Yikes. Result of texting and?--Companies are firing Gen Z employees soon after hiring them.

[róisín_dubh]

104. I was a professor at a good university for years

Many of my students were very brilliant, curious, hard-workers. Others saw me as a cashier, someone who they "paid" for a "service", therefore they deserved a good grade. Increasingly, universities also treated professors as cashiers. Many parents viewed us as the enemy.
I'm only 47 and I was relatable to my students (tattooed, generally knowledgable on pop culture, etc) to some degree. I don't look down upon the youngs, as I've got nieces and nephews who are that age. They're generally fun, even if they can be abrasively odd sometimes.

The issue of poor writing is not really new (my uncle has been complaining about this among his young employees since at least 2006). But it is really a problem. The inability or unwillingness to just read a fucking syllabus is also a massive problem, compounded by universities' insane required policy statements that have syllabi reaching 9 pages long (so I get it). I promise students that the answers are all there and that they are adults and they'll have to sort things out for themselves- I'm not asking students to discover a cure for cancer, just to read a syllabus and do what is on it. Some cannot manage that. Or deadlines. Or composing an email that doesn't sound like a text to their mate. I do forgive their bizarre social skills because, well, they're 18-22 and figuring stuff out. I was weird and awkward at that age too. But the basics of being at university? Nope, so I've started a business to help them. Hopefully next year it will be fully launched, because it really is a necessary service for the students as much as for frustrated professors and employers.

I don't teach much anymore (resigned my position for a number of reasons). The students were not the reason though (I do miss teaching, even if I am one of the olds).