After a good four years in higher education, I've come to the startling realization that most kids at my university are, surprisingly, pretty stupid.

The thing that intrigues me most, however, is that it's not just a banal sort of stupidity, but an almost emboldened sense of idiocy. The students truly have no idea just how little they know about the world around them, and even more disturbing, most of them have no qualms about their lack of understanding, either.

Instead of just chalking it up to youthful ignorance, I decided to delve a little deeper and uncovered five specific reasons why my generation of college students seems so unabashedly dim.

http://internetisinamerica.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-us-college-students-are-so-stupid.html

So what do you think is the locus of my generation's general dumbness? Is it the fact that we have no understanding of history, or comprehension of globalization? Is it because we're dependent on grade inflation, and we lack personal responsibility for pretty much everything? Or is it because, simply put, we just don't care how we do academically?

I know a few people who aren't familiar with anything around them. They barely watch the news. I would start a conversation about some news topic and they wouldn't know what I'm talking about or the conversation would quickly flip to a different subject.

I skimmed through you're article and it looks really nice. I'll read it when I have the time.

Ummm... wow. I only started on your article and realized you are full of crap. U.S. students know nothing about math, science, or history? This is a given fact? Did you just watch Leno's "Jaywalking" and base the intelligence of college students on that? I know and have met plenty of people who know way more about those individual subjects than I'd even care to know, and everyone has at least a basic understanding - and when you think about it, why the hell would you even need to know anything about college-level geology if you're going into accounting? If anything, colleges expect you to know more than you need.

I have a feeling you're just one of those elitist douchebags who has a really easy time in school, and instead of acknowledging that you're mentally superior you regard everyone around you as being stupid. I'm not saying there aren't dumb students of course - there was a girl in one of my political science classes who referred to Paris as a country. But if you think that everyone, or even a majority of students in U.S. colleges are dumb, and essentially know nothing about any subject, then I think you need to have a more realistic perspective on the world.

And regarding all of your main topics, why don't you just speak for yourself instead of the entire country?

Usually I like reading books and articles that are contrary to my own opinions, but this is just too sickeningly narrow, generalized, and based on assumptions to be credible at all.

You're the gift that keeps on giving, aren't you, JSwift? :roll:

He probably won't respond. He likes to just link to his blog, ask an open-ended question about something and then never return.

I think he's trying to establish himself the quick way by conjuring up a title with some shock value, then chalking it up some witty writing founded on opinion.

I don't expect him to respond in this thread. I don't expect him to respond in anyone else's threads either.

Thanks for the heads up, I decided to write him a nice comment on his article.

Wow. This guy really has a high opinion of himself, doesn't he? I thought his ridiculous article about the Beatles being overrated was nonsense, then I read this. He seems to think the majority of people (not himself, of course) are the dumbest people that have ever existed. While it's true that SOME people may be like his article describes, most people are quite educated. In the article, he talks about being shocked that in some class he was in, some of the students had a grade point average in the B range. He seemed offended that everyone wasn't going for an A. He also said that only a few people in his class graduated with high enough grades to qualify for honors recognition.

Excuse me. I wasn't aware that everyone had to be Einstein level intelligent. Getting B grades sounds pretty good to me. It's certainly better than I ever got.

What ticks me off is that I typically enjoy this dude articles on here, but in the forums all he does is post links to his blog.

Same here. It's almost like he makes totally ridiculous posts that are intended to get people fighting amongst ourselves.

Is he even aware of what people are saying about him?

He's trying to land a time slot right before The O'Reilly Factor.

He reminds me of that one dude (I think) last year that used to ask all those retro questions and would never respond.

I'll go ahead and respond to this though. College was never intended for everyone and because so many people go is one reason the cost are so high. It is for people that have done really well in high school, that are pursuing a specific career. I believe Mezase Master said he is studying law and that is something you need college for. The same thing for being a doctor, an engineer, a chemist and other fields where you need extensive training. For everyone else that money could be spent to take a few courses on running a business and start your own.

Another problem with college is everything is theoretical and too much energy is spent of diversity, tolerance and other political BS. There is the college world and then there is the real world. The two are nothing alike.

I too have notice some people come out of college thinking they are better than everyone because they have more education, but nothing beats real world experience.

So the bottom like is too many people go to college now and it has become high school 2.0. Most of those kids are wasting their time and money and will end up working in a entry level call center.

Haha, Kidzmusik.

LOL yes! I still wonder if he was even a real person.

Yeah if u don't discuss, it's just spam- I really wanted to debate some of his historical uses.

Two big issues with education are

1) College is TOO general education. With all of the prerequisites you hardly get to study what you actually want to.

A lot of colleges have (intro to college classes) with take up valuable real estate for 1-2 semesters.

Electives are cool but u end up being a jack of all trades and a master of none when you have intro level experience in everything.

College should make u a specialist, somebody with advanced knowledge and expertise in a particular area.

2) Teaching needs to be more competitive

I've had some excellent professors but there are A LOT of bad teachers out there and it seems like once they're in, they're in for life.

It's VERY hard nowadays to become a teacher because most of the positions have been filled and you can't compete against tenure.

What's the big deal anyway? You go to college to get your degree, not to be the smartest of everyone.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are so confident while the intelligent are full of doubt.

~Bertrand Rusell.

Along these lines...most people are fucking dumb as hell at 18 and don't know anything about the world. Who decided that this is a good time to make people decide what they want to do with their lives? We either need to make higher education easier to get at older ages, or let kids get some real world experience while still in lower education. I'm not talking about child labor, and working at dunkin donuts and spending all your money on music and movies all through high school doesn't count. (That's what I did). I mean some real understanding of how the world and our society and economy and companies work. What it's like to do a shit task and what it's like to be in charge and what it's like to serve mean customers etc etc. I'm not entirely sure what the solution is but our current education system doesn't prepare kids to be in the world on their own at all.

We also need to remove the stigma of vocations. When I was in high school, it was only the "trashy" kids (half of whom I was friends with) who went to vo-tech. I had parents who weren't divorced and we had a nice house and I was going to go to real college so I could be a worthwhile person, or something like that. Well guess what mom and dad? Your typical electrician or plumber or carpenter makes at least twice per hour what I do, and they don't need to pay anybody else to wire or plumb or build for them if they own a house.