Why men don't go to college

[Kaninchen]

I do not have the time.

The problem is that the lexicon of post-modernism and deconstructionism shares some characteristics with Marxism … for example, their words have unique meanings.

To most folks it is all nonsense.

What a great pity that you don’t have the time. Having something of in interest in linguistics and the work of Saussure, I took it upon myself to read quite a lot of Barthes and, just for interest’s sake, later Foucault and (to much lesser extent) people like Cixious - even a little Derrida, I was looking forward to having you explain it all to me.

As to the ‘unique’ meaning of words, how would that fit in with the concept of the arbitrary nature of the ‘sign’?

 

[Al_Masetti]

What a great pity that you don’t have the time. Having something of in interest in linguistics and the work of Saussure, I took it upon myself to read quite a lot of Barthes and, just for interest’s sake, later Foucault and (to much lesser extent) people like Cixious - even a little Derrida, I was looking forward to having you explain it all to me.

As to the ‘unique’ meaning of words, how would that fit in with the concept of the arbitrary nature of the ‘sign’?

Since you seem to have so much familiarity, you would be the ideal person to start a new thread.

So, stay a while …start a thread.

I’ve read some of your other posts.

Stay a while. Start a thread.

 

[Kaninchen]

And if anyone actually reads all this, you’d probably have a good explanation why “men don’t go to college”. Who wants to study this stuff?

Well, obviously, you’ve spent an awful lot of time studying ‘this stuff’ - knowing your enemy - so it’s obviously of some benefit.

 

[Kaninchen]

Since you seem to have so much familiarity, you would be the ideal person to start a new thread.

I’ve not claimed/suggested that I’m any kind of expert on the subject one way or another or declaimed on the subject for the benefit (or otherwise) of all present.

I’ve read some of your other posts.

Wow!

Stay a while. Start a thread.

I’ve been around for some time.

 

[Al_Masetti]

I’ve not claimed/suggested that I’m any kind of expert on the subject one way or another or declaimed on the subject for the benefit (or otherwise) of all present.

Wow!

I’ve been around for some time.

I never said you were an expert nor did I say I am, but you seem to have more interest than I have in this topic. Your quick asides are very witty.

In any event, I did make one post, so if a bunch of people jump in (besides you), then we will see how much interest there is.

 

[childofmary1143]

As a 30+ student at Community College studying Business Administration, I would like to offer a few observations on my experience:

In my class the girls outnumber the boys 2 to 1.

The girls are far more serious about their academic success than the boys and it reflects on their high marks. In my Class I would say that there was about 12 or 13 girls on the Dean’s List (85% average) and only 2 boys (myself included).

Last month the College had closed down for about 2 weeks due to a Janitor strike and during that time we were assigned some homework to do during it. Only 3 of the 12 boys in the class ever did ANYTHING, the rest just slacked off.

The Instructor’s are quite good and for the most part don’t exhibit any anti male attitudes that I can detect to speak of.

Actually the feminist students in my classroom dislike a female teacher because she doesn’t give them any special treatment.

 

[Al_Masetti]

As a 30+ student at Community College studying Business Administration, I would like to offer a few observations on my experience:

In my class the girls outnumber the boys 2 to 1.

The girls are far more serious about their academic success than the boys and it reflects on their high marks. In my Class I would say that there was about 12 or 13 girls on the Dean’s List (85% average) and only 2 boys (myself included).

Last month the College had closed down for about 2 weeks due to a Janitor strike and during that time we were assigned some homework to do during it. Only 3 of the 12 boys in the class ever did ANYTHING, the rest just slacked off.

The Instructor’s are quite good and for the most part don’t exhibit any anti male attitudes that I can detect to speak of.

Actually the feminist students in my classroom dislike a female teacher because she doesn’t give them any special treatment.

There are a lot of complaints that so few women enroll in engineering schools. Still male dominated.

I wonder why.

