The Mindset List was created at Beloit College in 1998 to reflect the worldview of entering first-year-students. As the result booming of modern technology and development of society, today’s college freshmen have huge differences between themselves and faculty born before the 1980s. In this essay I will write about the similarities and differences between how older faculty (born before 1980) and today's students.
Older faculty members have a totally different worldview compared to students today. When those faculty went to college, pens and notebooks were the only two things they needed. There were no PowerPoint presentations or projectors for lecturers to help them with the teaching process. Lecturers wrote their teaching materials on the board using marker pens or chalk. Students today are armed with laptops, notebooks, tablets, and smartphones. They record lecturers and download lecture notes from BlackBoard. Today’s technologies make their lives much easier. Students can get information much easier from Internet. Rather than go to library in order to do research, they prefer to use online databases. Books are available for students to download to their iPads or Kindles, so that they do not need to carry a lot of heavy books in their school bags.
Faculty members born before 1980 said “Wii” to express the euphoria they felt as children when sledding down a hill. Now Wii is the most popular gaming platform produced by Nintendo that required people to participate in games without using joysticks. Older faculty members normally write letters to friends who are far away, it took few days for them to receive and reply. Today SMS is the most common contact method used by college students and people sending e-mails to each other. Older faculty members never used libraries as restaurants or coffee shops. They faced books, but they do not know what Facebook is. Today, Facebook is the most common social network platform used worldwide. Social networks link people together. Freshmen today, using smartphones, can easily upload their status, share photos, make comments to others people anywhere and at anytime.
Many students today don’t even know that puma is actually a type of animal, not only a brand of sports shoe. They might not know who Michael Jordan is, but get idolize Kobe Bryant or Lebron James. They might go crazy about Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber but do not know who Whitney Houston or Maria Carey is. As the time flies, idols from the last generation, like sparks glow and are gone.
Although there are so many differences between older faculty members and today’s students, there are still some similarities. Today’s students still take paper notebooks and pens to class, and take notes by hand. That proves no matter how much technology changes, the tried and true methods are still the best way to help student memorize information during class. Learning from the past is a good way for today’s students to make self-improvements. Whatever the high-tech that today’s students get and no matter how convenient it is for their college life and studies, it cannot help them to improve their grades. Working hard is always the only way for student to create their road to glory, either today or before 1980s.
No comments:
Post a Comment