Teaching us about the "real world"

[muses_nightmare]

I hate the phrase "when you get into the real world...", I have ever since highschool when teachers and my dad started preaching it to me.

Now, at 23 in College I still have instructors telling me about the "real world" I'm sorry, but I've been living in your so called real world for several years now. Well in my opinion my whole life. I didn't come to this school straight from my parents' place, I worked full time for a few years before I even got to consider going to school. Don't tell me about having to work hard.

\Being an asshole about assignments and giving us enough work to cause the entire class to lose several days worth of sleep while we're still learning all of the ins and outs of the programs we use isn't teaching us about the real world, it's being a lousy asshole instructor. How about you know, teaching us something? Giving us assignments and telling us to work on them isn't teaching.

I'm glad I'm graduating next quarter.

[Boozy]

Now, at 23 in College I still have instructors telling me about the "real world"

I wish I could tell you that it gets better.

I am 32 years old, married, have a job, a home, and car payments. "Wait until you get into the real world" has simply turned into "Wait until you have kids" -- or some other perceived hardship that will make my life more difficult.

Everyone thinks that their reality is the only one that matters, the only one that's truly challenging.

It's interesting to note that now that I'm in the "real world", I work far less than I ever did while I was in school full-time. My job is far easier than university and I have more money. The "real world" is not this terribly onerous and complicated labryrinth they made it out to be.

[Red Panda]

There are plenty of assholes in the real world. Sounds like he is teaching you well.

[HYHYBT]

Giving us assignments and telling us to work on them isn't teaching.

"Swim or drown" is a method of teaching. Not a GOOD one...

[DrFaroohk]

My dad used to try and teach me manual labor that way. He'd give me some randomly pointless task like take all the firewood off the wall and throw it into a pile, and then restack it. For no reason. Not to air it out or move it to a better spot. Just because he felt I needed to have a good notion of what manual labor was like so I could make it in the real world.

But all it wound up doing was telling me "Oh, manual labor is STUPID work. Ok, manual labor is what you do for absolutely no reason!" and I had an overall resentment in life for any overly physically demanding job.

[Rageaholic]

This was one I was actually going to start a thread on, but I never got around to it. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned the "know it all attitude" some teachers have. They'll make stupid rules or stupid assignments that are completely pointless and justify them by saying "In the real world, it's not always going to be fun". Yeah, because of people like you!

Just about every defense about dumb school rules or idiotic assignments has been something along the line of "Well in the real world" or "You'll have to deal with this when you get a job" "We alllllll have to do things we don't want to so let me prove my point!". It's such a copout. When the arguement is used to certain extremes, it can justify completely unfair shit. Just because shit like that happens doesn't mean it's right.

Besides, aren't we all living in the real world right now? To say I'm not is to dimish my life experience.

[muses_nightmare]

There are plenty of assholes in the real world. Sounds like he is teaching you well.

Yes there are, and I worked with many of them, as well as served many of them. Like I said, I've had several "real world" jobs. This is not teaching us well, this is us paying for him to be a douche.

"Swim or drown" is a method of teaching. Not a GOOD one...

It may be, but when I'm paying over $1000 per class I expect my instructors to actually teach me something, not belittle every student in class.

One girl in class has handed in every project, all of the process work and he told her she was failing after the 1st project. They weren't badly done work either. He just decided he doesn't like her and a couple of other people, needless to say she's going over his head about it. and just to be clear, I'm not failing, or even doing badly, so I don't dislike him because of that.

He's just all around a crappy instructor. I'm sure he knows his stuff, but we wouldn't know it because he's never actually taught us anything! Even critiques are pretty much useless, because he never actually gives us any idea of how we should fix something he just tells us "this needs work" or "this isn't working", and then proceeds to inform us that we all disappointed him with our projects and how we must have only spent half an hour on them. We all spend days on these projects, they aren't small. *

Besides, aren't we all living in the real world right now? To say I'm not is to dimish my life experience.

Exactly.


* Sorry about the rant...this instructor just strikes a nerve with me.

[protege]

I hate to bring up my brother again...but he really doesn't live in "the real world." That is, he still lives at home, and is coddled by my mother. He's never really had to work, and tends to sponge off the hard work of others...at 31 years of age. In fact, this was a guy who once whined about how he had to pay my mother for rent. I shut him up quick when I went off about how my mortgage payment, car, insurance, utilities and other bills were *multiple* times what he spent for "rent..."


As for me, I've been living in "the real world" since I was 10. I've delivered newspapers, washed cars, stacked lumber, done odd jobs, put myself through school, and taken a different path. Oh, did I mention that when I was in college...I was not only a full-time student, but also working for the school...as well as helping to take care of my grandmother's farm? I worked hard, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I wanted to say that I did it *myself.* Much satisfaction in that, there is.

I've always felt, that you have the real world, and the "coddle world." Neither can exist without the other. But, you don't want to remain in the "coddle world" for too long. During that time, you're in elementary school and high school...preparing yourself for the "real world," when you can make it on your own, and leave the coddle world for good. Once you've hit college, you're out of the coddle world...and need to grow some balls to survive

[muses_nightmare]

Not everyone is coddled through high school and the like though.