 

[jc-servant]

GregoryPalamas;3395127Each semester I seem to have one class that exceeds the others. This time it is the class with 15 men and 11 women in it. When the men are in the minority they usually keep their mouths shut. They've been well trained to believe that they aren't as bright as women. But when the males are in the majority everyone contributes. I suspect that if they were separate I'd be teaching each slightly differently and both classes might flourish.:

Gosh, what is going on with the men where you teach? I’ve been in college classes in Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas. There can be a handful of men in class and they don’t seem bothered at all by the ratio. They definitely get their fair share of attention and voice in the classroom, sometimes more than their fair share. Maybe being the product of adventurous stock has kept our men manly? Oh and might I add, the men in OK and TX are still overwhelmingly “gentlemen” in the finest sense of the word even at a young age learning to hold doors for other people (not just women and the elderly) and exhibit polite manners.

 

[jc-servant]

There are a lot of complaints that so few women enroll in engineering schools. Still male dominated.

I wonder why.

I’ll give you a little personal story of why there is one less female engineer in the US, me.

I started out in engineering at a large university and then switched to a nonscientific major. I enjoyed the first year engineering work and the scientific classes. I had actually done academic contests in high school in scientific subjects. However, when I arrived at my first engineering class it was full of very rude, very disrespectful men from Iran. They gestured at my body (which was modestly covered) and made loud comments.

There was a class of more than 100 men, mainly from the Middle East. I was the only female in the class for the semester. The only reason that I didn’t drop the course right away was that a kind American guy saw my distress the first day and let me sit with him.

Our instructor was a graduate teaching assistant also from Iran who spoke Farsi better than he spoke English. He said the word, “engineering” with such an odd pronounciation that finally one of the American guys asked him to spell it on the board. When we realized that was the name of the subject we all groaned. The only people who got A’s spoke Farsi.

Despite all of the deficits, I had a 99 average on all of the weekly engineering problems, over 85 on all weekly computer programming assignments and I ended up with a D+ after the final exam. We were expected to memorize 3 pages of programming to regurgitate in addition to working numerous complex problems on the final. I aced it except for the final page of regurg, but my grade was poo. Wonder why? I was too disgusted to appeal the grade.

Needless to say, I was finished with that engineering school. I already knew that I was going to get a law degree, so the engineering degree was not worth the craziness at that point.

A side note, one of my best friends from college was just named the top engineer in her field for the whole US for this past year. Her degree was chemical engineering/pre-med. Thankfully for everyone who has benefitted from her expertise over the years, she lucked into the only intro engineering section with an American teaching when we were freshmen.

 

[jc-servant]

My general take on why there seem to be more women than men in college in many places is that young males don’t seem as focused on long range goals at that age. Many young women are flighty also, but there are still a good number of those women who will go to college to catch a man. Sad, but true.

After working for a university police department for many years (and a city), I can attest to the incredibly stupid things that males from 17-23 get into regularly to the detriment of their futures. Even many of the ones who make it into college will spend large amounts of time consuming alcohol in massive quantities, chasing women, etc to the detriment of their studies. This behavior has been going on since the Old Testament and it has nothing to do with female elementary teachers or feminism or societal changes.

The number of young males contacted by the police for illegal and/or dangerous behavior during the teens and 20’s is much higher than the number of females. Sadly, the gap is closing with increasingly bad behavior from young females. It used to be the rare female who was out with a group of her friends setting fire to things, breaking into cars, setting off fire alarms, etc. The males still lead the way even now.

There are also many more jobs dominated by males where they can get what they perceive as “big” money right out of high school. I know many more young men who choose to start making money right away in trades or factories than young women.

 

[Al_Masetti]

I’ll give you a little personal story of why there is one less female engineer in the US, me.

I started out in engineering at a large university and then switched to a nonscientific major. I enjoyed the first year engineering work and the scientific classes. I had actually done academic contests in high school in scientific subjects. However, when I arrived at my first engineering class it was full of very rude, very disrespectful men from Iran. They gestured at my body (which was modestly covered) and made loud comments.

There was a class of more than 100 men, mainly from the Middle East. I was the only female in the class for the semester. The only reason that I didn’t drop the course right away was that a kind American guy saw my distress the first day and let me sit with him.

Our instructor was a graduate teaching assistant also from Iran who spoke Farsi better than he spoke English. He said the word, “engineering” with such an odd pronounciation that finally one of the American guys asked him to spell it on the board. When we realized that was the name of the subject we all groaned. The only people who got A’s spoke Farsi.

