Pellerito 1

Jack Pellerito

Marisa Enos

ENG.101.W02

10 April 2017

A Lack of Time

Post-secondary education has never been more important in the world than today. It is

almost becoming a necessity in order to find a career and support oneself. This doesn't mean

everyone has to go to college, it could be a trade school or some other training, but it does mean

that some training after high school is almost always required for any job out there today. More

and more students are entering some sort of program of learning after high school, but with this

rise in the number of students seeking higher education, there is also a rise in the number of

students who struggle or even drop out of the post-secondary education of their choice. This

problem stems from many different sources, but one main source is a lack of time for these

students. This paper will focus on the issues of college students because of the broadness of the

topic. Whether it be because of the transition from high school to college, the many new

activities involved in college, the distractions both in college and in the everyday life of students,

the changing educational values from high school to college, or the costs associated with college,

today's college students struggle due to a lack of time and the inability to balance all of their

activities in the given amount of time they do have.

When in high school, everything is easy and smooth for students. It is the same format

that schooling has been for as long as these students can remember and the possibility of one on

one relationships with teachers is always there. A student might know every other person in his
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or her school, and always knows who to ask for help or who is good at what subject. Once the

student graduates, and moves on to college, everything changes. College is a new place with new

ways of learning and new ways of life. In the article "The Biological Basis of Learning and

Today's First Year Students", Robert Leamnson talks about how most high school students are

not ready for college. One of the reasons why is because "most first-year students are ill-

prepared for the expectations of the average college professor" (Leamnson 75). Because the

students do not understand how the professor wants things to go, it will seem unfamiliar to them

and they will be afraid to do things the new way. They will want to continue doing things how

they were done in high school and this can lead to problems between student and professor. bell

hooks sheds more light on this same topic in her article "Language: Teaching New Worlds/New

Words" when she talks of the struggles of encountering new things. College is definitely a new

thing and some professors can use what seems like new language in classes. This can be

extremely daunting to some students and hooks describes this in saying how "shifting how we

think about language and how we use it necessarily alters how we know what we know" (hooks

59). Therefore, if a new student comes into a class not knowing what to expect and hears the

instructor using all this "gibberish", the class can seem much harder, and this takes the student

more time to learn something that might be simple and easy had the student prepared for the

transition from high school to college. Both Leamnson and hooks would agree that because

everything in college is so new, it seems unfamiliar to students entering and it is harder for them

to function in this new society, and because of this, even simple tasks can take these new college

students much longer than they should. The unfamiliarity is definitely an issue for new college

students and leads to less time, but there is also so much more for college students to do, which

leads to less time for school.

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Despite being in a new and unfamiliar environment, college students have trouble

balancing their time because of all the things they have to do in college that they never had to do

before. In high school, most students, not all, had parents or guardians always there for them to

make food, help with laundry, do dishes, keep the house clean, etc. These were all shared tasks in

high school and below, and although a good student would have helped around the house, the

parent or guardian would also help out. Once in college, unless the student is commuting, it

becomes the student's problem to do his own laundry, clean his own dishes, wake himself up

every morning, and hold himself accountable for attending class, making food, etc. Most college

students often have a job as well to help pay for things while in college. In his article "Remarks

on Habit", James VanderMey describes how difficult this can be. He says how his speech might

be "a reminder to each of you graduates of how many times you have had to dig in or suck it up

whenever you weren't feeling well or had to work overtime for your job, but had to finish an

essay or project, make a speech, or take an important test" (VanderMey 12). This is a perfect

example of how hectic the lives of college students can be. They can have a million things to do

outside of school, be sick, and yet still have to attend class. It doesn't go at a slow pace like high

school anymore. Cathy Davidson also provides some insight to this topic. Although in her article

"Customized and Participatory Learning", she doesn't directly talk of the busy lives of college

students like VanderMey did, she does talk of how in "this multidisciplinary learning world,

play and learning are inseparable" (Davidson 51). This isn't the same focus as VanderMey,

because Davidson is focusing more on the things students do for enjoyment, whether it be video

games, attending a sporting event, etc., they would both agree that there are a lot more things in

college that a college student either has to do, or has the option to do that can take up more time

and leave less time for school and learning. All of these things that many college students need to
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do or feel they need to do can get in the way and both VanderMey and Davidson would agree

that in today's learning world, things can be busy. But besides being busy, there are also so many

distractions in life that can lead to less time.

