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Paly student tells of school stress

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Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#21

Post by theworstshill »

xhdjejxjx wrote: post #13
JHSheridan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Students are now asked to give up their present for a chance at a good future. So... an investment?

It's more than that, unless you consider investing your physical health part of the deal too. As a current mechanical engineering junior, the expectations have gotten really quite insane. In order to graduate on time you have to be taking 15-18 credits of the hardest classes offered at university. Right now I'm in an 18 credit semester, and next I will be taking 17 credits. Currently I'm in fluid mechanics, finite el…

This should only be happening in your final year when you're doing multiple final engineering design projects at once. You need to rethink how you learn, or your health is fucked.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#22

Post by will_pseudonym »

xhdjejxjx wrote: post #13
JHSheridan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Students are now asked to give up their present for a chance at a good future. So... an investment?

It's more than that, unless you consider investing your physical health part of the deal too. As a current mechanical engineering junior, the expectations have gotten really quite insane. In order to graduate on time you have to be taking 15-18 credits of the hardest classes offered at university. Right now I'm in an 18 credit semester, and next I will be taking 17 credits. Currently I'm in fluid mechanics, finite el…

Your body is telling you to stop going down that path that you're going down. Ignore those signals and you'll be on your way to an early grave.

It is okay. I graduated at 25. The world doesn't stop if you don't graduate on time. Your world will stop, however, if you die from a body decimated by stress and lack of sleep.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#23

Post by bcassedy »

xhdjejxjx wrote: post #13
JHSheridan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Students are now asked to give up their present for a chance at a good future. So... an investment?

It's more than that, unless you consider investing your physical health part of the deal too. As a current mechanical engineering junior, the expectations have gotten really quite insane. In order to graduate on time you have to be taking 15-18 credits of the hardest classes offered at university. Right now I'm in an 18 credit semester, and next I will be taking 17 credits. Currently I'm in fluid mechanics, finite el…

Has this not always been the case for engineering majors? I seem to recall that graduating in 5 years was pretty much the norm for engineers.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#25

Post by xhdjejxjx »

bcassedy wrote: post #23
xhdjejxjx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than that, unless you consider investing your physical health part of the deal too. As a current mechanical engineering junior, the expectations have gotten really quite insane. In order to graduate on time you have to be taking 15-18 credits of the hardest classes offered at university. Right now I'm in an 18 credit semester, and next I will be taking 17 credits. Currently I'm in fluid mechanics, finite el…

Has this not always been the case for engineering majors? I seem to recall that graduating in 5 years was pretty much the norm for engineers.

You have to graduate in four or you're out of the program.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#26

Post by will_pseudonym »

xhdjejxjx wrote: post #19
tass wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should talk to a school counsellor about the load. What is the worst that can happen if you don't graduate on time? I'm asking because i don't actually know... Talk to a doctor about the other problems you're having - if it's stress related you'll at least have some evidence to back you up if you discuss workload with your school.

But you don't understand: that's what everyone else in the program is doing too.

You are risking your life to keep up with the Joneses. It's not worth it.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#27

Post by ucaetano »

I don't want my kids to grow up in the Bay Area, period. I'll probably move to Europe when I have them. Sure, that means some career sacrifice (and wages) but it doesn't matter, I don't want them to grow in such an environment.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#28

Post by tracker1 »

I pretty much coasted through H.S. ... There was pressure, but I mostly ignored it and did what I wanted. Depending on how much of my grade in a given class was testing vs. homework, which I rarely did, I would get an A/B usually. I played varsity football two years, band a year and jr rotc for three.

In the end, I didn't go to college, straight out of H.S. or later. I spent a couple years doing artwork, and BBSing got me into graphics design. I fell into programming, and now 22 years out of high school, I work as a very senior software developer. I've dabbled in management and didn't like it. All of that said, you don't necessarily need to overly stress out in H.S. if you are smart and some level of self motivation towards something that works as a career.

I'm just anecdotal evidence and probably more the exception to the rule. I never quite understood the level of stress that some teenagers seem to feel. It always seemed to me it didn't take that much work to do well enough academicly, and unless you're trying for a top school with a full scholarship, there are lots of options.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#29

Post by erikpukinskis »

msohcw wrote: post #17

Education in Asia, especially the main cities in the developed nations (Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul etc. ) is pretty much exactly the same. There's many purposes to an education, manifest and overt ones. For example, keeping youths neatly congregated and managed in singular locations, socialisation into specific social archetypes of value etc. We may say that an education is about Finding Your Passion and Being An Edu…

Even if the effect you describe is real (and I believe it is) the status quo is still easier under capitalism.

When you are poor your incentive is to find employees who are undervalued and hire them to release the potential energy in their skills. Development of those employees takes time, but you're poor. Time is all you have.

Once you have a successful business though, you have plenty of money and time is what is scarce for you. If a competitor develops your employee to extract additional value that's bad for you. If they poach your staff you have to take additional time to develop a new hire to do something the original employee was already doing.

So mature businesses shift their resources to building a moat that makes it hard for competitors to do that. This is so ingrained in how we think businesses have to work that mostly we don't even notice it. But almost all jobs contain quite a lot of "moat maintenance" tasks.

This is all, of course, depended on capitalism which says the management of resources should be done by those people who have capital. If resources were managed collectively, the moats wouldn't last because other people would bridge them. It's only under property law (or martial law) that a moat can even exist in the first place.

Re: Paly student tells of school stress

#30

Post by tinalumfoil »

avmich wrote: post #5
njloof wrote: post #3

There was an essay sent from student to student around finals every year at my university. It reminded us that success takes many paths. It reminded us that for some, this may not be their path, and that was okay. Success isn't about getting straight A's. It's about finding what you love and being the best you can be at it. Ignore the toxic culture and find yourself.

I think you're missing the point of the article. Teenagers are under attack which they can't handle well - including bailing out of it. This is not particularly unique to PAUSD, AFAIK; this is systematic deficiency. We're not talking about success here.

> Teenagers are under attack which they can't handle well

Not all teenagers give into the stress of school. My high school had students whose reply to "Make sure you come to school on time tomorrow because if you miss the ASVAB testing you won't be able to graduate" was "What does graduating have to do with being a car mechanic?". My high school class also had a student who dropped gym because taking a normal (non-AP/honors) class would lower their weighted GPA (which was almost perfect). When I graduated I had just as many friends go to Ivy Leagues as community college. This was all within the same friend group.

Palo Alto High School obviously has serious problems [0], but those problems don't apply to every school or even to students within the same school. I don't know what the solution is (maybe cut excessive testing that doesn't measure anything [1] to start) but it should take into account that not every student needs to be pushed in the same direction.

[0] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-are-Palo-Alto-s-ki...

[1] http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... https://www.google.com/search?q=college+test+score+academic+...

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