Despite all of the deficits, I had a 99 average on all of the weekly engineering problems, over 85 on all weekly computer programming assignments and I ended up with a D+ after the final exam. We were expected to memorize 3 pages of programming to regurgitate in addition to working numerous complex problems on the final. I aced it except for the final page of regurg, but my grade was poo. Wonder why? I was too disgusted to appeal the grade.

Needless to say, I was finished with that engineering school. I already knew that I was going to get a law degree, so the engineering degree was not worth the craziness at that point.

A side note, one of my best friends from college was just named the top engineer in her field for the whole US for this past year. Her degree was chemical engineering/pre-med. Thankfully for everyone who has benefitted from her expertise over the years, she lucked into the only intro engineering section with an American teaching when we were freshmen.

I have heard of somewhat similar complaints at the post-grad level, but not at the under-grad level.

I would then, however, ask the question as to why are there so many foreign students and so few American students in engineering programs.

Is the work too difficult? Are the salaries too meager?

In the past couple of decades, people who would have entered the engineering field have two other career fields open to them: finance and computer programming. So the engineering schools no longer have a monopoly on prospective “quant” students.

There is also an arrogance on the part of professors (of all ethnic and cultural persuasions) that gets transferred to the students. And the students then take it to the work place and back to academia. Becomes an unpleasant and growing spiral. Folks who don’t like it go to grad school for an MBA and get out of engineering and into management.

[Don’t get me started. ]

 

[GregoryPalamas]

My 27 year old younger son has an additional take on it. He is an avid reader but notes that serious reading among young males has been replaced by tech games. I don’t know how much difference it makes but we read to our sons when they were little and both began reading even before their first year in school. It may well have had a positive impact upon them.

CDL

 

[Maxply]

Good issue to drop in on.

I think JC above makes a good point: it’s now a STYLE thing for boys to resist education (blame rap), and a STYLE thing for young women to show themselves as bright.

Our nation is not providing much “guidance” in a sense of where we are headed. In the mid 80s there was an Atlantic magazine cover story on industrial policy. . . the need for one. I remember the “manufacturing excellence” movement of the 90s, and the concern about “McJobs”. Nothing much happened there, either.

So boys are not seeing a future they can work toward and grab on to. At the same time, girls get strokes for doing well in school, etc., and feminists have done a good job of making us view female academic achievement in a more positive fashion.

The big problem is that the political parties in the U.S. are so heatedly divided that the bigger issue of making America better gets scant attention. They fight viciously over crumbs of the crumbling situation.

 

[Bobby_Jim]

I have heard of somewhat similar complaints at the post-grad level, but not at the under-grad level.

I would then, however, ask the question as to why are there so many foreign students and so few American students in engineering programs.

Is the work too difficult? Are the salaries too meager?

In the past couple of decades, people who would have entered the engineering field have two other career fields open to them: finance and computer programming. So the engineering schools no longer have a monopoly on prospective “quant” students.

There is also an arrogance on the part of professors (of all ethnic and cultural persuasions) that gets transferred to the students. And the students then take it to the work place and back to academia. Becomes an unpleasant and growing spiral. Folks who don’t like it go to grad school for an MBA and get out of engineering and into management.

[Don’t get me started. ]

There are a couple of reasons I see for the a limited pool of native-born American engineering undergraduates who choose to go on for doctoral degrees in engineering. Maybe because you can get a good job in industry with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, whereas career opportunities with a doctoral degree in engineering are much more specialized, and in some sense more limited (if you want to work in your field of specialty, that is), for not a lot more money. The general assumption has been that, for the 5-6 years you spend in graduate school earning your $15-20k stipend, you probably come out behind in lifetime earnings versus someone who starts off in industry with a bachelor’s - within 5 years, they have already hit the salary that someone with a PhD would start at, and have earned an additional $150-250k during the intervening years, while the poor PhD student was in graduate school.

