# University students struggle to read entire books



## stormgirl (May 21, 2013)

University students are struggling to read entire books | Education | News | The Independent
Do you see this as yet another example of university being dumbed down to make up for the lack of skills from those leaving high school, or do the students have a point that there is simply too much reading to do in a short span of time?


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## Thomas60 (Aug 7, 2011)

stormgirl said:


> University students are struggling to read entire books | Education | News | The Independent
> Do you see this as yet another example of university being dumbed down to make up for the lack of skills from those leaving high school, or do the students have a point that there is simply too much reading to do in a short span of time?


In my masters, the amount of reading is above reasonable levels of expectation, and if you do manage to read it, you probably won't absorb what's important.
Not everything is relevant, so learn smarter, not harder.

Bachelor's was piece of cake, I traded out of engineering though, so of course it would feel like that.


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## Doktorin Zylinder (May 10, 2015)

Indeed, universities have been dumbed down, but they are also admitting people who wouldn't have been there sixty years ago when the stakes were higher and education was paid for out of pocket instead of heavily subsidized in the name of equality or whatever excuse is now used. Most of the people who are now in university would have been in the trades a half century ago. Not everyone needs a degree or a white collar job and using propaganda to beat that into the masses of gullible young people is a recipe for disaster as can be currently seen. 

From my last university interaction, I'd say half the people attending shouldn't be there. Universities used to be for those who were above average and capable of doing something with their education. Now, those who are average are the lowest common denominator and want a participation trophy or cry to the professors when their get poor grades. I helped the sister of my last ex who was attending university with some of her papers. She cried when I told her they weren't fit for a junior. It was maybe ninth grade level. I don't see how she was admitted to the university let alone allowed to progress so far. 

I used to be a professor; I've seen the tactics these (I hesitate to call them) adults use because they shouldn't have been there in the first place or were out partying the night or weeks before, playing on their phones, engaging in causal sex, or whatever the reason happens to be. University is for learning and educating the mind, not a places to fool around, waste money, "find yourself", or get your MRS. If you can't keep up, you shouldn't be there in the first place or you should be taking a lighter course load. Whining and crying to get your way is what children do, but that seems to be status quo for Gen Y and Z these days.

The whole education system is a mess.


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## Dental Floss Tycoon (Apr 4, 2011)

Maybe universities have dumbed down in fact. But reading whole books seems like a terrible parameter for that. Depending on the subject you don't have to finish a book to learn the written information.


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## peter pettishrooms (Apr 20, 2015)

Skimming is a useful tool. Professors and older students who have already taken and passed the classes would tell you not to read the whole chapters in the first place since it is not uncommon for professors to exclude parts of chapters. That's why you hear students complaining about studying for 10 hours a day and still making only B's at best. I was able to keep straight A's with just 5 hours of studying a day because it's all about quality not quantity.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

Well the 8th grade tests from a century ago seemed harder, but that's an illusion because we just didn't learn those things.


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## Morpheus83 (Oct 17, 2008)

I can't speak for all universities, but I was an undergrad, I had to read many 'dense' theories (from continental philosophers--Derrida, Lacan, Baudrillard, etc...) in my *first* year. And I had to write between 2-3K word essays applying those theories to 'classic' works of literature. Now ten years later, all students have to do is read and write precis of a few theories throughout the semester--and there's no need to engage with any work of literature until the end of semester exam. And now tutors are praising students for being able to read even ONE paragraph of anything written by Karl Marx. Go figure (and tutors have been teaching first-year students--on the first seminar--about the 'ideology of reading': a cultural theory-type rationalisation of why the module has been 'dumbed down' to cater to 'less privileged' students who don't have time to read and absorb complex texts).


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## katemess (Oct 21, 2015)

Considering about a quarter of the people in my classes can't speak English, I definitely doubt their ability to read the textbooks and readings. But then again, my uni is the biggest culprit for having international students (and often domestic students too) have other people write their assignments and sit their exams for them.


