What the hell is wrong with students?

Today, in my Pre-Calc II class, we took a quiz, and after everyone had turned it in, he went over the answers, and the methods you'd use to get those answers. We're currently studying a bit of trigonometry, and one of the types of problems we face is in using the Law of Cosines and the Law of Sines to compute the measures of all three angles and of all three sides. Usually, you're given three pieces of info (e.g. one side and two angles) and asked to find the missing three numbers.

A possible kink in this process is that you can compute the requisite sides and angles, doing all the math correctly, and come up with an answer of "no triangle possible." Your answers have to make sense: in other words, angle or side measures cannot be zero or negative; the sum of the three angles has to be 180 degrees; and, the largest angle has to be opposite the largest side, and the second-largests have to match up, and so do the smallest.

One of the problems on the test fell into this category; the computed answers made no sense, as the largest angle would have been opposite the smallest side. From the whiny frat boys and sorority girls in my class, of which there are many, this immediately prompted cries of "How are we supposed to know that?" and "That's not fair!" Their claims of injustice revolved around the fact that the professor had not demonstrated one of these types of problems in class, and thus how could we be expected to know how to solve one on a quiz??

First of all, the fact that the largest angle should be opposite the largest side should be common sense; it is to me. Everyone has seen a triangle, we all know what they look like. Try to draw a triangle with the smallest side opposite the largest angle. I'll save you some time -- it can't be done.

By no means am I an expert at all things math-related; I am dreading the four quarters of Calculus I have to complete. But, perhaps there are some people in even worse shape than I am, people who don't automatically see the side-angle relationship. Fine. But this problem on the quiz came directly from our textbook. Students in my class apparently believe that if it's not discussed in class, the professor has no right putting it on the test. These morons don't expect to have to do anything outside of class, on their own; they want all the necessary information to be spoon-fed to them in class, preferably in the first part of each session, so that they can leave halfway through.

This is symptomatic of a larger problem. Students at this University, and I have to assume college students in general, don't seem to want to learn. As my MassComm professor puts it, "Students are the worst consumers in the world." Here we are, paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars per quarter for an education which most of my peers don't seem to want. Students in one of my other classes are constantly asking to leave early; why? If you paid for seven days on a cruise ship, unless there were some crisis, would you be asking to leave after four days?

The answer seems to be one of two possibilities: perhaps Mommy and Daddy, the federal government, or someone/something else are paying for frat boy's education, and he doesn't really care that they get their money's worth -- after all, it's not his cash.

The other answer, which holds true no matter who is paying the tuition, is that students aren't buying an education; they're buying a degree, which they believe will then guarantee them a job. (Incidentally, sometimes they're right; some employers do seem to look for nothing other than a piece of sheepskin, and ignore the fact that these job-seekers are brainless fools.)

But, my fear is that we're claiming to educate a generation of engineers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, when in reality few of them are actually being educated. And, what many students don't seem to understand is that education doesn't just stop when you get a four-year degree; the rapid rate of change in the world around us ensures that most people in my generation will need to take some sort of contuining education throughout our professional lives, just to keep up.

But for now, I guess Biff and Brittany have more important things to worry about, like when the next keg party is, or what new color of nail polish Revlon put out this week.

Just cross your fingers and hope that in 20 years, if you're having a life-saving operation, that it's not "Dr. Brittany" behind that surgical mask.