But anyway the sense of entitlement people have to downloading is astounding. Last week I was walking out of a videogame store, when I overheard something a (clearly non-gamer) girl said to her boyfriend: "Jesus, how expensive. I REALLY don't get why you don't just download these games." Not paying for things, has almost become the status quo. That says something about our society (not to get too heavy-handed here, but still).
I will happily do so.
Not heavy-handed, but "this generation of college students" are actually enough trouble for college instructors that we now have educational experts who give us long lectures and training sessions on "how to teach this lot of students". Some of the warnings all of these people mentioned:
1)
This is one of the laziest generation of students many have ever seen in over 3 decades or so of teaching
Like it or not, young adults, this is something your teachers have noticed. There are students who insist they must pass, but they positively refuse to do the homework, show up to class every day, and get tutoring
2)
These young adults sick mommy and daddy on you at the drop of a hat, and the guilt-ridden adults who have spoiled their kids for 18 years are now calling up and coming in screaming at the instructors
Yep, long gone I guess are the days of blaming Junior for failing math. I can guarantee to you this is a huge annoyance for instructors, and it used to virtually NEVER happen. A college student having mommy or daddy call and yell was once virtually unkwown. The student would never even have thought of it as an option (they were usually trying hard to hide their performance and attendance in the class
)
3)
More than ever before, this generation of young adults expects something for nothing, and can be genuinely outraged when told nothing in life comes for free
And that's what you are noticing. If it's a DVD they want, they just believe instinctively it is their right to have it for free. Same with room, board, and of course education. The attitude is "I was a straight-A student in high school and never had to lift a finger to work, what's wrong with you that I'm suddenly failing". I'm old enough now I just laugh. "You're not in high school anymore" I tell them. "And this is NOTHING compared to what the state university will be like.
Now, on the plus side, once forced/motivated to actually DO something, they are often some of the best SELF-TEACHERS you'll ever find. I do far less "giving a lecture" and far more answering questions and "giving you a few minutes to try to work this problem before I move on". It has worked wonders to my pass/fail rates. Well, not wonders, but in my business even an improvement of 5% is considered a high triumph.
And there are other good things about them, such as when they are generous, they are remarkably so, etc, etc.. But I mean it must be a wide-spread problem if expert after expert (usually about half of which make sense of me) keeps saying it.
I don't know how that'll ever be turned around, apart from hiring more police to hunt down and arrest random downloaders as a "lesson".
