What is the service you purchase at a university?

[Necronic]

A philosphical question. Are you paying for the teacher (a master in their field) to educate you, or are you paying for a teacher (a master in their field) to asses your level of expertise in that field?

I have had this debate ongoing for a long time with various people, but I never posed the question like this, which I think is its proper format. My belief is that you are paying for the latter. What that means is that attending the courses a teacher provides should be optional, if very highly suggested. If you are capable of learning the material on your own (which very few people truly are).

I've gotten into a lot of arguments with college professors over this in my time, specifically as it applies to attendance grades. I used to consider them lazy teaching, as all you are testing is a person's ability to make it into class, not their mastery of material, but a long argument with a sociology professor I met changed my mind a bit. Granted he wasn't able to really see my point, but I was able to understand that in broad topics like the liberal arts testing someone on an arbitrary scale is very difficult, therefore paying attention to classroom participation can be a way to determine some level of expertise.

I dunno, thoughts?

 

[Piotyr]

You're paying for both. Not attending class, you miss out on the former. Sure, you will still get the latter, and probably know enough to get by, but you aren't getting what you paid for.

 

[strawman]

You're paying for mentorship/apprenticeship. Whether you fully take advantage of that is up to you.

Those that are just going to class and doing the bare minimum are, I believe, short shrifting themselves. Those that fully engage with the material, professors, and all available expertise may be getting more than they are paying for.

It's not a replacement for knowledge gained through books, nor is it strictly a piece of paper saying you met someone's standards for their field.

Although, for the most part, that's how people treat it, and the universities and colleges have optimized for that usage.

-Adam

 

[Rob King]

I had a similar conversation with a friend when I decided to attend university for philosophy. He argued that my time would be better spent doing engineering, or business, something with practical application. After all, he said he was interested in philosophy (this is a downright lie: he just didn't want to sound ignorant) and he planned to educate himself by reading great philosophical works in his spare time, instead of wasting four years and thousands of dollars to hear professors talk at him for fifteen hours a week.

The problem is that philosophy is a social endeavor as much as anything else. Your class is as much a time to network with other students, and possibly even discuss the concepts there, as it is to hear the professor talk. If there is no opportunity to converse about the subject during class time, I consider it your responsibility to find time outside to bounce ideas off each-other. I would imagine that the same would sort of hold true for other disciplines as well.

I find it an entirely arrogant assertion that the true function of a professor is to evaluate what level of expertise you have. That strikes me as the excuse of a lazy student, who doesn't wish to get up for an 8 a.m. class. That's a bit of a scathing judgment on myself too, I will admit. In my first level psychology class I took for a science credit, I literally attended only one class, and that was the very first class where the professor told us the examination schedule and what text book to buy. Beyond that, I only showed up for exams, and passed with a 79%. I did get away with it, but it was a horribly misguided thing to do, and I realize now that I probably missed many interesting and helpful anecdotes, as well as material that the professor didn't feel like testing. The entire notion that I didn't need class, even if it was technically true, strikes me as immature looking over it now.

Regarding marks on attendance: several of my professors have defended the giving a grade based on attendance by labeling it a 'participation' mark. In most cases, the deal was thus: whatever you got on the other 90% of the course, the 10% participation would be weighted to match (72/90 on regular coursework? You get 8/10 for participation). If you participated a lot in conversation, or made a few well-thought-out additions to the discussion, your participation mark would go up. Some professors would subtract a bit if you regularly skipped class without excuse, because then you weren't participating. But you had to have abysmally poor attendance to have that happen.

I'm not sure if I'm for being graded on participation/attendance, but it's important to attend your classes. If I notice someone regularly misses class, I mentally dismiss them. And if they ask for my notes I politely refuse.

 

[Scarlet Varlet]

You are keeping professors out of corporate offices, where they don't belong.

edit:

Those who can't, teach.

Those who can't teach, manage.

 

[Necronic]

You are keeping professors out of corporate offices, where they don't belong.

Man, aint that the truth.

I think some people are not understanding what I mean by the assessment. This is having the best of the best in a field look at you and say "yes, he is at X level" (x being bach/master/phd). The final stage of the PhD, the most terminal degree, is purely an assesment, as is the end of every class for that matter.

I would agree that you are short changing yourself by not attending classes. They are there, and they are more often than not a very valuable way to learn material. However, that doesn't mean that a person studying on their own and teaching themselves may not be able to have the same, or superior, mastery of a subject by the end. And I still feel that that is what a university is able to do, and what we value different universities by, their ability to judge someone's mastery.

This is something we all see at one point or another. I will avoid naming names to keep from bothering anyone in a specific school. Let's say I have 2 possible hires. 1 comes from Harvard/MIT. The other comes from a bad/disreputable school. Now, the teachers at said schools, even most bad ones, are still brilliant in their own field. The problem is that I can't trust that someone coming from their school actually has a good mastery of the subject, whereas someone from harvard, I know that they have to know that material to get through. And that's all I care about, can I trust that they are good at their field?

 

[Covar]

You pay for college to receive an education. Not sure what that has to do with attendance though. All attendance grades are is a result of Universities actually catering to their main customer, the parents. As a student paying for my school I pay for the right to attend classes there. If I were to miss class its on my own fault and its my money that is being wasted, as a paying customer I should have that right. Unfortunately with parents today If their kid doesn't show up for class and fails their first reaction is to go to the university and demand to know why their kid is failing. what do you mean he didn't show up to class? How could you let him skip class? Thus the attendance grade is born.