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## angelfish (Feb 17, 2011)

Three thoughts: 

*1. Heavy cross-course loads and time management*

One semester I was assigned to "read" a dense, dry 400 page textbook on legal policy in two weeks for a class - in addition to my other schoolwork. I ended up reading most of the chapter intros, skimming the headings, and reading the conclusions. It was an unrealistic assignment and none of my classmates - most of them type A preppies - read it all, either. Turned out that the professors didn't seem to actually expect us to have read the whole thing. I think they expected us to do basically what I did and to read it for real in bits and pieces later because we were interested in the topics. They did really expect us to be reasonably familiar with the content as well as to read certain parts but they plainly identified those and made it clear what would be covered on our exams.

Also, when I studied abroad in Northern Europe, there was the expectation that students would not in fact attend all classes, or do all assignments. The expectation was that part of college was learning to balance one's time and efforts and choose what one needed to do and not do to be successful. If a student can get away with not reading a whole text, it doesn't make sense to needlessly sacrifice that time when they can spend it doing something more conducive to their overall academic progress.

*2. Current college underclassmen aren't generally wise, motivated, self-disciplined trailblazers*

I started college as a Lit major, but soon discovered that I was really tired of reading books because I _had_ to. It used to be enjoyable. When I was in middle school, I used to sneak my language arts books into math class and read them under the desk. But in college the assignments just became tedious - probably because of the volume expected. And it's like the article said - given the option between reading a whole book and finishing some other work (or taking a nap... or going to the caf with a friend...) - the choice is pretty obvious. And I'm saying this as someone who really loves books and has ever since I could read!

Most 19-year-olds just aren't developmentally to the point of integrating _I am going to read this whole book even if it's not exactly what I feel like doing right now because I treasure the opportunity to gain this knowledge and this experience and it will enrich my life_. I certainly wasn't! Sure your 60-year-old professor gets it. And I think I finally get it, now, several years post-graduation. But it's unreasonable to expect that same wisdom of college freshmen - and yet I think a lot of liberal arts university culture does revolve around that premise. It's an ideal and a lovely one at that. But especially with the new developmental phase of "emerging adulthood", students are in some senses getting younger, more immature. Most college freshmen are not on the brink of adulthood and their careers. Many of them are sheltered, privileged kids who are going to college because it is what they have been raised to idealize and plan for. And college can seem a lot like a big playground when it's not your money! Few students have really figured out what they want and where they're going - and even then, anyone who's sat down with a huge old tome understands. Yes it can be thrilling. But once it's required, some of the magic dissipates.

*3. Sometimes the system is just inadequate *

I tutored a student athlete who could barely write a coherent paragraph, much less a pages-long essay. Athletics was giving him the scholarship to attend the school, so he had to do well on the team. But they practiced daily, worked out daily, had frequent team meetings, and were often gone weekends for away games. Between class and practice, he could hardly even make it to the tutoring office during normal open hours. He was stuck, and the university was perpetuating his situation. He wasn't a good enough athlete to make it to the pros and I'm sure his GPA wasn't fantastic upon graduation. The university system essentially failed him.


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## Angelic Gardevoir (Oct 7, 2010)

I think people are failing to take into account people who are otherwise intelligent but have issues such as ADD, executive dysfunction, anxiety, or learning disabilities. Such things make it harder to do reading assignments. I can write good analytical essays when given the time to actually read and engage with the text. But if I took an English Lit course, received a reading list of 20 to 30 books that I had to finish by the end of the semester, and had a typical course load, I would have had a fucking heart attack. (Heck, I'd still have a heart attack even if was the only class I had.) And this is coming from someone who took AP English in high school and managed to pass the AP exam, so I'm not "lazy" or "stupid." I've gotten to the point where I can't even read for pleasure anymore because reading gives me anxiety. I have trouble focusing and often forget what the hell I just read. When I was reading stuff for college, I would often fear missing anything that could be on the test....which didn't help my focus at all. Speaking of which...



acidicwithpanic said:


> Skimming is a useful tool. Professors and older students who have already taken and passed the classes would tell you not to read the whole chapters in the first place since it is not uncommon for professors to exclude parts of chapters. That's why you hear students complaining about studying for 10 hours a day and still making only B's at best. I was able to keep straight A's with just 5 hours of studying a day because it's all about quality not quantity.


