Way to go, freshmen

The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Murray State News.

The end of the fall semester is here. For seasoned veterans this can mean a long-awaited Winter Break and for others, graduation. But for many freshmen this is the cut line. The next week is usually the determiner for many freshmen on how they performed their first semester.

Some students have to wait till after finals to know whether they will pass a class, but a good portion of this year’s freshmen should already know. Sadly, the class in question is one many consider the easiest course offered on campus: Transitions.

How can we blame them? (Insert sarcasm.) It’s not as if they knew this was going to be a required course when they came. Or maybe they thought the lower the class numbers the harder the class. A pretty easy mix-up, right? At that point a 099 course can look pretty intimidating.

So intimidating that this semester’s dropout rate is predicted to raise a whopping 8 percent, bringing the dropout rate to 20 percent this Fall. That means one in five will not be returning in the Spring. This semester is looking like a disaster. Whose fault is it? It is those who could not make the simple choice of going to class and showing even a minimal amount of effort.

The situation is bad enough that faculty are voicing their frustration over the issue. Paul Naberezny, of the Counseling and Testing Center, expressed his own concerns over the priorities of this year’s freshmen.

“Some of these people are planning on getting their degrees,” he said, “but they’re not really planning on getting their education.”

This has been a growing issue in higher education all over the country, including the University of Arizona.

But the idea of being entitled to a college degree is just as misguided as thinking not showing up to class is the instructor’s fault.

Cartoon by Madeline Bartley

The Webster New World College Dictionary defines the word narcissism as self love; interest, often excessive interest, in ones own appearance, comfort, importance, abilities. This seems to define those new students surprised by their final grades.

College is not high school, which means it is not a requirement and it does not have to fill any quotas about how many students pass every year. We are sorry if anyone missed that memo before they applied. With the amount of resources and help this campus offers there is no reason for students to fail or dropout their first year.

The real question is whether this dropout increase is bad. If students are not capable getting their act together and acting like adults, why would we want them representing this University?

 

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