As my time at LSU draws to a close and I reflect on my experience as a student here, I could conclude that accommodations were not always ideal, classes were sometimes too large and some assignments seemed trivial.
But, for some reason, these aren’t the first things that come to mind.
Budget cuts were an issue that loomed over all of our heads for a sizable portion of my time here, especially at the point when they threatened to gut core University programs and set us back decades in one fell swoop.
Though perhaps those fears were trumped up by unscrupulous or misguided politicians, this dire scenario did not come to pass. The University escaped relatively unscathed.
As a result, I can still claim a quality education at an eminently reasonable price thanks to TOPS, a selling point of the University that Chancellor Michael Martin is rightfully fond of mentioning.
As I alluded to earlier, facilities have not always been quite up to par. But more often than not, professors have been competent and knowledgeable in their chosen field.
However, when you attend a university as sprawling and populated as this one, it’s imperative you take some responsibility for your own education. Lack of student engagement, therefore, is probably one of the main culprits behind some students feeling their LSU education was lacking.
It’s a bit unreasonable to expect professors to anticipate each individual’s learning needs from three hours of lecture per week. Some students can silently take notes for an entire semester, study diligently and successfully navigate every graded assignment. But a sizable number of students need some degree of direction or assistance, whether it is during class in the form of a clarification or outside of class in one-on-one consultation.
But the idea of engagement goes farther than that. Students have to participate for it to work.
So it bothers me to see professors stare blankly at a room full of students who refuse to answer their questions or participate in a discussion, contrived or no. It’s not an uncommon moment in classes, as most every student can attest to.
Many students find it an acceptable incongruity to resemble bumps on a log during class but still expect their professors to supplement class time during office hours. This is not student engagement, and it has to be disheartening for professors to see this.
In a 2007 edition of peerReview, a journal of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, George Kuh writes, students “who talk about substantive matters with faculty and peers, are challenged to perform at higher levels and receive frequent feedback on their performance typically get better grades, are more satisfied with college and are more likely to