Declining By Degrees

Declining by degrees looks at the college experience and how students, especially in big universities, have begun to cheat the system. In a large university many courses, especially entry level general education courses, are lectures with over 150 students.  In a classroom setting with that many students and one professor, there are always going to be students who inevitably fall through the cracks because they do not feel engaged in their learning and they know the professor has almost no way of knowing whether or not they even show up to class.  On top of not knowing, man professors that teach courses like these simply don’t care about the individual student so it doesn’t matter to them if they are there or not.  In spite of the lack of interest, and in many cases, lack of mastery of the material, students are simply passed along because state funded universities get more funding if they graduate more students.  For these reasons, I am very glad that I chose a small university such as Lenoir Rhyne because even in the most basic introduction courses such as FYE, there are only maybe twenty five students per class.  All of my professors know me personally and notice when I do not attend their classes or when my work does not match my academic potential.  The personal relationships built at small schools are priceless during the education process but also after graduation when it comes time to attain recommendation letters and references for job opportunities. While there are pros and cons of both large and small universities, I think that personally a small university was the best fit for me for the reasons mentioned above.

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