tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post2305269009473976962..comments2024-03-15T01:11:32.832-07:00Comments on Bardiac: Ambition / RethinkingBardiachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11846065504793800266noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-68540267413856217622007-01-29T00:19:00.000-08:002007-01-29T00:19:00.000-08:00Well I have a daughter who would love to do anothe...Well I have a daughter who would love to do another PhD. Her first is in 17th century French Lit and she would be love to do one in History. Even with a full time job and a 4 yr old she still takes a college level course in Italian every semester.<br /><br />I'm sure any dept would be happy to accept a PhD candidate who already has a PhD, providing funding can be found.jmbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13563252743976699923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-88365596855078732442007-01-28T13:17:00.000-08:002007-01-28T13:17:00.000-08:00What a great post.
To focus on the idea (which I ...What a great post.<br /><br />To focus on the idea (which I realize is only one aspect of your post) that students don't know how college works:<br /><br />I agree that it takes time to learn how to "do college." I was a 2nd/3rd generation college student, but I had no idea what to call a professor who didn't have a PhD, for example. Nor did I understand the classification of assistant/assoc/full professors, or of adjuncts. <br /><br />Financial aid is still a big mystery to me (it was done weird at the school I attended for my undergrad, and the scholarships I got in grad school canceled out the financial aid I would have gotten, so I was advised not to bother with FAFSA forms). <br /><br />FERPA training wasn't even covered in my most recent faculty orientation. That still blows me away. I learned about it at my previous university, but my colleagues here who haven't been profs before have no idea what FERPA is for. <br /><br />So if we profs are clueless, how do we expect the students to have a clue? And yet we DO expect them to figure out college. I try to guide my freshmen through the ropes--how to study for my classes, how to read the texts (and what to focus on), the importance of backing up one's work and of starting assignments sooner, how to find things in the library, etc. We do have a "first generational college student" class here to help students with the process, but I think even some of our 3rd and 4th generation students need this advice.<br /><br />I could have benefited from it myself as an undergrad, even though I didn't realize it at the time!Terminal Degreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16523014953046778630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-34143747978694968652007-01-28T10:39:00.000-08:002007-01-28T10:39:00.000-08:00In a general sense I've been thinking for some tim...In a general sense I've been thinking for some time about some of the ideas you've brought up here. I've especially been thinking "How did I know what I knew" when it came to dealing with life in college. I think a lot of it came from having been to a decent, if not stellar, college prep high school, where the AP classes really were like the intro-level classes in college, where we wrote literary criticism papers of all types in AP English (including the research paper) and learned how to *do* history in AP History, and ran lab experiments in AP Chemistry, etc. But the rest came from knowing people who'd been to college and generally being curious about it. I remember way back in junior high having a music teacher who said she had to finish "3 hours" of her MA and I asked what that meant.<br /><br />So many of your students -- and mine, who are very much like them (only less into the hunting!) -- are at a distinct disadvantage, and it's very much a class disadvantage because so much of the coping and survival skills we learn are picked up informally from those around us.<br /><br />Which brings me to your musings about openness and transparency. I wonder if universities like ours should have the kinds of "days on campus" that fancy places have for their alums, only in our cases, we should have them for people who have never been to college or who have never been to ours, at least. You know -- just to see what it's like for a day. I know I could certainly teach a "sample English class" on a poem or two -- I do it all the time on the first day of the semester, when no one has read anything, and I know you do, too.<br /><br />Hmmm...I may run with this idea at my university. Our new president would probably *love* it, and then he'd find out that the arts and humanities people do it *much better* than his beloved scientists and professional school folks! Te-hee!Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.com