People's views of College as an effective academic institution over time have negatively shifted.
(Figure 1: Female Student: Showing misuse of grammatical/oral skills and gives off an uneducated impression)
Why is this? How can we improve a mass audience’s impression of College Academics?
What I have found to be the initial problem, coming from a University education program to a Post-Graduate College Certificate Program, is… teaching styles.
It has become evident to me that the expectations of students, held by teachers in the College setting are lower than that of University, which reinforces the negative reputation of College as an educational system for lazy/unmotivated people. Our academic abilities are not being pushed and the lack of structure in teaching methods has become detrimental to the public’s impression of College as a whole.
Specific to the post-graduate certificate programs, I argue, in order to maintain the attention and respect of a class, a strict and structured outline of deadlines and academic expectations must be enforced. For instance, for each day that an assignment is handed in late it will receive a 10 percent deduction or if an assignment is not submitted by the specified deadline it will receive a ‘0’. At the beginning of the academic year our teachers read through the syllabus for each individual class. These statements were on each of the outlines, however, thus far these ‘rules’ have not been enforced.
Teachers would allow students to hand in assignments past the specified deadlines without penalty. Lenience does not benefit anyone, including the reputation of the Colleges. College students know better and if the lenience is given to them they will take full advantage, in turn, reducing the overall reputation of College as an effective academic institution. Lenience creates the trend of less than adequate work ethic in college graduates and reinforces this negative behaviour in the work place.
(Figure 2: Female student studying: Although this may look stressful, being pushed academically builds character, confidence in one's abilities, improves one's ability to multi-task and time management skills, increased independence and results in a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day)
So, as an initial step to increase the overall reputation of College as an effective academic institution, it is critical that strict and knowledgeable instructors enforce the rules (in particular the ones allocated to due dates) implemented by the academic system. Without this structured system the classroom turns to chaos and reduces the skills one ultimately learns through a structured school-work environment. This chaotic behaviour can/will inevitably merge and have a negative affect on future professional environments.
