Rather than post a lengthy response here, we just wanted to let you know that there is an interesting article in the new Debatable issue that addresses the “too much work” concept and includes a not-so-radical, sensible argument in favor of changing final exams to an entirely self-scheduled format, school-wide. Check it out at our web site by surfing go/debatable

The suggestion made in his article would certainly cut down on student stress toward the end of the semesters.

Keep up the compelling blog entires, and we’ll try to do our part as well.

Firstly, thank you so much for putting this blog together! I’m studying abroad in Ferrara, Italy right now so this and The Campus are my only reminders of what life used to be like/will be like again when I get back.
A couple of things: For all intents and purposes, the workload is probably the same as 30 years ago. I, however, have ALWAYS thought that it was too much. And last semester, I took 3 courses to find out that I had much more fun. My quality of life went way up as I was able to attend lectures, concerts, screenings (that were usually underattnded, unfortunately) and meet with more friends more often.

I highly highly suggest that every student reduce their courseload for at least a semester, if it’s possible–just to relax and enjoy life. For people that don’t do summer coursework or bring credits with them from high school and want to graduate on time, however, dropping 1 class isn’t possible. It just goes to show that, even at Midd, socio-economic inequalities exist, considering that summer school costs money and students without AP/IB credits usually come from public schools.

Anyway.

In Professor Hofer’s class, we discussed the possibility of taking some courses as pass/fail. I’m a big fan of the idea. For elective courses, why SHOULDN’T this be an option? Not only would it reduce the stress level of the class, I’m sure many students would take classes they never would have considered taking before. I would, for example, sign up for astronomy, which I haven’t done because I hear there is a lot of mathwork involved. Or maybe statistics! Anyway, academic adventurism is a different issue. But we could kill two birds with one stone.

As an RA in Gifford last year, and having the workload of only 3 classes, I often organized get togethers. Unlike lectures, I thought these would be much more highly-attended (isn’t everything when food is offered?) Much to my dismay, they were not. Regardless of whether there is much more work now than way back when, it’s undeniable that students feel crunched and overstressed (the one thing I don’t really miss, being in Italy). And when the vast majority of students feel this way, I don’t think it’s the general student population’s fault as the blog and some comments seem to insinuate(time management and video games were mentioned).
That would be akin to blaming the absurdly low graduation rate of urban public school students to their individual laziness.

I agree with previous posters that time management skills among some students are not up to par; the ability to plan one’s time wisely is key to successfully completing a mountain of Middlebury homework, participating in extra-curriculars, and having time to socialize. I’m thankful that I discovered day planners back in high school.

After spending quite a lot of time listening to numerous students talk about their lives at Middlebury, I admit that I am concerned with the “balance” you all talk about. Although I of course applaud the concept of creating balance and correctly identifying priorities, I question whether many Midd students can truly find a way to nurture more than their academic selves if they are doing all the work that is assigned to them. It seems to me that many students have staggering amounts of homework to do.

I distinctly remember a colorful brochure the year that one of our children applied to Middlebury; this document stressed the importance of balancing academic, athletic and social lives in college (these are not the exact words, but you understand the general idea), and further asserted that this was what Middlebury as an institution was all about, what Midd indeed valued most. It sounded reasonable and healthy to me, for I am a person who strives to model and encourage a well-rounded lifestyle. It also sounded accurate; this was how I perceived Middlebury when I was a student there in the 70s.

What I have heard from some students now, though, is that they have more work than they can finish. They have so much work, in fact, that they can’t complete it thoughtfully, or read it carefully, or digest it all properly. I hear that professors may compete to teach the most difficult class, that students take “study drugs” to stay awake, and that they feel extreme pressure to excel, to complete more than one major, to land a perfect internship, etc.

I hope this isn’t true. I hope that Middlebury is still an institution that values learning over homework, collaboration over competition, and balance overall. Don’t mistake me: Middlebury was and is and should be a first-class institution; it should be rigorous, challenging and stimulating, but it should not (in my humble opinion) be ridiculously stressful and over the top, a pressure-cooker, if you will.

