I did not recommend it. I simply said it was possible. There is a difference between "you can do X" and "you should do X".

Every thread about grades turns into "OMG COLLEGE IS SO SCARY YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT!!!" Yes, you should get your act together if you were a C student in high school. Yes, you should think twice about pledging your first semester (and orgs should think twice about pledging you!) if don't have good time management skills. But the fact of the matter is that most students who did okay in high school will also do okay in college.

A lot of lazy students will get by, too. Universities/professors/departments are under too much pressure to keep students happy, and to keep them from failing out. It's unfortunate, definitely, but it does not change the facts.

Your statement can not only be interpreted as a recommendation, it was based on an assumption that some majors are "easy." Which majors are the "easy" majors, pray tell.

Okay in high school =/= Okay in college

What are the "facts?"

Students are failing classes, failing out of college, losing their scholarships, and doing so poorly that they are ineligible for financial aid. I guess skating doesn't always work. The average university/professor/department is not letting students skate through with "easy" classes and "easy" majors to make students happy. There can be accreditation problems with having an average student that is a skater; and there are reputation issues when you release skaters to graduate schools and jobs.

This means that *drum roll* high school students and collegiates should not approach college with the expectation of skating and even the belief that skating is possible. They will look foolish and many of them will eventually get a rude awakening either before or after they graduate from college. That applies to those who successfully skate and those who failed miserably at skating.

According to the article I linked, students learn very little in education, business, communications, and social work. According to this study, grade inflation is highest in the humanities.

The vast majority of students who leave college do so for financial reasons. Here's a study on that, too.

:(

And the point soars waaaaaaaay over your head.

Don't post studies to me. I know all about studies. I've read thousands of them, as well as conducted some. If this were a literature review you would fail at the ability to find the overall point and patterns across the studies that you have posted. Don't reach conclusions because you've read a study. Those studies are not designed to reach sweeping and permanent conclusions. They are designed as illustrations for which to make generalizations with consideration to limitations. They are based on qualitative and/or quantitative research and sampling. They include limitations and implications for future research for a reason.

I see you are arguing with yourself in back-to-back sentences, so you clearly don't need me to hang around here anymore.

Do you not know the difference between "sweeping and permanent conclusions" and "illustrations for which to make generalizations?"

If that's the case, I don't need you here.

Flounce much?

Good thread. Sunny day.

Using this specific post as an example of an ongoing frustration I'm having: What's with the increase in (traditional) college-age students thinking they're above rules/policies? Over the past ten or so years, more and more students are questioning/challenging/appealing university policies. What's interesting, is that the heli-parent syndrome seems to have backed off to make room for the rules-don't-apply-to-me revolution. Not trying to generalize, just pointing out a trend I've noticed.

I agree. This thread is riddled with ongoing frustrations.

Can I just say a big, "AMEN!" to this??

and okay in highschool =/= okay in college.

Cautionary tale to the opening poster - someone near and dear to me was an excellent highschool student, and unfortunately believed that this would translate to being an excellent college student. What he failed to realize, is that now he was surrounded by kids who were ALL excellent highschool students, and perhaps had MUCH better work/study habits than he, who thought he could skate like he had in highschool.

Nope, he couldn't, but the university did invite hm back. He did get an A in pledgeship though, he was great at that ;)

Now, thank God, he is doing well in college - nothing like a swift kick in the ass to get one going!

Moral to the story - even kids with high gpas in highschool may struggle with the time demands of fraternity membership, so if you have any doubts about your ability to be self disciplined and focused on what you are actually in college to do, which is to get a degree - DON"T pledge!

(from a mother who knows :))

I'm just gonna pop in to say I think some majors are considered "easy". Hell, I'm doing Communication Studies and I find myself bored in the classes because it's (so far) not a far step up from what I learned in high school. I don't do the readings, and I still have managed to pull in all A's or B+'s at worst, and I am not a natural Einstein. If I did the same strategy as an Engineering student, I wouldn't be in college.

There are majors that people can take to get through college easier, although I think 'skating' by is an overstatement because all that i know of require midterms and papers that ask of effort. I think it would be silly to take a major that you know you will succeed in without working hard because that mentality will transfer over to post-college with jobs. And GPA is becoming increasingly one of the most important things to getting a job anyway... so easy major or not, just graduating isn't going to cut it.

What year are you? "Intro to Communications" =/= "Communication Theory"

This. First year biology major was cake for me, I went to a good high school and got good grades and had AP classes so Chem 110-115, Intro to Biology, etc. were all pretty straight forward reviews of what I knew already. Microbiology... yeah not so much.

My Psych degree was similar, I hated Psych 101 it was so utterly boring, but African-American Psych, Psychopharm, Physiological Pych, Developmental Psych, all were more complex and much 'harder.' Similarly the humanities requirements - 300 Level English was more interesting but much more 'difficult' than my 100 level comp class - and electives increased in difficulty.

Funny how it works like that, almost like those numbers imply some sort of.. increasing level of difficulty as the years go on. Not to mention that people are attracted to fields that they like and generally find those fields 'easier' if only because of their interest level.