Depends on the professor. I had one psych professor who would put any little detail a reader could miss or deem unimportant on a test just to make the test harder. It didn't help my paranoia in any capacity. Professors like her, along with financial issues, are the reasons why I'm probably never going back to finish my degree.


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## Razare (Apr 21, 2009)

Uhhh... you guys read the books?

I was always under the understanding, you did not read the book, and you skimmed it to learn what you were supposed to get the work done.

After 3 or 4 years of college, I wouldn't even feel guilty about not reading it because most paragraphs were a waste of hot air.

How you start out skimming is read the first sentence of a paragraph, then the last sentence. If they followed the rules of English, you would then be able to tell whether that paragraph was worth reading. Most paragraphs are useless.

Make sure you understand any charts, graphs, pictures, or equations. Highlighted words are important.

Make sure you get the gist of a section. Like in accounting text books, if they have a section about taxation of rental properties, just ask yourself, "Do I understand this?" If so, no need to read.

I would have failed college had I not learned speed learning... lol Using methods like this, I once learned the last half of college statistics class, which was like 20 classes of material, in 1 day. I went home, studied through the evening, all night, into the next day. Went to class and got a C on the test.


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## electricky (Feb 18, 2011)

Maybe the universities are realizing that not everyone has a stellar reading speed, and that's okay.

Making reasonable accommodations for the many to give more people opportunities to engage with the material should not be considered "dumbing down," and if it must, then "dumbing down" is a great step in progress. 

My reading speed is ridiculously low due to attention issues. Yet I am a university student. So what do? A lot of late nights skimming and reading every other chapter. It would nice to one day be able to read the whole books assigned within the school semesters.


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## ShadowsRunner (Apr 24, 2013)

School is for those lacking in creativity, ingenuity, and the ability to think independently outside of environments where such things are not expected or enforced.


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## Monsieur Melancholy (Nov 16, 2012)

Nothing will kill your love of reading quite like majoring in English, speaking from experience.


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## Kavik (Apr 3, 2014)

Skim reading is an art. I'm convinced that's what they want you to really learn. Sparknotes are also an amazing invention. For a textbook with heavy memorization material, just type the chapter/book into google along with the word 'quizlet'. Bam. Premade flashcards and practice tests without ever cracking open the book.


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## Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar (Apr 9, 2015)

stormgirl said:


> University students are struggling to read entire books | Education | News | The Independent
> Do you see this as yet another example of university being dumbed down to make up for the lack of skills from those leaving high school, or do the students have a point that there is simply too much reading to do in a short span of time?


"At the beginning of the last academic year it was reported that record numbers of students were seeking help for stress and anxiety related issues."
Hmm...

Also, I think there's always a lot of students who come to college unprepared for how much more difficult studying is than high school. At least when I was in college, almost no one actually had textbooks. Most of studying was from lesson/lecture notes and from examples from previous exams. IIRC last two lessons before exams were repetitions with examples of exercises for exams.

It's because textbooks are rather expensive, though.



Angelic Gardevoir said:


> I think people are failing to take into account people who are otherwise intelligent but have issues such as ADD, executive dysfunction, anxiety, or learning disabilities. Such things make it harder to do reading assignments. I can write good analytical essays when given the time to actually read and engage with the text. But if I took an English Lit course, received a reading list of 20 to 30 books that I had to finish by the end of the semester, and had a typical course load, I would have had a fucking heart attack. (Heck, I'd still have a heart attack even if was the only class I had.) And this is coming from someone who took AP English in high school and managed to pass the AP exam, so I'm not "lazy" or "stupid." I've gotten to the point where I can't even read for pleasure anymore because reading gives me anxiety. I have trouble focusing and often forget what the hell I just read. When I was reading stuff for college, I would often fear missing anything that could be on the test....which didn't help my focus at all. Speaking of which...
> 
> 
> Depends on the professor. I had one psych professor who would put any little detail a reader could miss or deem unimportant on a test just to make the test harder. It didn't help my paranoia in any capacity. Professors like her, along with financial issues, are the reasons why I'm probably never going back to finish my degree.