As an additional observation (and I have no doubts about the acceleration of this in 30 years), I am appalled and very concerned about the abuse of alcohol on campus. This is not solely Middlebury’s problem, but it is a problem at Middlebury. Is there a connection between abuse of alcohol and too much pressure at school? I don’t know, but I would ask that question. And I believe Middlebury has a responsibility to address that question.

I wonder what the counselors at Middlebury hear about workload. I know that some of the folks in the counseling department have been at Middlebury for a good amount of time, and could probably offer some perspective on stres and workload. Maybe they could provide some general perceptions. I would be curious to know their overall opinion on this subject.

Also: wasn’t there a long-range plan recently done at Midd? Was there any thought given to looking at student life, at the “campus culture” at Middlebury?

What I ask as a parent is that this dialogue continue. Like you, Ron, I am most interested in hearing from the students, and from as many of them as possible. It’s about them, after all. My views as an alum are less important than the students’ perspectives; it’s their school now.

Here are the questions I would ask, then:
Is the workload consistent? Is it reasonable? How do you arrive at those conclusions? (What is your method for getting feedback?)

Does the faculty discuss “best practice” when it comes to college instruction? Is more work equated with better teaching, or with more learning? If so, does that make sense? And if so, how much is too much?

What is in place at the college so that students (and parents) are heard in this regard? Has the college developed a way to look at this seriously?

I would expect nothing less from Middlebury than a thorough and honest and hard look at how things are going. And I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to share my views and ask my questions. Thank you.

2.) My class (2009) of Atwater students will effectively be “screwed” out of a priority draw (for an Atwater suite) that was promised to us upon arriving as Atwater freshman. Could we maybe integrate the 4/2 housing draw system over a several year period, in which the administration still gives priority to those students it was promised to?

Sincerely,
Kevin O’Rourke ’09

Being a senior this year at Midd I think I have a few worthy points to add to this debate (many of which have already been touched on above).

To begin with, I think that regarding workload, the key is to really prioritize your life. What I mean by this is that every student here should really be aware of the activities he or she is involved in, how much time each of those activities requires, and how important each of those activities are. As we all know, some people here participate on varsity sports, some people do plays, some people study all night and get straight A’s, etc. I think every term when registration comes up it’s the responsibility of every student to think hard about each course that they sign up for in conjunction with thinking about what other activities they are involved in at that time. I am strongly of the opinion that it is better to do a few things really well then to do a lot of things poorly; thus sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

If you are on the varsity hockey team, load up your schedule with courses by Prof. Dry, and are heavily involved with multiple clubs on campus, you can’t do all of those things well and then on top of that still have time for a social life. It’s about balance, really. If you take 3 really difficult courses in one semester, you can’t expect to get an A in all 3 without putting in a tremendous amount of time (maybe much more time then you think is really healthy). My solution, then, is to not do that. Spread out your schedule, make sure that you combine reading intensive courses with others that don’t have so much reading, etc. Particularly for single majors, I think there is without question plenty of flexibility to do this.

For me, personally, I would say that I really care about doing my academics well, and I also really care about having time to hang out with my friends and have a great social life. I do a few other things around campus, but nothing so heavily or intensely that it really impedes too much on those core activities. I understand that about a third of our campus is involved in a varsity sport, and if I had to imagine throwing all of the time commitment of practices, games, etc. on top of my current schedule, I can certainly see it adding up really quickly. But my point, really, is that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I’m a double major, but had I been a varsity athlete, I think I would have thought a lot longer and harder about the extra work that that entails.

The average 4 class schedule (no P/F, either, this is Middlebury, not Brown) is, in my honest opinion, a completely manageable undertaking for the type of student that gets into this college. I have taken a huge variety of classes here (with the exception of science labs), in all different departments and with all different professors, and I believe I can say this with certainty. The problem, however, is structuring the rest of your life around those 4 courses, making sure that all those extraneous activities don’t impede too much on the time demands of the underlying reason that we all came here.