College students are busy with the necessities, but something else that can be even more

disastrous to them are distractions. Distractions are everywhere in life today, whether they are

physical objects like smartphones or TVs, or advertisements upon these objects, they plague

everyone. College students, already short on time from other things, cannot afford to be

distracted, yet they are. Besides phones and advertisements, there are things like sporting events,

friends, parties, and other things that can be distractions from learning, and that can take the time

of a student. Matthew Crawford's article "Attention as a Cultural Problem" is entirely focused on

the distractions of today's world and their effect on people. He says that "such intrusions are

everywhere" (Crawford 37), talking of distractions, and his choice of words is careful here

because they truly are "intrusions" that get in the way and cause problems. Besides taking the

time from students, according to Crawford distractions also have a negative impact on attention

as well. If a student is distracted and always has other things on their mind, this can start a

domino effect of negativity. Robert Leamnson explains in his article how "it is experience and

sensory interaction with the environment that promotes and stabilizes neural connections"

(Leamnson 67) in the brain. These connections are what make everyday actions easier, and if the

brain is full of distractions during this time, it can be hard to create these pathways in the brain

and therefore be hard to focus and accomplish easy tasks. Crawford and Leamnson would agree

that distractions can only lead to wasted time and less attention. Both of these definitely dont

help with the predicament that college students have, the lack of time. However, even on top of
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this, there is another issue that leads to less time for college students, and that is the change in

focus from high school to college.

High school always was focused on teaching students general information and preparing

them for all the standardized testing to determine if the students had actually learned anything.

Once students enter college, however, things change. The focus is no longer on the general

education that has been taught for centuries, but on the information specific to student's majors

and minors, and what they actually want to study. This transition means that the information

being taught is more in depth and more difficult to teach and understand. This means it takes

more time to cover the information, and college students have to put in more time outside of the

classroom in order to learn. Cathy Davidson talks of this in her article and says how "learning is

no longer one size fits all, and we need to learn to appreciate and foster learning in all its sizes

and varieties" (Davidson 52). This means that in college, students don't all learn the same

information, there are different and unique forms of learning that each student has to spend more

time on outside of the classroom because it takes the teachers more time to teach these more

focused curriculums. Robert Leamnson also shows how college can take up more time outside of

the classroom as well, and yet some college students do not expect this. He goes on to say how

"the idea that the only reason for study is to pass tests might seem a peculiar one to teachers, but

that conviction comes naturally to freshman" (Leamnson 77). College freshman, and other

college students, are expected to spend a large amount of time outside of the classroom making

sure they understand all the information covered in class. In high school, this was never a

problem, but both Davidson and Leamnson argue that due to the individualized and more in

depth courses of college, students need to spend more time outside of the classroom studying.

This means they have to cram everything else into their already tight schedule, and many
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students cannot balance the time between every different event in their schedule. Now, college

students are already so crammed with everything on the plate, but there is one more thing that for

some, can lead to even less time: the costs of college.

College can be an expensive thing, often very. Some students are lucky enough to earn

scholarships or grants to help pay for it, and some are lucky enough to come from wealthy

families that can pay it themselves. However, most students need to find some way to pay for

college on their own. A common way is to work throughout college, and take out loans for the

extra costs. According to collegedata.com, the average cost of college for a public university is

$24,610 a year (collegedata.com). There is no way that a person taking college classes will be

able to afford all of these costs, while paying for everything else in life that comes up needing

money put towards it. In addition to the high price, there never was a cost for high school. It was

free, and for most people, they had a home to go back to that was paid for and food to eat that

was also paid for by someone else. In college, all these extra costs can seem daunting, and then

there are the costs of taxes and finances. All these new costs can almost seem like a new

language, and bell hooks explains how new languages can be hard on people. hooks explains

how "words impose themselves, take root in our memory against our will" (hooks 56) and if this

is the case, all these costs can take their place in the minds of students and force them to become

distracted. Whether it be from working to lessen the costs of college, or simply the distractions

from all the costs of college, both take away even more time from the college students and lead

to an even more crammed schedule.

Today's college students are busier than ever before. Many of them are trying to attend

class, sporting events, hold a job, visit family and friends, and maintain good grades all at the

same time. With many factors leading to busier lives, everything is going against college
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students. Sure, they can and do succeed, but it is an uphill battle for most due to the lack of time

in college student's lives. The transition from high school to college, the many things to do in

college, the many distractions of life, the changing educational values from high school to

college, or the costs of college all take time away from students and all make things more

difficult for college students to handle everything thrown at them. Many college students

struggle due to this lack of time and their inability to balance their time between all their

activities, while some even fail because of it. If the lives of college students are to get easier,

then something needs to change so that they can have more time to balance all of their

obligations and duties.

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Works Cited

Crawford, Matthew. "Attention as a Cultural Problem." Exploring Connections: Learning in the

21st Century. Pearson Education Inc., 2016. Pp. 36-48.
Davidson, Cathy. "Customized and Participatory Learning." Exploring Connections: Learning in
the 21st Century. Pearson Education Inc., 2016. Pp. 49-54
hooks, bell. "Language: Teaching New Worlds/New Words" Exploring Connections: Learning
in the 21st Century. Pearson Education Inc., 2016. Pp. 55-60.
Leamnson, Robert. "The Biological Basis of Learning and Today's First Year Students."
Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st Century. Pearson Education Inc., 2016. Pp.
65-85.
VanderMey, James. "Remarks on Habit." Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st Century.
Pearson Education Inc., 2016. Pp. 12-17.
"What's the Price Tag for a College Education?" COLLEGEdata. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.
<http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064>
.