Traditionally the carrot at the end of the stick for the PhD in engineering would be a faculty position, which might not pay that well, but gives lifetime security in the form of tenure, with the added ego boost of being a very important fish (albeit in a very insignificant pond.) But academic positions are harder to come by these days - competition is fierce, 2-3 years of postdoc is becoming standard even in engineering, and then you have to work your tail off for another 5-6 years to get tenure, even at (or especially at) the smaller schools, to develop a “world-renowned, extramurally funded research programme”. So that carrot is no longer enough to entice as many domestic students into PhD programs.

So anyway, there’s a limited pool of domestic engineering students who are so motivated by love of the subject that they want to forgo earning money so they can study something in great depth while being treated like slave labor by some professor. The domestic students, as long as they did halfway decently as undergrads, are eagerly courted by the highly-ranked schools - your Stanfords, Berkeleys, Michigans, MITs, etc. Those schools also bring in some foreign graduate students, but typically only the top students from the best foreign schools, i.e. the top couple of IIT campuses in India, a few renowned schools in Korea, China, etc, as well as the better universities of Europe. And they typically get foreign students who are a bit more proficient in English.

This leaves the majority of mid- and lower-tier universities with a lot of positions in their doctoral programs to fill, without a whole lot of domestic talent to draw upon. So you get, in the smaller or lesser-known programs, up to 80-90% foreign graduate students, further down in the talent pool from the well-known foreign schools (as well as some pretty sketchy schools abroad) and with much greater variability in English skills.

That said, I have to caution against equating the quality of a school’s undergrad engineering program and the graduate program. I think the undergrad program is driven much more by the quality of the teaching, be it the professors or the graduate instructors. The graduate program is helped immensely by having good funding and facilities, which goes along with having big-name professors who pull in the research grants.

 

[wjp984]

Some univesites have male affirmative action where if you are a male you get bonus points since there are not enough men going to college. However the courts are reluctant to uphold this as constitutional.

 

[BamaRider]

notice that in my classes both at a Community College and at a Catholic University that women outnumber men usually by 3 to 1.

Dang, well when those stats get out, prolly gonna be a uptick in males signing up for class.

 

[Ryan29]

My theory on the subject comes from personal experience and conversations from friends. These people are non-Christian, if it be an atheist or a “convenient Christian” which is a non-church goer, but says they believe in God, but are more sinner than person of the Path. When I was in high school I was a non-believer just like my friends were too. We drove fast, got cheap thrills, and lived very much the same as everyone that we knew. Yet, when we graduated high school the majority of friends that I knew did not go to college, because they sought the path of least resistance. They wanted to continue to live the same life that they had instead of being bold and going to college. I don’t want to be accused of generalizing because there are plenty of men that go to college, but there is a part of men that seeks instant gratification. American culture is full of things that you don’t need a college diploma for; playing video games, drinking with buddies, watching the latest movie with those same buddies, and working as a carpenter or roofer. Friends that I knew they acted pretty normal compared to the majority of other students. Men struggle with the social pressures of not having a role in society as they did in the past. When the women stayed at home (by the way there is nothing negative about women that raise kids) and the husband was the breadwinner so they didn’t have any other options, but to go to college for a higher salary. The gender role in America has radically changed for men and I believe that men are left to compete with women who are more deterimined to make an impact or footprint, whilst men have become complacent over time. My friends would sit around and watch TV and say, “All we need is one idea that could make money.” Then they would get their parents to pay their bills and rent while they scrapped together enough for fast food and gas money, so that they could go to their Mcjob. Moreover, a lot of surburban men aren’t team players, and think for the individual need for the moment over the greater need for the future. They live in the moment where the pleasure is so that they don’t have to grow up and think for other people. Anyway, if I wasn’t (and i wasn’t at one time) connected to my neighbors, my church, and I didn’t think society judged me for not going to college why would I go? Others besides my goofball construction worker friends think this same thing. I try to advocate everyone should go to college even if it takes longer than the four years, because what you learn isn’t always in the books or in the social, but what you learn about the horizons and the limits of an individual ego.

Suffice it to say, failure of the godless, laziness, the advant of feminism, and that western civilization that celebrates the individual with all their faults as a narcissistic god among men that shares no community with other individuals that share their same needs.