There are several factors today that I speculate may cause current students to feel more stressed about their workload. Thirty years ago, it was legal to drink alcohol at 18 in Vermont, so it was possible to “work hard, play hard” then without the added stress present today of dealing with the (I believe) unreasonable rules–the party list comes to mind–of the current liquor inspector and the prospect of imminent raids of social gatherings on campus. Nor was it necessary to drink “underground” or off campus. I think this is a serious current issue for Middlebury that needs to be addressed in a more pro-active manner.

Second, I think my generation of “helicopter parents”, who have assumed a central (controlling?) role in their children’s school lives have likely hindered the development prior to the arrival at Middlebury of the effective time management skills and self-discipline needed to complete classwork efficiently.

Last, I believe studies have shown attention spans have declined somewhat over the years, possibly due to many of the attractive technologies to which you allude, as well as TV remotes, etc. It is very difficult to perform analytical reading and writing when one has difficulty focusing for lengthy periods.

I do not believe Middlebury should attempt to address the issue by reducing current student work loads. The work/life balance issues confronting current Middlebury students pale in comparison to those addressed daily by any working adult, particularly professionals with families, who regularly put in 50+ hours at the office in addition to maintaining a home, providing meals, caring for children, and engaging in volunteer activities. Since most Middlebury students will be joining the ranks of professionals after graduation, it seems to me that the time at Middlebury is a great opportunity to develop and hone in a (dare I say it?) less stressful environment than the working adult world, the time-management skills and ability to focus and work efficiently that are going to be critical to life after Middlebury.

Having only had two semesters at Middlebury, I don’t feel qualified to answer the question about whether the workload is too strenuous. But let me tell you one thing: as the poster above mentions, Midd kids are definitely busy. And this is generally a good thing but if students are busy in the wrong way, this can be a very, very bad thing.

Allow me to use myself as an example. The night I first read your blog post, I was taking a break from my Edgar Allen Poe reading. My break consisted of facebooking, reading your blog and listen to Cornel West’s new hip-hop cd, all at the same time. Your blog inspired me to start thinking about what my values were on how I wanted to spend my time here at Midd.

Consequently, I stayed up late writing about my experience at Middlebury and then had to stay up even later reading Poe. What I was left with was doing two things half-way. I wasn’t fully alert in my discussion the next day and I didn’t have the time to fully think through my response to your blog posting. In the words of the Stanford professor, Denise Clark Pope (who did research on how students get through High School), I found myself “doing school” instead of enjoying my education. I also didn’t have the time to fully fulfill what I wanted to in terms of my personal non-academic development.

I think this is a general trend at Middlebury. Students find themselves stressed out and “doing school” but they also find themselves with not enough time to do what they love to do outside of the classroom.

I have two solutions to this problem. One is very practical and in my mind, doable. It would be to allow students to take classes pass-fail. I know Brown allows students to this. Obviously, students would not do this for every class because they have to build up a transcript but pass-fail classes take pressure off students and allow them to really learn for the sake of learning instead of “doing school” for the grade.

The next solution I have for this problem growth is very personal. We need to take ownership of our education and learn to prioritize. This means understanding that education transcends the classroom. I have found that the more I write poetry, the more I read worthwhile things outside of class and the more I listen to worthwhile music, the more I can get out of school.

The more you grow in constructive ways outside the classroom, the more you can grow inside the classroom.

So sure watch Soulja Boy’s latest video on youtube if you feel like it, but think about it in terms of what it means to you and our generation. If we all try a little harder to further ourselves as people, Middlebury will rock.

And then the next time the liquor inspector shuts down a social house party, forcing you to drink hard alcohol in your dorm room, you might have something interesting to talk about besides how frustrated you are with the workload and the lack of social life on campus.