We hear so much these days about how Millennials, or those born approximately between the years of 1982 and 2004. In other words, these are most of our current college students now and for the next 7-8 years. Response to the characteristics of this cohort has been mixed so far. They are described as “The Next Greatest Generation” by Strauss and Howe (2000) but “Generation Me” by Twenge (2006).
In my many years of experience teaching college students, I must say that I am seeing things, both good and bad, in this cohort that are new to me. I love my students’ reading abilities, and I suspect some thanks are owed both to the Internet and to J. K. Rowling for instilling a love of reading. The best among the group are fantastic critical thinkers–they have their browsers open during class and they’re fact-checking us as we lecture. How hard we used to work to encourage students to “question everything!”
One of the new trends, however, of which I am not fond is the hysterical reaction of some students to bad grades. I have actually had students burst into tears during an exam, which is a first for me in decades of teaching. Carol Dweck offers a good explanation of this. Many students have been praised for their intelligence in the past by parents and teachers (which on the surface seems reasonable), but this practice seems to have some unintended consequences. When students fail (and most of us have had an experience or two of this), Dweck says that they take it very personally and assume failure means you’re dumb. Consequently, they avoid challenges whenever possible.
What is the alternative? Dweck recommends praising the “process.” In other words, praise the acceptance of challenges, the use of good strategies, and the hard work and persistence the student demonstrates. I do try to remind myself to do these things as I enter the classroom.
A related concept discussed by Dweck is one’s philosophy about learning. Some people think success in a field is the result of “talent,” while others think of it as the results of “hard work.” For example, the Chinese view excellence in Math as the result of hard work, while Americans tend to think in terms of “being good or bad” in Math. I recall a Chinese student in one of my classes years ago who related how her family moved to the US because nobody in her town was ever able to attend college. She said that there was no way that she was going home with anything less than an A to show parents who had given up their home and culture to give her a good education. The idea that you just keep going until you’re good at something seemed to baffle her American classmates. Instead, many students at Cal Poly feel “stressed” thinking about the campus recommendations for studying 25-35 hours per week. Considering that college students in the 1960s logged an average of 40 hours per week of studying, our concept of how hard you should have to work to be “good” has certainly changed.
Behavioral neuroscience does take a lot of time, even for the brightest of students. This one has me stumped. How do we kindle the work ethic and the embracing of challenge required to master increasingly complex information?
14 Comments
michellevanriper · April 5, 2015 at 4:11 pm
This article makes a lot of good points. I think it is so interesting how use of the internet has influenced our schooling so much. I am one of the Millennials you speak of, so I haven’t had experiences of what it’s like to be in college without the internet but I’m sure it changed everything. I do know that I, and I’m sure a lot of my peers, has become conditioned to having access to many things instantly and when this is not available it is extremely frustrating. We can look up movies, articles, recipes, definitions, song lyrics, anything really, within seconds. But when the wifi isn’t working, or your cellular data ran out, this can put a damper on your whole day. I think this really relates, and might give some explanation, to why students who struggle with the information get so down on themselves. In our society of instant access to almost everything, there are few instances that require patience and determination. When students don’t understand the information right away or realize you actually have to put a lot of effort in, they may give up or feel overwhelmed because they’re not used to it. Once you have at least one experience of delayed gratification and realize that succeeding is so much sweeter when you’ve worked really hard, I think Millennials will be able to reach their full potential in school.
slippp3 · April 6, 2015 at 3:21 pm
I think this is a very interesting perspective because you have seen your students change over the years and not many have seen the amount of change that you have. One thing that came to my mind right away was when you were talking about how students in the 60’s used to study 40+ hours per week; I think it is now different/less because we always have plans to do things with people. Due to social media and our cell phones we’re in instant contact with almost anyone we want to be. If everything on our iPhones weren’t so accessible then there would be much more studying I believe than there is now.
rachel_wallin · April 8, 2015 at 3:09 pm
This is a great post because it forces us Millennials to think about how we’re going about learning and school in general. This concept reminds me of the Mastery vs. Performance branches of Achievement. When one is mastery based they learn for the process of learning, to actually understand, and to eventually KNOW information being taught. When someone is performance based they memorize and “learn” just for the purpose of passing a test. I have made myself aware of this in my own life, study habits, and outlook on school. I would have to admit that I was previously extremely performance based – I did everything for the best grade. Now, I’ve strayed from that, and try to view my learning experience at Cal Poly as unique and limited. This way I can implement the mastery based aspects into my education.
meteresi · April 9, 2015 at 11:27 am
I think that many students are all consumed with getting very high grades because they seem to think that if they do not get all A’s they will not be able to get a job or go to grad school. Sometimes there is also great pressure from parents who have sacrificed to send their children to college. Some parents assume that if you don’t get an A you must really be slacking off, when the reality might be that the course was very difficult. There is also something to be said for living a balanced life. I find personally when all I do is focus on studying, I tend to become isolated and depressed. I need to take time away from studying to spend time with friends and doing recreational things in order to be emotionally healthy. It is more important to me to be emotionally healthy than to get straight A’s.