Same here. At least regarding anxiety.

When I was in a CS college I was in a very bad shape. Had serious memory problems from trauma after the attacks in 2005 and it was so bad that I would often forget what professor was talking about before he/she finished the sentence.
Had to read books aloud to focus. Somehow I passed the first semester and most of the second one (on which we had a combination of subjects that every American student I told about said it was setting us up to fail) except math. 

When my family started having serious financial problems in 2012, I couldn't study at all. Most of time I was just too terrified. I still have long periods of time where I can't study because we don't have work set up for several months into future. Sometimes I can study intensively from books, most of time I can't.



Doktorin Zylinder said:


> Indeed, universities have been dumbed down, but they are also admitting people who wouldn't have been there sixty years ago when the stakes were higher and education was paid for out of pocket instead of heavily subsidized in the name of equality or whatever excuse is now used. Most of the people who are now in university would have been in the trades a half century ago. Not everyone needs a degree or a white collar job and using propaganda to beat that into the masses of gullible young people is a recipe for disaster as can be currently seen.


That's pure bullshit. Having money for fees doesn't make better students, except for lack of financial threats that can be distracting. When I was in two private colleges, I met teachers that taught at fully state-funded universities and said both that students from these universities are better (because of entry exams) but also that students during "communism" were also better than current state university students.

Also, even with subsidies, the cost of US higher education paid from pockets of students through student loans is insane. Public higher education is simply superior.


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## Doktorin Zylinder (May 10, 2015)

@Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar


Correlate my first paragraph with my last paragraph and don't take things out of context. You missed my point and I'm not going any further than this to explain it to you.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

stormgirl said:


> University students are struggling to read entire books | Education | News | The Independent
> Do you see this as yet another example of university being dumbed down to make up for the lack of skills from those leaving high school, or do the students have a point that there is simply too much reading to do in a short span of time?


I suspect that younger generations no longer have the skill set required to read long books. They grew up in an age with 500 channels on cable and the Internet, with it's carefully limited "blurbs" of information, and movies playing on their DVD/Blu-ray players. What few newspapers are left, are no longer written at a 6th grade level (as they were when I was a child) but are now written at a 3rd grade level. 

Younger generations just don't have the attention span that even older GenX and GenY folks (like myself) have. They're used to getting their info in much smaller "chunks" than we were, and there's a lot more of it. I think we're going to have to abandon the older model and look at breaking larger works of literature down into smaller doses, look for decent movie renditions, and/or consider audio books (which I'm certain some younger students are already making use of). They don't have to read when they can have it read to them. In a pinch, everyone knows for just about every great work there's 100 websites where they can read the synopsis.


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## starscream430 (Jan 14, 2014)

I guess it could depend on the subject? I thank my parents everyday for making me read a lot when I was a kid, which translated both into a great love for learning (subjects I'm interested in...which is a bit limiting :dry and a pretty good writing skill. That's why I like people like JK Rowling since her books led a generation to get back into reading - something that's quite hard to do these days.

As others have said though, I think college is becoming less of a trailblazing arena and more of a vocational institution. I mean...most of the subjects that require a lot more critical thinking (i.e. political science, philosophy) are considered not profitable when compared to the STEM majors. It's not to say that STEM people aren't innovative, but STEM usually doesn't support too much critical thinking unless you're into the graduate ring. 

Of course, I'm kinda guilty of that...trading my love for history, politics, and marketing for...well...medicine, but we all want the good life...I suppose :dry:.


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## Carpentet810 (Nov 17, 2013)

There is a movie that reflects this sort of degrading of the systeme. It is called _Idiocracy_.


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