  Patrick Member Username: Patrick Post Number: 4749 Registered: 10-2003 |
I know all colleges and universities admit students that may not necessarily have the proper skills needed in a higher-education environment. It seems that this is quite prevalent at Wayne State University. You see, I have a friend who tutors many undergraduate students and she says at least half of them shouldn’t have been admitted to the university. Many have 8th grade reading and writing skills at best. She said it is very hard to be turned down by Wayne State. Do the administrators at Wayne State feel they have some sort of social obligation to meet in regards to admitting less-than-qualified students? Does WSU only care about quantity and not quality? | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3529 Registered: 10-2004 |
The 2007 college rankings from US News & World Report listed WSU as a fourth-tier college. Their list of fourth-tier schools also lists Oakland U and CMU. (Message edited by Livernoisyard on July 30, 2007) | ||
Chitaku Member Username: Chitaku Post Number: 1518 Registered: 03-2006 |
some teachers i've had call it wayne community college | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6290 Registered: 02-2004 |
It's amazing what NO affirmative action policies in colleges and universities can do. It opens the doors for all people of color especially for Wayne State University. The university is now diversified thanks to its " Open door or get excluded policy." It's all for the money. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 185 Registered: 02-2007 |
Its been my experience, the better the handwriting skills, the dumber the person. Often, poor spelling and grammar skills mean absolutely nothing other than the person ignores matters of little importance. Edison was thrown out of school on this very same premise.. | ||
Queensfinest Member Username: Queensfinest Post Number: 123 Registered: 08-2006 |
I earned a bachelor's degree from Wayne back in the 90s. I can honestly say that it ranks far below any of the numerous other public colleges that I have attended. Very disappointing. | ||
Dialh4hipster Member Username: Dialh4hipster Post Number: 2127 Registered: 11-2004 |
quote: Oddly, my experience has been almost exactly the opposite. | ||
Hugo8100 Member Username: Hugo8100 Post Number: 32 Registered: 06-2006 |
The students who really don't belong there tend to drop out pretty quickly. WSU graduates 9.5% in four years, the average for urban universities is 15%. For more depressing statistics look at page 10 of Irvin Reid's 2005 President's Report. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1340 Registered: 04-2006 |
I'd agree with Hugo. I too attended WSU and found it to be well weeded out by senior year. It could be that your 'friend who tutors' may not be noticing the inherent bias in what he/she says. She is starting with a biased sample of the student population to begin with. I would approximate 50 percent of the students who went onto college from my college prep high school went to WSU. This was an inner-city catholic high school. The nuns taught us well, and our parents did not have the money to waste on housing us twice (at home and school). | ||
Jelk Member Username: Jelk Post Number: 4508 Registered: 10-2003 |
As a Wayne State alum, I have mixed feelings about the place. On one hand my professors were dedicated and accomplished educators. On the other hand, I always felt, in every class I took, that the overall quality of education provided was weaker because of dead weight students who had no desire or business being in a university environment. A senior-level seminar class on American foreign policy and globalization stands out. We screened the Michael Caine adaptation of The Quiet American in one class session, a fairly light task. The "student" sitting in front of me was so bored with the film he fell asleep and ultimately left before class was over. The post-screening discussion was bogged down and useless because three female students dominated the conversation by talking about the love story subplot like this was a daytime soap opera. Another time, in a discussion about the notion of a "Department of Homeland Security" one of my fellow "students" stood up and announced she worked for the Border Patrol and wrote a sort of DHS anthem which she proceeded to sing (badly).I didn't pay $150+ a credit hour to listen to an untalented middle age bureaucrat sing about the glories of Homeland Security. I still resent being subjected to that nonsense on my dime. I don't mind Wayne's open admissions policy but I sure wish there were more stringent weeder classes early on to get rid of the dead weight in their first year of study. | ||
Gmich99 Member Username: Gmich99 Post Number: 212 Registered: 11-2005 |
Jelk, Sounds like my undergrad experience at EMU. My law experience at MSU is the other extreme. | ||
Harpernottingham Member Username: Harpernottingham Post Number: 235 Registered: 04-2006 |
Spelling and grammar matters of little importance?! Horsefeathers! | ||
Harpernottingham Member Username: Harpernottingham Post Number: 236 Registered: 04-2006 |
What about Wayne's master's programs? Any better than the undergrad experience? | ||
Yelloweyes Member Username: Yelloweyes Post Number: 162 Registered: 02-2007 |