I hate, hate how the entire business of higher education is catered towards the parents of the students. It makes things extremely hard for those of us trying to pay on our own.

 

[MindDetective]

It is imparting knowledge. No employer cares what your GPA was, although graduate schools do take it into consideration. There IS assessment as part of the equation, only in the sense that if you provide a sufficient level of aptitude for your major and the general requirements of the university, then you get a degree. As a professor, this DOES affect how I approach some classes, particularly ones that are crucial to the major. I feel that if the student does not show reasonable ability in writing the paper for the class, they should not be granted the degree. What I do NOT expect is that they level to which they passed, that is whether they got a D or an A, will have any bearing beyond graduation if it is a terminal bachelor's. It only has that kind of importance when going on to a PhD program (and to a much, much, much lesser extent, master's program.)

Note, I do not grade attendance. My philosophy is that if students do not want to attend my classes then they are wasting their money not learning from me. I try to provide material beyond what the book provides and I also incorporate class assignments (which serve as a proxy for attendance but they are more than just that.) In then end, though, I think there is a big disconnect between what professors view as their role and what students view as the professor's role. I am there to impart knowledge while students feel they are there to receive grades. In an ideal world, the professor would teach and the assessors would grade and there would be no conflict of interest as we have now. Consequently, the absolute best class I had was a voluntary reading group where grades were not assigned. Students showed up and we talked about published articles because they were interested. I wish they could all work that way.

I hate, hate how the entire business of higher education is catered towards the parents of the students. It makes things extremely hard for those of us trying to pay on our own.

I have never once talked to a parent. If a parent called me about my class, they wouldn't get anything beyond a polite "none of your business". And the university does not tell me how to grade or how I should design my course. If I want to grade attendance, it is up to me. The real reason some professors require attendance is because they are either miffed that students skip their boring classes or because they feel like it is in the student's best interest and they do not always act in their own best interests. Myself? College students aren't known for their maturity but I feel that college is the time to really start owning up for your actions. Come to class or don't, but I've consistently found the students who come every day do best...

 

[Rob King]

I think some people are not understanding what I mean by the assessment. This is having the best of the best in a field look at you and say "yes, he is at X level" (x being bach/master/phd). The final stage of the PhD, the most terminal degree, is purely an assesment, as is the end of every class for that matter.

Yeah, I still disagree. Again, I see the function of a class (or the entire university for that matter) as social, as well as academic. Perhaps this stems from being a philosophy major, but going through the system, hearing various professors and various students discuss and opine on various subjects is vastly superior than anything you can do on your own. Learning philosophy from a book is helpful, but then you're only exposing yourself to one person: the author, and not in a way that promotes dialogue and growth.

I can't really say much for other methods. Languages, and pure sciences might be self-learn-able, but again, I'm inclined to say that the knowledge you gain is not the full picture.

 

[Mr_Chaz]

You're paying for both the education and the assessment, but primarily the education. If you choose to not go then you're choosing to waste your own money, but you're certainly not paying just to be told how good you are(n't). In the majority of cases (everyone's had a teacher who's shit, but we're ignoring that) the lecturer does not simply regurgitate a textbook in exactly the same form as it is in the book, they're always adding to it just sometimes in simple ways. Maybe they describe something in the same depth, but in a different manner. Maybe they go into more depth, maybe less. Maybe they skip some chapters of the text, or add in stuff from other sources (including their own research). This is all stuff that you can't/won't know just from reading a textbook.

Think about it this way, how much does it cost to sit an exam, and have it marked. The cost to the university is pretty low, it's a matter of a few hours work for the lecturer in writing and grading the students' papers. But preparing and teaching the lecture course? A lot more time. I'm not trying to undervalue the effort that goes into writing an exam by any means, but the lecture course, and any other time spent with students, is a much more significant part of the lecturer's time.

 

[Lally]

The real reason some professors require attendance is because they are either miffed that students skip their boring classes or because they feel like it is in the student's best interest and they do not always act in their own best interests. Myself? College students aren't known for their maturity but I feel that college is the time to really start owning up for your actions. Come to class or don't, but I've consistently found the students who come every day do best...

I agree with this whole quote, but bolded the parts I planned on saying myself before finishing the thread. I think attendance grades are garbage. But, the best professors I ever had tested on things that were discussed in class, not necessarily what was in the books. I guess this was because I was an English/Lit major, and a test on the words in the book does not test mastery in English/Lit... that would be a literacy test. The tests were about examining significance in a text, which is what you learn in class, and can't be found in a textbook. If it were something more nailed down and always consistent, like math or science, I could see how you could not come to class and self-teach from the book. My boyfriend did pretty much that with his engineering classes. But regardless, I think it should be the student's decision whether or not he/she wants to come to class regardless of the discipline. There were so many times I was so frustrated by a class because they said you could only miss one or two classes before your grade started to drop by a ridiculous amount (I had one class that would drop your FINAL GRADE by 10% if you missed 3 classes). They'd always end up being the worst classes, too. (see the point about professors being miffed that students skip their boring classes)

 

[Espy]

The real reason some professors require attendance is because they are either miffed that students skip their boring classes or because they feel like it is in the student's best interest and they do not always act in their own best interests.

Or some of us are forced by our University to have it as part of our grading process. I don't get a choice. They get 3 skips then they fail. I don't agree with it, although to be honest, if they missed 3 of my classes they would probably fail anyway since they wouldn't get the in-class work done nor would they be able to do half the tests.