In this essay, Simon Benlow analyses the concept of consumerism and its relation with educational fields, precisely

the receivers of education - the students. He claims that consumerism's tentacles engulfed the non-commercial notion that used to be students and that colleges agenda became incline to regard students as customers. Summary: Receiving a memo about more attention that needs to be accorded to consumers, Mr. Bellow is indignant at the parallel made between students and customers. The declared scope of his essay is to reveal the difference between these two notions. The author starts with phrases commonly used by consumerist culture "The customer is always right", "your business means so much to us". He claims that these diplomatic clichs are made to lure the customers into complacency, despite the issues that exist with the various products or services purchased. The fast food industry promotes the "meal deal bargain" in order to limit the interaction between customer and provider, limit the reflection time on customer's side and the energy to be exerted. Consumerism encourages passivity, our needs and desires being met by the work of others. The world of the customer is based on intellectual inactivity. Students are encouraged to be active and not simply consume knowledge. Their understanding of textbooks should be more than passive reading in order to retrieve information for a test or exam. Students with consumerist attitude in college have unrealistic expectations. Instead of facing an attractive package called education, they have to deal with ingredients that need to be assembly into a finished product. Consumerist students cannot understand principles, which in higher education establish how a discipline works. In order to be inventive, break rules and go beyond, students need to make peace with certain principles outsides of their own desire. Mr. Benlow remembers his teachers who demanded and insisted on active thinking for students, which is contrary to consumerist mentality. Consumerism is very pervasive in high education and Mr. Benlow accuses the wrong usage of word "customer" which is not interchangeable with "student". He is afraid that college culture will become increasingly consumerist culture. Analysis: - Is the thesis clear, arguments logically structured? Thesis: consumerism invades education because words like "student" and "consumer" are wrongly associated. Students start acting like customers because they are treated so by the faculty members.

Arguments: the essay claims to make analogies between consumerism and students receiving a higher education. The parallel between these concepts is not very well described and established; the examples taken from the pop culture are presented without immediate association with educational culture. Example: How can a "meal deal bargain" can apply to a student? Who intends to limit the interaction between students and teachers, or the reflection time necessary for making decisions? How is "Have it your way" applicable to a student: are they not allowed choosing their own carrier and curriculum? The fact that educational institutions have specific set of programs adapted to individual needs, does not equated with easy satisfaction for customer, like in fast food industry.

- Methods of support No facts or statistics are used. The author seem to prefer the analogies (incomplete though) between educational culture and pop culture. In paragraph 6 - the author states "Students cannot simply consume knowledge" passively. The analogy is supposed to be between food and knowledge. It's just that human body does not process food in a passive way: it's a complicated mechanism called metabolism and if I would be able to consume knowledge the way my metabolism is functioning, I would be truly a successful student. The author doesn't use any type of appeal to support his thesis; we don't even know what his quality is teacher, student (appeal of character). We assume he is a teacher because he talks about the education he received "back" from his teachers, therefore he graduated.

- No counterarguments are present in this essay.

- Logical fallacies: Hasty generalization: just because some tool free number businesses who called themselves universities online offer accelerated degrees, doesn't necessary mean that American colleges and universities have lost their educational values. These fast-and-easy-degrees are isolated cases and most of the students and parents are aware of their lack of educational value, the same way they realize how inefficient and even dangerous is exclusive consumption of fast food. False analogy: the very essence of comparing college culture with pop culture, citing the clichs used in fast food industry: "meal deal bargain", "the consumer is always right", "#1 with a diet".

A teacher cannot inappropriately facilitate a student's evolution in order to obtain a financial interest (vendor versus customer)? The author exaggerates about "super-size grades" and "prepackage knowledge". Slippery slope: once we begin down a path we will inevitably slip all the way down: same "super-size grades" and "#1 with a diet".

- Important words ambiguous: Consumerism used with a negative connotation. What is the definition of this word? "a modern movement for the protection of the consumer against useless, inferior, or dangerous products, misleading advertising, unfair pricing, etc" dictionary.reference.com Yes, a student needs to be protected against useless, inferior, or dangerous products (read education). I don't see any negative connotation here. Paragraph 8 - one cannot dismiss certain objects of study because they are distasteful - the principles must be understood! The conclusion states (paragraph 9) - the consumerist colleges will determine students to "hold" anything even if it's slimly distasteful. Are the consumerist colleges pro or against dismissing distasteful chemistry and algebra? Bias: The starting point of this essay is not clear: a memo received by faculty member that urged them to take special efforts in serving customers presumably, their students. Is a forced association made by the author and he partially acknowledged the ambiguity by using the word presumably.