Many current elite college students can't read a book

A symptom of lack of reading is related to current news stories on employers being dissatisfied with college grad hirings.

Bosses are firing Gen Z grads just months after hiring them—here’s what they say needs to change

Bosses are firing Gen Z grads just months after hiring them—here’s what they say needs to change
snippets:

Employers' gripe with young people today is their lack of motivation or initiative—50% of the leaders surveyed cited that as the reason why things didn’t work out with their new hire. Bosses also pointed to Gen Z being unprofessional, unorganized, and having poor communication skills as their top reasons for having to sack grads.

Leaders say they have struggled with the latest generation's tangible challenges, including being late to work and meetings often, not wearing office-appropriate clothing, and using language appropriate for the workspace. Now more than half of hiring managers have come to the conclusion that college grads are unprepared for the world of work. Meanwhile, over 20% say they can’t handle the workload.
 
I watched some YouTube about this topic, and it was interesting that other countries are saying the same thing about their children not having the reading skill level as before. I don't know about the other countries reasons for it, but it seems that 'phonics' was replaced with learning by context but that turned out to be quite a failure and so phonics are back.

Also, there was a bunch when I googled that was saying people are misinterpreting not being able to read at grade level as being illiterate, but it doesn't mean that.

This is an example of the expected 12th grade reading level:

"Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is not simply a tragedy about revenge, but a profound exploration of existentialism, where the protagonist grapples with the weight of human mortality and the burden of choice, ultimately succumbing to the paralyzing nature of introspection."

And here is an example of expected writing level in college:

"While the immediate catalyst for the French Revolution was the growing economic discontent among the Third Estate due to exorbitant taxation and food shortages, a deeper analysis reveals the underlying causes rooted in the rigid social hierarchy of the Ancien Régime. The privileged classes, the First and Second Estates, were largely exempt from taxation, while the Third Estate, comprised of peasants, artisans, and bourgeois, bore the brunt of the financial burden, fueling resentment and a desire for political representation. This simmering frustration, combined with Enlightenment ideas that emphasized individual rights and popular sovereignty, ultimately led to the revolutionary upheaval that swept across France."
 
David777 said:
Meanwhile, over 20% say they can’t handle the workload.
Click to expand...
LOL - no one can handle the workload, corporate managers are completely delusional about how much can get done. Projects were always behind schedule and over budget because managers were clueless about how to manage and they'd just issue unrealistic edicts that caused a lot of garbage and rework.

Power to Gen Z!!!
 
As someone that worked at a long list of Silicon Valley electronic product engineering groups over several decades, what you relate about poor scheduling has indeed been true at some work places but not at all in others. Especially not so at large companies where creating unrealistic schedules could impact other departments so scheduling software is very detailed. Even in best corps sometimes schedules did get behind but was usually due to unexpected issues like materials and difficult bugs requiring extra prototype builds.
 
David777 said:
Especially not so at large companies where creating unrealistic schedules could impact other departments so scheduling software is very detailed.
Click to expand...
Yes, I loved working at a company that delivered software for NASA because they did scheduling perfectly. Also, due to some of the employees being special beings (ones with rare physics/engineering skills), all managers were trained to treat employees like they were valuable.
Unfortunately most of my working years were for software for Financial firms, very different culture.
 
All during the 2000s, students have been able to get all the information they need on any topic just by goggling it, required reading has been available on Audible Books, and book summaries have been available online. College students can find specific exam test answers online, and videos that show them how to "show their work" on math exams and how to successfully complete various science exam demonstrations.

There's all that plus spell-check, grammar-check, thesis and essay templates and examples, and all levels of math calculators.

Big problems will arise when technology crashes, but in the meantime, schools need to change entirely. As they are, which is pretty much what they have been for the past 70 years or more, since well before the internet and a computer in almost every home, schools have very little to offer.
 
Last edited:
Debrah N. said:
I think that indicates the failings of parents as well in that they've given their kids free access to the Internet far too earlier and the result is an addiction to social media and entertainments provided on it. I have heard though that there's a growing trend to not giving youngsters smart phones but for safety, only providing young people with a real basic phone that they can use to call home or text. No internet access.
Click to expand...

jimintoronto said:
No the parents caved into the demands of the child, because " everybody else has one " . This comes from the mistaken idea that parents should be "their kids best friend " rather than being decision making adults. JIM.
Click to expand...
It still started with a few for safety, then the rest wanted one. I've also witnessed the parents defending the rest using the safety reasoning.
I agree with the comment of the parents are trying to be friends. Kids will have friends, but they need parents.
My son called me an A-hole when he was a teen. I told him that it was my job to be an A-hole. Into his twenties, he apologized because he realized that he was the A-hole.
 
HoneyNut said:
This is an example of the expected 12th grade reading level:

"Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is not simply a tragedy about revenge, but a profound exploration of existentialism, where the protagonist grapples with the weight of human mortality and the burden of choice, ultimately succumbing to the paralyzing nature of introspection."
Click to expand...
This can't be correct for ALL 12th grade students, only college bound and/or AP students. Many, about half I'm guessing, would not be required to know that in their level of English studies. If it is correct, and that is the expectation for ALL 12th graders, it is setting most up for failure. That's why I'm sure the is not the expectation for all.