I received a Masters from Wayne. Found it not to be all that challenging. Many of the students just wanting to "get by". I do feel that Wayne is not respected outside of Detroit city limits. Although, inside Detroit there seems to be a little more respect. | ||
Eec Member Username: Eec Post Number: 101 Registered: 06-2007 |
My bachelor's is from Wayne. My master's isn't. My wife has two master's degrees from Wayne, and says that the post-graduate programs have a lot less dead weight. During my undergraduate years at Wayne, I had an economics class in which the professor told us that he'd been instructed to teach the class without any math (thankfully, he didn't listen). I had an anthropology course in which a student argued with the instructor (thankfully, that student dropped the class after receiving 3 out of 100 points on the first test). My favorite, however, was the 500-level Shakespeare course. After the first paper was due, we returned to the next class meeting and the professor looked a bit unsettled. He started class by asking, "Which one of you is [my name]?" I tentatively raised my hand, and he said, "Good. Everyone with a last name between A and M, come to me. We'll discuss what's wrong with your papers. Everyone with a last name N-Z, go talk to that gentleman over there." So I got to read half the papers in the class, not through being some kind of brilliant student (I had a B average in high school, though higher in college), but simply through not being completely unprepared for college. I saw misspellings, serious grammatical errors, people who apparently hadn't read the plays, and (my personal favorite) one woman who had met the minimum page requirement by setting her margins to two inches and increasing the size of the font to about 22 point. So, yeah. There are a bunch of undergraduates in Wayne that don't belong there. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6296 Registered: 02-2004 |
Wayne State University, so simple to enroll a Hillbilly can do it. LOL HAHAHAHAHAA!!! I made a funny. (Message edited by danny on July 29, 2007) | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 1460 Registered: 11-2006 |
It has been that way for undergrad for at least 40 years. However, the good news is that if someone has skill/talent and determination there is almost nothing that they can't accomplish coming out of there. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 186 Registered: 02-2007 |
Quote: "Spelling and grammar matters of little importance?! Horsefeathers!" Explain the importance of proper grammar and spelling in this day of half sentences in emails. This may be oddly important to some but we shouldn't be judging one's merit by grammar alone. It proves nothing more than they can follow directions. I prefer people that make their own. So much education time is burned up on this nonsense. Time that could be better spent teaching and preparing for real world application. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3530 Registered: 10-2004 |
Wayne has/had an Masters in Teaching (don't remember the official name anymore...) that would admit those with undergraduate GPAs of 2.5 (in any curriculum). Well, I sent in a preliminary application around 1999 or so for teaching in secondary mathematics. I already easily passed four Michigan certification exams taken on one day previously--secondary math, general science, computer science, and physics--two in the morning and two on that afternoon. Most test takers only take one at a time and probably not both in the AM and PM. Previously, my grades in the Michigan Basic Skills test were reading--98%, math--100%, and writing--100% for a combined score of 894 out of a possible 900 pts--99 1/3%. A 73% in all three tests is the minimum passing score. They told me that my math background wasn't good enough! Mind you, I had a BS in electrical engineering from UW-Madison and had taken several math courses (in addition to all those that WSU would require either then or from earlier) far in excess what their program would teach. By then, I had already decided against teaching much longer and had laughed off WSU as being a college (university) that had ignorami for administration/faculty. | ||
Deteamster Member Username: Deteamster Post Number: 28 Registered: 07-2007 |
"Explain the importance of proper grammar and spelling in this day of half sentences in emails." Whenever I reviewed job applications and resumes, you better believe I would "file away" those who couldn't string a goddamn sentence together. Good luck. | ||
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell Post Number: 4024 Registered: 10-2003 |
What do Henry Ford, Albert Kahn and Berry Gordy all have in common? None of them finished high school. Go figure. It's all about you do with what you are dealt. Especially in the information age where what you learn becomes obsolete in a matter of months. School's in forever and you are your teacher. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3531 Registered: 10-2004 |
There was a time when a sixth grade edgycashun ala Jethro (Baer) Bodine was all that was needed. Attorneys and judges were often self taught by reading various law books, too, during the 1800s. Times have changed. Besides, there's probably only about 5 to 10% of the total jobs which really require a college education. | ||
