Irony: A Boring Essay About Bored Students

When reading the essay on college students and their boredom, “On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As Entertainment for Bored College Students” by Mark Edmundson, several I felt several strong emotions.  Although I do not fall into Edmundson’s target audience, I am still directly effected by his argument because he is basing his beliefs on students of my generation.  He has strong bias against students in college today.  He feels that college students today do not compare to the students of past years and generations.  This essay makes many good points but fails to incorporate what it really means to be a college student in todays day in age.

Edmundson is a professor who wrote this essay on college students and their “boredom” after he received the feedback from his students.  He makes it clear that his students are “decent at best” and feels that they do not take their schooling seriously.  His students told him that they enjoyed his class, but that was not satisfied with that response. Instead he wanted feedback saying they were engaged in the class and learned a lot for him.  “I want some of them to say that they’ve been changed by the course. I want them to measure themselves against what they’ve learned.” What he does not realize is that his students are probable just telling him what they thought he wanted to hear, that his class was enjoyable.  Not many people are going to feel that their lives have been changed by a course in college. Although a class of Freud, which he is teaching and reffering to in this essay, would be an intersting class, not many people’s lives are going to be changed after taking one class. 

Personally, I am yet to ever attend a class that i feel changed my life.  I feel that Edmundson is not expecting to much from his students, instead, he is expecting to much from todays culture.  Today, people feel that their life changed due to a person that enters their life, an event that opens their eyes, or a opertunity that they receive after years of work.  Few people are going to feel that their live is changed because they have a better understanding of hoe Freud believes their mind works. 

This is just one situation that I feel Edmundson missed the mark.  Also, I feel that he took the easy route.  It seems the older someone is the more they dislike who today’s youth lives and acts.  It is easy to complain about the differences between one’s own experiences and the way they see others live.  It is more respectable in my mind to accept the differences and showcase the good things about a different generation.  As a college professor today, I would think that he could get past the age, technological, and even language barriers and see that students today could even be seen as more complex and sophisticated that past generations.

Students today have to adapt to more forms of learning and more forms of teaching and more forms of technology in the classroom than ever before. Internet, Powerpoint, E-mail, Blogs, and even texting and all everyday events in a classroom or in the homework assigned by the teacher.  No generation before had to be so well-rounded in all forms of classroom technology. These techniques  are more useful in todays business world than ever before, therefore, students today are becoming more prepared for the “real world” after college than ever before.

Edmundson says students are not getting their moneys worth and are not getting anything out of college. I disagree, I feel that students are getting more out of college than ever before. I think that the blame Edmundson lays on the student should actually be placed on himself.  Stundents will get from a class what a professor leads them to gain, if he feels his students are not achieving the high marks he believes they should than it is his duty to lift them higher.  Several things Edmundson stated in his essay about the way his class is concucted really show me that the blame is on him, not on the students.

For exmple, Edmundson talked about how he felt he could no longer correct students because henhe did he hurt their feelings and they would to longer speak up in class discussions.  This falls directly on the shoulders of the professor.

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