My lazy American students • Hacker News Board

Re: My lazy American students

#31

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:08 AM UTC

yesimahuman wrote: post #24

lmkg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my college, the professors explicitly told us to always ask for extensions if we needed it, provided it was a few days to a week in advance. It is a form of time management to know ahead of time that you have 60 hours worth of work due in the next 48 hours, and talking to the professor builds communication skills and the good habit of giving feedback to your superiors. If you're talking about asking for an extensi…

I can understand that. What bothers me though is the attitude that it is okay to ask for extensions on a regular basis. Perhaps this has more to do with the role college plays in American society. I believe that college has become more of a high school extension than anything, and so maybe it is wrong to blame students who treat it as such. I doubt they would be slacking off in grad school (but I can't be sure!)

[deleted]

Re: My lazy American students

#32

Post by timtadh » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:09 AM UTC

Maybe not complete bullshit but an exaggeration in my opinion. Just because a student comes from China or another India or wherever does not necessarily mean they are amazing workers.

For instance one semester I was lab partners in an electronics lab with a Chinese student. Initially he did good work but as the semester continued he did less and less, until the second to last lab where he did none at all. Since I worked straight through the night on the lab, I let the lab director know that my partner had done very little work on the lab, he spoke to my partner and my partner put in more effort on the final lab.

I give this anecdote merely to point out that not every Chinese student is perfect, in the same way that not every American student is lazy. In my opinion there are many other factors at play other than cultural background of the student, perhaps the most important being the subject. I believe my partner did not engage in the labs because he was not that interested in the subject but rather felt pressured to pursue it by his engineering parents.

In the same way many students attend college in America but do not have concrete goals or ambitions on what they want to study. They are pressured by all kinds of things to go to college right away, and many do not realize until the end of their time as an undergraduate what they truly want to study.

Therefore can we please stop making generalizations about student performance based on these types of things and instead of saying "you must be a good student you are X" look at the reason why good students are good students.

Re: My lazy American students

#33

Post by carbocation » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:09 AM UTC

randliu wrote: post #15

telemachos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how I should "keep this in mind." She teaches at a college which focuses on business. How does this explain the difference she sees between her American students and her international students? (I'm not trying to be difficult - though I'm told it comes natural to me. I just don't see your point.)

It doesn't explain any difference between American and other students, just that Babson's student body is different than most. From personal experience i've found the hardest working students to be those needing to get into professional school (law or medicine) as well as low-income/disadvantaged students who couldn't afford the $50k tuition/year to attend a private college.

Sure it does explain the difference, or at least it is easy to see how it could. From my experience interacting with foreign high school students from across the globe, they generally do not understand the hierarchy of higher ed in the US. At least, the ones I interact with have little knowledge of the reputations of colleges outside of Ivies + Stanford + MIT. (Clearly, you could argue that college rep != college quality, but that is a totally different discussion.)

Consequently, you could end up with a student body of pretty highly qualified foreign students but American students that didn't make the cut at more desirable colleges in the US. (Again, there are plenty of reasons why great students choose colleges that are not high on the prestige list, but this effect doesn't need to be large to be real.)

Re: My lazy American students

#34

Post by moron4hire » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:11 AM UTC

yesimahuman wrote: post #5

One thing I still can't understand is how so many people are okay asking for an extension on something. I can't believe how many of my peers ask for extensions on papers and programming assignments. It's unreal. School might not be as high a priority as my startup right now, but I never turn in anything late. I think tardiness is the worst kind of habit to have.

why not? In the real world, just because you happen to miss a deadline doesn't mean the work doesn't still have to be finished.

Re: My lazy American students

#35

Post by carbocation » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:13 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #19

zck wrote: post #2

This seems partially explained by selection bias -- the slackers from "India, China, and Latin America" don't come to America for college at the same rates as American slackers do. However, this doesn't explain the actual statistics she gives.

I grew up in Taiwan, so I think I can shed some light on this. IMHO "the average" Taiwanese student will work harder than the average American student, but not by a supremely gross margin as this article would imply. The bottom-barrel students never end up in American colleges, after all. The chief difference is cultural - in Asia intellectualism is celebrated and demanded. Parents don't push their kids to football,…

The key here is that the average foreign student who came to America for college has already demonstrated a tremendous commitment to education. The average American student at any college, particularly one that is not world-renowned, does not harbor this extraordinary signal. Expectations with regards to work ethic should be calibrated accordingly.

