> If college is supposed to prepare kids for the real world, we should be creating environments that simulate the real world as much as possible.
Would you take a motorcycle safety course where the first thing they do is chuck you into "simulated" traffic? It feels too obvious to say, but just throwing people in the deep-end isn't necessarily the most consistent or effective teaching tool for every situation.
Starting your first semester in college shouldn't feel like "being thrown in the deep end". You just spent 4 years of high school preparing for it!
But I agree that kids are awfully unprepared for the real world, so maybe coddling kids into early adulthood is unfortunately necessary? The whole situation makes me very sad.
You don't actually have any idea how different high school and college are, do you? Unless the kid went to boarding school, the environmental change is immense.
I think there's an odd disconnect that a lot of older people have where they forget the goals of institutions, and assume the goals are the experience they remember rather than something else.
For example: what would you say is the point of college, generally? Is it learning? Is it producing functional adults? Or is the goal, itself, to accumulate large numbers of grades that are as close to 100 as possible?
That last one isn't a goal, it's a means to an end.
Human learning is in fact something that can be studied and measured, and not something that was perfected at any point in the last 50 years. If it can be shown that not giving grades the first semester improves the actual goals of learning and adult success, then that's what should be done.
If you get over yourself and your "back and my day" and "consequences", you will see that what is being done is what will help create the world you actually want.
MIT does pass/fail for first semester, but the reason they give is "to allow students to adjust to collegiate workload" -- I'm 100% aligned and support with that.
What I'm not in favor of is a college doing the same thing, but using "mental health" as the motivator. If mental health is really the issue, maybe the kids they're trying to help aren't actually ready for college.
In what way is "allowing students to adjust to the collegiate workload" not "mental health"?
I see no difference in this vs the MIT program in terms of reasoning aside from a slight difference in wording.
Is the term "mental health" really such a blinding political football? Like "I hate Obamacare, but I love the ACA" and "Welfare is bad, but we need more assistance to the poor"?
Would you take a motorcycle safety course where the first thing they do is chuck you into "simulated" traffic? It feels too obvious to say, but just throwing people in the deep-end isn't necessarily the most consistent or effective teaching tool for every situation.