Notes from Coaches Caravan in Houston tonight

[GrandGreen]

On 5/18/2017 at 1:23 PM, MeanGreen_MBA said:

I agree with this statement. If I can graduate...twice, anybody can do it

While I do think college has got much easier than it was decades ago, I don't think anybody can do it.   It is not necessarily a lack of discipline or desire, some people are just not cut out for college.   Being a good football player takes just as much discipline and desire if not more than being a good student.  Some as mentioned lack the necessary background and can't overcome it even with great academic support.  Others are just not good at tests and or performing in a classroom setting.    Unknown learning disabilities are also common even today.  

On 5/17/2017 at 9:05 PM, cjones said:

I asked Yelloch about English and says he has some growing up to do and is hard on him pushing him to be the best he can be.  He said he wants all his DL to be interchangeable across the line no one at a set position all the time.

 

Sounds like coach speak to me, designed to light a fire in a player.   Much like McCarney frequently naming starters pre season which in reality was more about firing up another player left off than about naming who he thought would actually start.  

[forevereagle]

On 5/20/2017 at 9:12 AM, GrandGreen said:

While I do think college has got much easier than it was decades ago

What makes you say that?

[GrandGreen]

Just now, forevereagle said:

What makes you say that?

Looking at thousands of resumes, hiring hundreds of people, and working with a lot of fresh college grads.    Retired now, but there has definitely been a lot of grade inflation over the decades.  My experience is basically with business grads, so it is limited.  At one time for example, it was fairly rare to see GPA's over 3.0 in accounting.  In the last couple of decades it was just as rare to see resumes that don't tout over 3.0 GPA's.  At the same time, if anything the overall quality of grads in terms of being ready for the work world has declined not improved.  

All this is a generalization, and there are plenty of exceptions; but it is a view shared by many experienced managers.    

 

[Ben Gooding]

Just now, forevereagle said:

What makes you say that?

For starters, the access to information. 

Also, it's no secret that students/adolescents are coddled or conformed to at a rate never seen before. And many of professors lean in the direction of keeping that well and running. So they're more lenient than in the past, specifically in the past 10 years. I have a little experience when I say this too. I went to college in 2005 after graduating high school. The early to mid-00's seem like a transitional period of this easy access to information. Google (1998) was still in its infancy stages as well as wikipedia (2001) (let's not act like we didn't use it for at least great resources). College in the early to mid 2000's is not what it is today and I imagine it was even more difficult in previous years. Ideas were more original or at least were actually read from a book and manuscripted in the students' own words. I went to college just that one year before joining the military. Fast forward 6 years later to when I started at UNT, doing research papers became simple. Also, for what it's worth, I think conservative based university is more difficult than what is the typical liberal college. Professors have higher expectations and don't fall into excuse traps. My first college was a rural southern Arkansas university where excuses were not even listened to. Whereas at UNT, I could get week long extensions on anything I needed or wanted for reasons of just because. Though for me, I never needed to. 

I think outside of the era of the automobile/airplane, this has been the most transformational era this society has seen. 

[Aldo]

3 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

Looking at thousands of resumes, hiring hundreds of people, and working with a lot of fresh college grads.

I think another reason is that being in college has become a full time job itself. Doesn't leave much time for work in the field you hope to be in. Obviously there are internship opportunities, but those are few and won't pay the light bill in the short term.

Which means you have to be really good (high GPA) at what you do, and be better than everyone else who also aren't doing anything but study and take classes (while taking a part time service industry job here or there to pay the bills).

It's not the coddled BS reason - I had plenty of professors tell me my work was crap and to do better. It's that the college degree is overemphasized and its importance is inflated. It costs so much that you need to be done as fast as you can and be better than everyone else that all you can do is focus on being a college student.

[Ben Gooding]

8 minutes ago, Aldo said:

I think another reason is that being in college has become a full time job itself. Doesn't leave much time for work in the field you hope to be in. Obviously there are internship opportunities, but those are few and won't pay the light bill in the short term.

Which means you have to be really good (high GPA) at what you do, and be better than everyone else who also aren't doing anything but study and take classes (while taking a part time service industry job here or there to pay the bills).

It's not the coddled BS reason - I had plenty of professors tell me my work was crap and to do better. It's that the college degree is overemphasized and its importance is inflated. It costs so much that you need to be done as fast as you can and be better than everyone else that all you can do is focus on being a college student.

I think coddled was a poor choice of word on my part. I guess I just used that word because it's the mojo mainstream word right now. But there is validity in whichever word I was trying to describe. I promise you that. 

You're kind of describing a competitive job market. The market has been competitive forever. But I have never seen or heard of the amount of people handing work in late while getting it justified by professors, people creating or trying to push any publicly perceived handicap or learning disability in order to create an academic advantage, or people blatantly getting shoddy work passed off as acceptable. I saw it happen too many times and heard of it happening many more. 

[unt_rocket09]

Coddled is the correct term.  Here is the school policy for where I teach/coach

https://www.killeenisd.org/schoolDocs/c7/documents/GradingPolicy.pdf

[UNTFan23]

22 hours ago, unt_rocket09 said:

Coddled is the correct term.  Here is the school policy for where I teach/coach

https://www.killeenisd.org/schoolDocs/c7/documents/GradingPolicy.pdf

There are other school districts that have similar grade policies.

Edited May 23, 2017 by UNTFan23