“That was the exact opposite.” My paternal grandmother recounts to me after telling her of the current college students that expects the best amenities and socially attentive faculty and staff from the college of their choice. “The few people that didn’t get married or go straight to the paper mill after high school and could afford to go to college almost always ended up at LSU (Louisiana State University: the college closest to my grandmother’s high school) and they definitely weren’t worried about their room size or what they were eating.” She was amazed to hear of the trigger warnings, macroaggressions, and some of the other examples of expectations by students in higher education from Eric Hoover’s essay “The Comfortable Kid” (100-109.)
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I explained to her that Hoover assesses this new atmosphere in colleges and concludes that among others such as technology and current racial relations, a rise in consumerism is to blame and that although a lot of it sounds ridiculous Hoover argues that some of these new ideas could be beneficial to the college atmosphere and are worth hearing out (100-109.) Personally, I agree with Hoover that consumerism in higher education rather than apathy could be the cause of students wanting a more individually pleasing college experience but would like to add that the entitlement of prospective college students, as demonstrated by the contrast of my grandmother’s depiction of the transition from secondary to higher education in the early 70’s and my own experience, has led to that rise in consumerism and could therefore be the root cause of the “comfortable [college] kid” …show more content…
It is pretty clear in Hoover’s article that consumerism is the big factor leading to college students wanting more and in turn being seen as thin-skinned and querulous by other generations. I personally applied to 13 schools and received acceptance from 11 of them and I’m not afraid to say that I felt very entitled to a college education. It was what every AP class, extracurricular activity, and community service hour was going towards. I had options and I got to pick and choose where I went to school. This leads to the question of whether or not my expectations as a consumer are beneficial or counterproductive to the overall purpose of higher education that is asked in Hoover’s essay. I made my decision on the quality of education, however it is very easy to see how students’ number of choices and entitlement could lead to decision making based on living arrangements or the amount of dining
I explained to her that Hoover assesses this new atmosphere in colleges and concludes that among others such as technology and current racial relations, a rise in consumerism is to blame and that although a lot of it sounds ridiculous Hoover argues that some of these new ideas could be beneficial to the college atmosphere and are worth hearing out (100-109.) Personally, I agree with Hoover that consumerism in higher education rather than apathy could be the cause of students wanting a more individually pleasing college experience but would like to add that the entitlement of prospective college students, as demonstrated by the contrast of my grandmother’s depiction of the transition from secondary to higher education in the early 70’s and my own experience, has led to that rise in consumerism and could therefore be the root cause of the “comfortable [college] kid” …show more content…
It is pretty clear in Hoover’s article that consumerism is the big factor leading to college students wanting more and in turn being seen as thin-skinned and querulous by other generations. I personally applied to 13 schools and received acceptance from 11 of them and I’m not afraid to say that I felt very entitled to a college education. It was what every AP class, extracurricular activity, and community service hour was going towards. I had options and I got to pick and choose where I went to school. This leads to the question of whether or not my expectations as a consumer are beneficial or counterproductive to the overall purpose of higher education that is asked in Hoover’s essay. I made my decision on the quality of education, however it is very easy to see how students’ number of choices and entitlement could lead to decision making based on living arrangements or the amount of dining