Also, I think there is something missing from how you are talking about students in the 60s. For one thing, in the 1960s, a 4 year college degree was not pushed as much as it is today. The percentage of people with bachelor’s degrees was much lower. Therefore the people who were at a 4 year college were there more by choice than today. Some college students today have been raised to believe that a 4 year degree is the only path to success, which is not true.
Another difference between the 1960s and today is the huge cost of college today. Tuition has skyrocketed and it is putting too much pressure on families and/or students. We need a more sustainable way for students to prepare for vocations and adult life.
Holly Harrison · April 10, 2015 at 2:34 pm
This article definitely has a lot of good points and things that us Millennials should keep in mind. I think one of the main reasons students today study much less than students from the 60s is because of technology. Practically anything we need to know for our classes is at our finger tips so locating the information alone takes much less time. This brings up the question, though, are we not working as hard because of this? Maybe not. I think what we need to do as Millennials is use the extra time we have to delve deeper and gain even more knowledge about these subjects. I also think that we have a hard time not focussing on good grades because that is the one thing that we’ve all been taught to strive for. Without good grades in high school we can’t get into a good college and without good grades in college we can get into grad school and so on. This often times doesn’t leave much room for us to focus on the actual information that we’re learning and this is definitely something that needs to change.
OwenHevrdejs · April 11, 2015 at 8:20 pm
As a Millennial, I’ve experienced all of the terrible feelings associated with a poor grade (though I don’t think I’ve ever burst into tears). You mentioned in your article that Dweck believes that parents are somewhat responsible by praising their children for being intelligent. This leads to a fixed mindset where we start to believe we’re dumb when we aren’t successful. I agree with this. I also would also like to add that our society has a powerful impact on how we view our test scores. It is increasingly difficult to get into good colleges, as their demands for acceptance get more and more intimidating (higher GPA, more competition). High school and college students today associate getting into a good school with getting a good job later in life. This is incredibly stressful, and doesn’t make getting a poor grade here and there any easier.
Recently, I’ve been putting more time into my studies, and it has had a great impact on how prepared and confident I feel for exams. It’s definitely true that hard work pays off in school. We’re all busy outside of school, but if we turn off Netflix and put our phones away for just an hour, and use that time to study instead, we might realize that intelligence is malleable, and can be improved. 🙂
slbonill · April 11, 2015 at 9:14 pm
Growth mindset is the mindset that we should all strive for. It means that knowledge isn’t fixed and that you have the power to change your mindset if you desire it. A growth mindset is one that is malleable. As I was reading this blog post, I couldn’t help but agreeing to everything mentioned about millennial and our work ethics and the value of hard work. I would agree that a lot of the reason why many students put so much stress on themselves is because they are afraid of all aspects of failing. The person who comes first in a race is praised while the person who comes in second isn’t. The person who came in first place will never know what he did well on and the runner who came in second place will never know that the process he took to get to second place and finish the race is just as good. One must first fail in order to learn. In my developmental psychology class I took last quarter, we learned about how saying “good job” to someone is not encouraged and is actually discouraged. The point is because you aren’t praising that individual for their work or how they got there, but simply for the final product. The point of praising is to praise the processes someone took or the strategies one took to reach that final product. By merely praising for coming in first place can mean that they only have value if they come in first place and anything less isn’t good enough. The way to kindle the work ethic of millennials and to encourage as well as embrace challenge for complex information is to develop and maintain a growth mindset- one that doesn’t accept failure and instead learns from from the processes they took and uses it as motivation for the next time.
esmeraldadiego · April 12, 2015 at 11:09 am
While I agree with many points in this I have to disagree with the statement that “the concept of how hard you have to work to be good has certainly changed.” I study about 40-50 hours a week on average and come midterms or finals time I study around 80 hours a week. Though Cal Poly encourages us to study 25-35 hours a week I find that this amount of studying would be nowhere near sufficient. As a freshmen studying 25-35 hours a week did seem daunting however this quickly changed for myself and many of my friends as we moved beyond the easier courses.