Re: My lazy American students

#36

Post by alexgartrell » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:14 AM UTC

It's funny, a Czech Graduate Student friend of mine always says that Americans work too hard and focus too much on materialistic things. (For the record, this guy is a genius and is advised by two guys, the inventor of RAID and the Dean of CMU's School of Computer Science).

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

As an American student, I'd have to say I'm pretty pleased with the way things are.

Re: My lazy American students

#37

Post by tolenka » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:15 AM UTC

yesimahuman wrote: post #5

One thing I still can't understand is how so many people are okay asking for an extension on something. I can't believe how many of my peers ask for extensions on papers and programming assignments. It's unreal. School might not be as high a priority as my startup right now, but I never turn in anything late. I think tardiness is the worst kind of habit to have.

Outside of school, deadlines are usually based on project estimates, and as long as you provide sufficient notice, it's often possible to adjust the schedule and dependent activities to fit the actual time required to complete task(s). If it's not possible, then business decisions have to be made regarding what tasks can be abandoned or modified to meet the hard deadlines -- regardless of how the business adapts, you're better off bringing up a scheduling issue before it becomes critical.

Given that deadlines in education are more or less entirely arbitrary, I don't see the harm in extending them within reason, and providing students with the opportunity to successfully complete their tasks.

As for tardiness -- it happens. If someone consistently fails to meet our estimates, but delivers a sufficient degree of value within a reasonable amount of time, then I'll simply learn to incorporate their individual turn-around time in my estimates.

Re: My lazy American students

#38

Post by moron4hire » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:15 AM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #27

This article was entirely alien to me. Why should I care about the work of people who don't even care about it themselves? Then I thought I'd recast the situation into a more familiar setting. Apologies to OP. Make sure you read her version first. Does my version seem any stranger to you? It was the kind of pitch I hate. "I’ll do better," my software vendor told me, leaning forward in his chair. "I know I’ve gotten b…

actually, that doesn't sound too absurd

Re: My lazy American students

#39

Post by chancho » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:29 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #19

zck wrote: post #2

This seems partially explained by selection bias -- the slackers from "India, China, and Latin America" don't come to America for college at the same rates as American slackers do. However, this doesn't explain the actual statistics she gives.

I grew up in Taiwan, so I think I can shed some light on this. IMHO "the average" Taiwanese student will work harder than the average American student, but not by a supremely gross margin as this article would imply. The bottom-barrel students never end up in American colleges, after all. The chief difference is cultural - in Asia intellectualism is celebrated and demanded. Parents don't push their kids to football,…

Thanks for sharing your account of student life in Taiwan. It's always nice to hear firsthand about life in other cultures so that we don't hang onto our misconceptions. On that note, let me suggest that your caricature of American student life is a little cartoonish. Yeah it's like that in a lot of schools, but if your son or daughter goes to one of those schools then you live in a shitty neighborhood and should move. You're probably right about the means, but the variance is much higher in the US and its very possible to find an academic environment where a student can excel without fear of getting beat up. (Also, the bit about not making it into college being worn as a "badge of honor" is just silly. Why would they even apply?) FWIW I went to public school in Northern California (the central valley even) and I definitely got positive feedback from my peers for doing well in school, because my peers also took advanced classes. Apart from schools with gang problems, I would characterize it like this: In the US it's your choice whether or not you want to succeed academically. Your peers generally don't care because there are a myriad of other reasons to like or dislike you (looks, sense of humor, clique membership, etc.) So yeah there is not the social pressure to succeed, but for the most part there is no negative pressure preventing success (again, except in very troubled schools.)

Re: My lazy American students

#40

Post by Ixiaus » Wed, Dec 23, 2009, 2:49 AM UTC

mreid wrote: post #11

lurkinggrue wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be nice if we could get a slacker statistic like percentage of slackers by country.

Yeah. I wish someone else would do that.

I don't usually upvote comments like these on HackerNews, but that genuinely made me laugh-out-loud.