spent 4 years of high school preparing for it! But I agree that kids are awfully unprepared for the real world, so maybe coddling kids into early adulthood is unfortunately necessary? The whole situation makes me very sad.

You don't actually have any idea how different high school and college are, do you? Unless the kid went to boarding school, the environmental change is immense.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#199

Post by naasking »

cogman10 wrote: post #182
ungreased0675 wrote: post #175

The University of Michigan has around a 15% acceptance rate. How is it possible that they’re letting in kids who aren’t ready to do college level work? What are they selecting for?

It's a pretty different environment going from high school to college. There's a dynamic change that's pretty sudden where your parents are no long really in the picture for support. What they are trying to do is keep the kids that would otherwise do well but might freak out in the first semester. Seems pretty fine to me especially since those are grades that if we are being honest really don't matter anyways.

The coddling is a big problem these days, and this focus on mental health is itself unhealthy. The assessment that "they would otherwise do well" is speculative, at best.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#200

Post by nukethebay »

alephnerd wrote: post #48
joezydeco wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we shouldn't expect adult/parent level of work out a 16/17 year-old. There's no time left any more to be a kid.

Absolutely. I think some degree of competitive attitude should be developed, but admissions since the late 2000s have become hyper-competitive. Pressure makes diamonds, but it also crushes everything else.

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