aalvar52 · April 17, 2015 at 9:40 am
Oh my goodness! It’s amazing because you literally sound exactly like my parents! I have always been taught that it is not about how intelligent you are, but rather to embrace the opportunities and challenges that you are given. With hard work comes reward is a value that has always been taught to me. I think that for many of us, it is hard to adjust to the concept that being “smart” may not be enough to succeed. In high school, it was perfectly acceptable to put in minimal effort and still coast through classes with As or Bs. Everyone got it in their mind that they were naturally gifted, and hard work was not necessary for all the praise they received from their classmates and loved ones. However, once you attend a university, espeically one like Cal Poly, you transition from being “naturally gifted” to “just like everyone else.” And that is where the concept of hard work comes in. And a lot of people have a hard time adjusting. It is much easier said than done. But I think we all need to take a step back and realize that college is not about being “gifted” and coasting through, it is about genuinely challenging ourselves and our brains to learn new material and become knowledgeable to the point where we can use that knowledge and experience in working hard to improve our communities, states, and even the world.
mehicks · April 30, 2015 at 3:26 pm
The mentality regarding school has changed dramatically since 1960’s. Those that could attend college were usually relatively wealthy and had an intense drive to learn and excel. This is most likely why college students studied 40 hours per week on average. However, since then, college has become a necessity for success. College in this decade is what high school was in that decade. Now, if students want to be extremely competitive, they must attend graduate school, something that was once extremely rare. In order to do this, student’s must earn a competitive GPA and therefore there is an extreme amount of pressure to get good grades, and if you do not, chances are that graduate school is out of the question as well as top tier jobs.
I do agree that our generation is different, however, I don’t think it’s fair to compare college students of 2015 with 1960. At least 20 hours of studying in 1960 had to do with researching and finding information in various books. Now, the information takes mere seconds to find.
I definitely think that the American mentality towards learning should change to become more like the Chinese attitude. The more effort that you put into a subject, the more that you will get out and this is applies to almost everything. Sure, some people may have a more natural affinity to understand something, but almost everyone has the opportunity to become excellent.
hannahburgardt · May 8, 2015 at 1:27 pm
I applaud the Chinese for thinking that you have to work hard at something in order to achieve it. It gives me hope that even if someone is bad at math, they can get better. They just don’t give up. It is sad that here in America, if you are bad at math, they say, “Oh it’s okay, just focus on English.” No, if you are bad at math, you can get just as good at English if you work at it. However, there is a happy medium, you don’t want students working so hard that you are crying while taking a test. Life is short and a test grade shouldn’t be the reason why you are depressed or even feeling upset. Work hard and do your best, but don’t let the little things push you over the edge.
alex.foy · June 1, 2015 at 6:12 pm
How we go about kindling the work ethic and embracing the challenge of increasingly complex information is INDEED a baffling question. As a freshman in Psych 340, I’ve had a very hard time keeping up with the fast paced class schedule and struggle to grasp core concepts before we move, quickly, on to the next.
Being born in the millennium, I can definitely agree, that just the thought of a bad grade has the power to crush my dreams and put me into a deep sadness. It helps a little bit to think about how much people have worked in the past to achieve their, similar goals, but it is undeniable that our generation puts so much pressure on succeeding that falling short does feel like the end of the world.
I think the best solution is to raise awareness, that failures do not mean one has to quit. By using failures and accepting challenges, we can gain experiences and knowledge to hopefully succeed sometime later on. Nothing is easy enough to master it immediately and through understanding this, hopefully more and more students/young adults in the working world will persist and take on new challenges to keep improving.
vimorris@calpoly.edu · May 7, 2016 at 2:57 pm
There are certainly some interesting comparisons to Millennials and previous generations that I would not have been able to pin point myself. One I have found to be quite fascinating is the fondness of reading. Personally I enjoy reading but there is usually a lack of time in my day that I schedule for the leisure activity. Questioning all information that comes our way has been a view point I am so accustom to I have not previously considered it to be generational. I’m curious to know where the emphasis on talent rather than work ethic comes from?
Amy Edelstein · April 30, 2017 at 10:59 am
This post was extremely comforting in a sense – especially reading it from the perspective of a freshmen college student in the middle of midterm season. I believe that people my age, including me, have this idea that being “smart” means getting perfect grades and a 4.0 GPA. We have this distorted view of intelligence, thinking that being knowledgeable correlates to perfection. However, it is so important to understand that it’s not always about the end goal, rather it’s about the process – it’s about appreciating the journey of getting to our end goal. Just because we failed at something, it doesn’t mean we are defined as a “failure”. If we are able to pick ourselves back up after failing, then that shows a lot about our character: it shows that we are strong, motivated, and tenacious. Thus, just because we failed at something, it simply does not define us failures – that is something that even I need to remind myself sometimes. College students need to be reminded that we are all going through this exciting time in our life, and we are not always going to be absolutely perfect. We are learning, and after every mistake that we make, we are growing. It’s a process, not an end goal.