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Nobody who goes to a college would give a damn about what younger people in the class think, especially those who don't participate. College isn't high school, and people pay too much to go to college and have too much at stake to act like 10th grade fools.
Totally agree.
As an adult in graduate school, I don't discount my younger cohort, but I do give the ones who act like adults more consideration than I do the ones who routinely roll their eyes whenever there is a class discussion going on because they want to get out early.
My 3rd daughter just began her freshman year in college and I can say that the climate with the professors is slightly different than it was when 2nd daughter attended the same college from 2004-2008. This go round they are very clear that they want as many as possible students to take advantage of the professors office hours for varied reasons, not just for class help.
For instance, my daughter received a call during the summer from one professor within her major just wanting to touch base. He asked her if she had any questions, gave her some suggestions and told her to please make time to stop by and visit during office hours once she arrived. Then she and several others received an email from him inviting them again to stop by and talk with him. She did this yesterday and she doesn't even have him for any class this semester.
He explained a problem solving strategy that should be very helpful not only in her classes but also in a future job she may have as an engineer. He discussed amount of study time and some gave some other insights. Then he told her that he wants to meet another time for a dinner with those who do take the time to show up.
He is setting up a networking opportunity for them all. He will be learning more about each of them as well, which might translate into suggested opportunities for them or recommendations of them to someone else.
Considering she is a freshman, this is a great thing for her. If she was an older student returning to school it might not be as relevant. However, if you are wanting to further yourself in ways other than just getting a degree, stopping by office hours might present an opportunity that otherwise you wouldn't get.
My 3rd daughter just began her freshman year in college and I can say that the climate with the professors is slightly different than it was when 2nd daughter attended the same college from 2004-2008. This go round they are very clear that they want as many as possible students to take advantage of the professors office hours for varied reasons, not just for class help.
For instance, my daughter received a call during the summer from one professor within her major just wanting to touch base. He asked her if she had any questions, gave her some suggestions and told her to please make time to stop by and visit during office hours once she arrived. Then she and several others received an email from him inviting them again to stop by and talk with him. She did this yesterday and she doesn't even have him for any class this semester.
He explained a problem solving strategy that should be very helpful not only in her classes but also in a future job she may have as an engineer. He discussed amount of study time and some gave some other insights. Then he told her that he wants to meet another time for a dinner with those who do take the time to show up.
He is setting up a networking opportunity for them all. He will be learning more about each of them as well, which might translate into suggested opportunities for them or recommendations of them to someone else.
Considering she is a freshman, this is a great thing for her. If she was an older student returning to school it might not be as relevant. However, if you are wanting to further yourself in ways other than just getting a degree, stopping by office hours might present an opportunity that otherwise you wouldn't get.
This is very interesting, thanks for posting. You say an older daughter went to the same school, but did she choose engineering? This almost sounded like helicopter-parenting by the faculty, until I realized it was an engineering program. It's not unusual for universities to have a special program for women in engineering; the purpose of it is to mentor women engineering students in large part to make sure they graduate, and to help them along. Universities want to boost their numbers of women in engineering. However, since you say he was inviting to dinner all the students who respond to his emails and who see him in his office, not just the women (? We'll see when she gets there), it's possible the department is doing outreach of this nature.
It could be that the professor is the faculty undergrad advisor (there's also a staff person who does academic advising), and this is his way of welcoming the Freshman engineering students. There was a bit of that when I was a Freshman in college, too. There were faculty members assigned to different groups to discuss adjusting to the first year of college, explaining the requirement for minimum number of credits per semester, and providing other info to help students manage academically. They encourage students to contact them if they have any questions, or are struggling for any reason.
So that could be what's going on. If so, I don't know why your older daughter didn't get the same type of welcome.
My undergrad professors were very outreach-heavy , and this was 20 years ago. But it was also a small private school where individualized attention and small class size were huge selling points.
My undergrad professors were very outreach-heavy , and this was 20 years ago. But it was also a small private school where individualized attention and small class size were huge selling points.
In a competitive higher education landscape, it could be a college-wide initiative to make bigger schools seem more like small schools. This year at my institution we had a similar initiative: faculty advisers are supposed to meet with our advisees at least twice before the official fall advising period when we choose classes for the spring. It could also be a department scale program designed to increase retention. I would not even be surprised if it was sponsored in some way by an alumni development group.
It could also just be a very engaged and friendly faculty member.
This is very interesting, thanks for posting. You say an older daughter went to the same school, but did she choose engineering? This almost sounded like helicopter-parenting by the faculty, until I realized it was an engineering program. It's not unusual for universities to have a special program for women in engineering; the purpose of it is to mentor women engineering students in large part to make sure they graduate, and to help them along. Universities want to boost their numbers of women in engineering. However, since you say he was inviting to dinner all the students who respond to his emails and who see him in his office, not just the women (? We'll see when she gets there), it's possible the department is doing outreach of this nature.
It could be that the professor is the faculty undergrad advisor (there's also a staff person who does academic advising), and this is his way of welcoming the Freshman engineering students. There was a bit of that when I was a Freshman in college, too. There were faculty members assigned to different groups to discuss adjusting to the first year of college, explaining the requirement for minimum number of credits per semester, and providing other info to help students manage academically. They encourage students to contact them if they have any questions, or are struggling for any reason.
So that could be what's going on. If so, I don't know why your older daughter didn't get the same type of welcome.
My older daughter was not in engineering. She was in a specialized program for those who were math or science majors who intended to teach in those subjects. So her degree is actually in math with a certification to teach and not in education. She had the typical interactions with the academic advisor and her mentors within the program since it was specialized. When we talked about this professor though she was impressed with his outreach as she did not experience that.
This daughter was heavily recruited to their program and while there is substantial support and outreach for the women in engineering, this professor has not been involved with any of that. He also is not an advisor, there are staff members for academc, undergrad and grad advising. He is, however, a director of a research program there in addition to teaching certain classes.
We've seen this time around much more of this kind of reaching out even to us as parents than we did 12 years ago. It seems to be something the university is focusing on, not just the engineering college. I think it's a good thing.
Yes, I feel the older daughter should have received the same treatment too.
Unless this is a newly instituted practice, as in brand-new? (Plus the possibility of the other daughter not going into engineering.)
Well, it was 12 years ago that she began there....and as I just mentioned in my last reply she was in a specialized program that provided a different kind of mentoring and advising than she would have had if she majored in education instead of math. So perhaps if she had a professor from the college of education reach out to her it might have been similar.
In a competitive higher education landscape, it could be a college-wide initiative to make bigger schools seem more like small schools. This year at my institution we had a similar initiative: faculty advisers are supposed to meet with our advisees at least twice before the official fall advising period when we choose classes for the spring. It could also be a department scale program designed to increase retention. I would not even be surprised if it was sponsored in some way by an alumni development group.
It could also just be a very engaged and friendly faculty member.
I would agree that it is likely a college-wide initiative because it indeed is a very large university where there are areas that feel like smaller schools.
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