It also really depends on the person, I'm just tired of the phrase the "real" world, because everything is the real world. I don't think that college instructors need to coddle students, but I do think some level of actual teaching ability is required, piling on homework isn't teaching ablility, any jackass can do that.

One of my instructors actually tells us what we will possibly experience in our first jobs. He make no qualms about the fact that a lot of us will start out with crappy jobs that don't require our input at all, working under an art director or some such. But he manages to tell us in a way that is encouraging, he's trying to teach us skills that translate into being the boss rather than working for the boss. This is the type of stuff I'm talking about, he doesn't tell us that we have no idea what the "real" world is like, he just tells us his experiences and what is most likely for us after school. That and he actually shows us he has enough "real" world experience to know what the heck he's talking about.

I'm also kind of tired of people assuming that if your parents pay for you to go to school etc. that you're being coddled or that your education is somehow less than someone who paid for it on their own.* Sorry, but that's not true. Yes my mom is paying for what student loans doesn't cover, but my education is as solid as anyone elses, besides, if help is there there is no shame in taking it. This is coming from someone who hates asking for money.

*Not assuming you think this protege, your comment just brought that to my mind.

[Rageaholic]

I'm also kind of tired of people assuming that if your parents pay for you to go to school etc. that you're being coddled or that your education is somehow less than someone who paid for it on their own.*

This is an attitude I see a lot on the internet. You're correct, who's paying doesn't make a damn difference what education I get. It's really nobody's business anyway. As long as the parents are cool with it, I see no reason why other people should look down on you. I get so tired of people saying "I was out of the house and living on my own when I was 18!" with their intent being to belittle me to put themselves higher. I used to let that shit get to me and would feel like shit, but now it just pisses me off royaly that these people are trying to make me feel like shit over circumstances beyond my control.

I think the whole "real world" thing is just a scare tactic no different from the boogie man. Ooh da big bad real world! You won't last a second there! To which I say get the fuck over yourself, asshole, and stop being a macho jackass and putting me down!

[AdminAssistant]

Heh, when I was 11 and my sister was 16 we were both given a garden hoe and a three days to bigweed a 40 acre cotton field. Why? Dad wanted us to experience the worst part of physical labor so that we would decide we never wanted to do it.

Since I TA for a class that's mostly freshmen/sophomores, I try to strike a balance between coddling and kicking them into the pool. Generally, I try to point them in the right direction and let them figure out as much as possible on their own.

[Fryk]

I love college professors who use that phrase. The Real World, eh? And it's better and more "really real with extra realism"? And you're HERE? Why aren't you in the real world? *

50 bonus points if it turns out the prof went right from university into teaching at college, thus bypassing "The Real World".

* No disrespect to any other college professors. I just want to use that on that specific type of prof to shut them up.

[Stormraven]

I'm 45 years old. When I finally get working again, I plan to start CC. If any teacher says that to me, I'll likely rip him a new one.

[muses_nightmare]

I think the whole "real world" thing is just a scare tactic no different from the boogie man.

The same way that my teachers in junior high used to try and scare us into thinking the homework in high school was going to be 100X more than we already had. Ha! I didn't know homework until I got to Design school. More homework than when I was taking university credit courses. Let's just say I miss essays...

[insertNameHere]

I'm also kind of tired of people assuming that if your parents pay for you to go to school etc. that you're being coddled or that your education is somehow less than someone who paid for it on their own.* Sorry, but that's not true. .

I couldn't agree more, I have people who are pissed my dad paid for my college, since well he had to work while taking his and it completely sucked and he didn't want that for his kids, so when I was born they had a program where you pay for a year at that rate and could go to any public college in state for a year or whatever. Well they quickly discontinued about 4-5years later because when college inflation stopped being a steady %2 and was going up 9-10% it really made that investment a good one, so I managed to have about 3 full years covered with that program.

I am grateful, that I really don't need my crappy to pay off my bills, but I did bust my ass for 4 years to keep my grades up, I only managed a single C in college. Since has long as I didn't get a bunch of bad grades they had no problem paying for college. Compare to my friend who is pissed because well their college was double mine because they choice to go to a fancier private school for 4years and didn't get help from parents.

Also, um hate the people who are only pissed since they were drunk/on drugs for significant portion of their failing out of college and hate me since I got a degree with honors.

I also live at home and don't have to pay rent yet because I do things like fix my mom's dryer with knowledge I learned in college so she doesn't have to spend an extra $400 than the part I bought to repair it. Cutting grass takes 3hrs on a riding lawn mower, other general maintenance shit that sure I'm their son but if I wasn't readily available the cost of having someone do the stuff would be much more than renting out my room. Plus my dad supports me saving my money so I can buy a house once I have a stable job. I had a really good paying co-op in college I saved the majority of it. For the most part im practical, I try not to impulse by random crap I don't need. Also, as im expanding my job search including a lot of out of state options, I don't need to end up in a lease that I would pay for an apartment that is 24hrs away and unable to sublease,