It certainly was not when I was in high school. There were "tracks" General, the lowest; Commercial; and Academic, the highest. I know those words aren't in usage today, but there must be different levels of learning for different students.
 
January said:
I like reading books but I read a chapter or so at a time, not the entire book all at once.
Click to expand...

Oh. Didn't realize you meant cover to cover literally without breaks. I don't do that nor do I think the professors want their students to do so; they want them to read in a timely manner for assignments and the students are struggling. I'll read for three or four hours in the evening so go through several books a week.
 
Last edited:
IQ scores are falling, mathematics, spatial reasoning, spoken-word comprehension are down as well so it isn't just reading ability. There is little correlation with food quality or environmental toxins. By comparison with 100 years ago things like poor nutrition, mercury, and lead exposure are vanishingly small issues worldwide - with special case exceptions in neglected or war-torn areas.

What we're left with is cultural. Dimming the brightest by ignoring them to vainly kindle the dimmest may be the crux of the problem. The kind of thing long ago pointed out bluntly in popular film decades ago ("Idiocracy" and "Demolition Man" immediately come to mind). Even further back we had cautions in book form (Steve Allen's "Dumbth" and Cyril Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons").
 
Somehow, I can't take this level of alarm too seriously, especially when it's being shown by Fox News. The veneration of "good old-fashioned phonics" often goes along with a particular political mindset. Enough said.

From what I've observed with my very intelligent grandkids, all of them college students or college graduates, they can read and understand some stuff that I'd have trouble struggling with. So maybe they don't read Jane Austin cover to cover, but they can pick up a technical manual that leaves my head spinning, and immediately figure out how to get the latest electronic apparatus up and running. Maybe they are just reading things that are different from what our generation read.

I am enough of an old geezer to be saddened by the decline of newspapers, though. My own print newspaper, which still greets me at the door each morning, is a sad remnant of what it used to be. That's probably because the younger population read it online, in a different way than we did. I do get newspapers online also, but I'm sticking with the print version of the WP for one reason mainly: I like doing the crossword puzzle the old-fashioned way.
 
Sunny said:
Somehow, I can't take this level of alarm too seriously, especially when it's being shown by Fox News. The veneration of "good old-fashioned phonics" often goes along with a particular political mindset.
Click to expand...

@Sunny. Did you read beyond the first couple of posts? Or see Fox and jump from there?

The source as has been discussed ad nauseum as you would have seen if you'd read the first couple of pages is The Atlantic.

Fox and other news sources including those on your ideological biased "trusted" list simply covered the info from the findings in The Atlantic piece in their news stories.
 
Sunny said:
So maybe they don't read Jane Austin cover to cover, but they can pick up a technical manual that leaves my head spinning, and immediately figure out how to get the latest electronic apparatus up and running.
Click to expand...
I can say from deep personal experience that this is not the case.

When they do is slappity-slap at stuff until they sort of, kind of, get a working knowledge of 20% of the device's capabilities. Then they maybe gain another 10% through grunts and hooting via social media.

Such materials are written to the 10th grade reading level, which is still far too tough for most people to comprehend. The difference is that young people can build on what they learned about devices earlier. The designers know this, so they're cautious about including any significant innovation in user interfaces.

For kids it all works "by magic." Most people operate at a caveman level of technological understanding. Engineering is a black art to the Eloi just along for the ride in modern society.
 
Sunny said:
Somehow, I can't take this level of alarm too seriously, especially when it's being shown by Fox News. The veneration of "good old-fashioned phonics" often goes along with a particular political mindset. Enough said.

From what I've observed with my very intelligent grandkids, all of them college students or college graduates, they can read and understand some stuff that I'd have trouble struggling with. So maybe they don't read Jane Austin cover to cover, but they can pick up a technical manual that leaves my head spinning, and immediately figure out how to get the latest electronic apparatus up and running. Maybe they are just reading things that are different from what our generation read.

I am enough of an old geezer to be saddened by the decline of newspapers, though. My own print newspaper, which still greets me at the door each morning, is a sad remnant of what it used to be. That's probably because the younger population read it online, in a different way than we did. I do get newspapers online also, but I'm sticking with the print version of the WP for one reason mainly: I like doing the crossword puzzle the old-fashioned way.
Click to expand...
Oh God. Again.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
From Fox News ????????????????????????????????
Click to expand...
Wouldn't you know, you hear a story like this, and of course it's from Fox News. Don't believe it for a second. Of course some kids now a days can't read as well as we had to before computers, video games, and smart phones. But there are a lot of young intelligent minds in college these days. And yes they can read. And would be very insulted if they read that garbage.
 
Disconcerting Study Says Average College Freshman Reads at Seventh Grade Level - Books In Common
A troubling new report released by Renaissance Learning suggests that students across the country are leaving high school woefully under-prepared for college. According to this report, the average incoming college Freshman reads at a mere seventh-grade level, despite K-12 “Common Core Standards” developed by the U.S. Government in 2009 to bolster college and career preparation.
Click to expand...
 
Paladin1950 said:
Wouldn't you know, you hear a story like this, and of course it's from Fox News. Don't believe it for a second. Of course some kids now a days can't read as well as we had to before computers, video games, and smart phones. But there are a lot of young intelligent minds in college these days. And yes they can read. And would be very insulted if they read that garbage.
Click to expand...
Can't find the face palm emoji.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top