Jiminnm Member Username: Jiminnm Post Number: 1347 Registered: 02-2005 |
As a holder of three degrees from Wayne State, I resemble this thread. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 296 Registered: 05-2004 |
Maybe easy to get into but not so easy to graduate. Besides you do have to pass an English equivalency test to graduate. I suppose they should have had that to get in there to begin with. | ||
Hpgrmln Member Username: Hpgrmln Post Number: 65 Registered: 06-2007 |
You guys are missing the big picture. The big problem is that these people are allowed to graduate-im sorry, gradjuayt-high school with "skills" of this level.It isn't so much that WSU accepts them-its that they were allowed to move on to college from high school without an effective education. Even in the moneyed schools where taxpayers shell out bigger bucks, students slip through the cracks.Proof money isnt the answer to everything. | ||
Traxus Member Username: Traxus Post Number: 106 Registered: 02-2006 |
--My favorite, however, was the 500-level Shakespeare course. After the first paper was due, we returned to the next class meeting and the professor looked a bit unsettled. He started class by asking, "Which one of you is [my name]?" I tentatively raised my hand, and he said, "Good. Everyone with a last name between A and M, come to me. We'll discuss what's wrong with your papers. Everyone with a last name N-Z, go talk to that gentleman over there." -- Both English classes that I have taken at WSU put me in a similar position. Apparently my English proficiency test was sub-par. So I got to pay the university to tutor half the class who couldn't string a coherent sentence together, funny how the professors always stick the really slow kids with the bright ones; what the hell am I supposed to do with them? I like WSU but I am still really fucking sour about this. Hpgrmln is right though, this is an issue that should have been dealt with long before these people got to WSU. | ||
Jenniferl Member Username: Jenniferl Post Number: 383 Registered: 03-2004 |
At WSU, a lot depends on which department or college you're dealing with. I've had great experiences with the English department. Speech and language pathology (which I took as an elective) was pretty good, too. The College of Education, OTOH, was a pain in the butt. The bureaucracy there reminds me of something from the former Soviet Union. The courses were painfully easy in terms of content, but they made us do a lot of busywork, writing lesson plans, designing bulletin boards and making cutesy little educational games. Then you'd have to haul all these construction paper and cardboard creations down to campus and present them to the rest of the class. Since there would be 70 other people in the same class, all you'd do is watch presentations. | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 3398 Registered: 02-2005 |
Great school. Underrated. Good faculty. Commuter school. Afraid to boast/market itself. It's ranked too low (should be tier 3 at worst), but I agree it's standards are too low. The idea that it admits anyone is absurd, though. I've talked about it on Dyes before, but administrators have told me directly that Wayne should not raise its standards, does have a "responsibility" to be "open," and will not exchange openess in pursuit of prestige. This disappoints me. I think Wayne is the #4 college in the state (UM, State, Tech), and as an all-around university and dynamic research-producer it beats some of those places in some regards. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 1485 Registered: 11-2006 |
It puts the onus for achievement where it should be, on the students. Being a commuter school, the dynamic is usually not just to get a degree, but to further their education and careers. | ||
Fareastsider Member Username: Fareastsider Post Number: 496 Registered: 08-2006 |
I just graduated from Wayne and agree with both sides. Yea there were some people there who were pretty stupid! Almost amazing at some points. The teachers I had for the most part were great and I learned a lot there. College more and more seems like a money grab now more than ever. Most people under 25 think that you HAVE to have college or else. It is important but to many people go just for a better job and not for personal enrichment at all. Myself included but by the third year I realized that I was learning a lot. Besides its 3 months later and still unemployed. I have 5 friends who never stepped in a college class room who make 50k even in this poor local economy. My other big problem with the school was it being dirty (probably sounds SO suburban) but seriously the undergrad library was a joke it was a big meeting hall usually had half the tables full of wrappers by mid afternoon. You should not be seeing that shit for what it costs to go there. Many other areas of the school just looked grim to say the best. Though a lot of buildings are getting updated and re done this summer so perhaps that will help. State and Purdy Kresge need it bad and are being worked on. So in conclusion I would say that the quality of education is great (to bad the dumb ones dont realize the opportunity) There are some students there who make you feel you are at a low level university. Finally hire some better janitors and encourage the student body to clean up after themselves. |
