The reading about academic writing spoke to me because it applies to all students, especially those in college. When we were in elementary school, the teachers really made a big effort to help us understand the material better so we could go onto the next grade level. There were parent-teacher conferences and many people to help us succeed in our early academic careers. As we got older, the help lessened a bit so we could learn to teach ourselves on our own. By the time high school came around, we did not receive much help because we were being prepared for college and the teachers were trying to get us to accept the responsibility for our own actions. Now that we are in college, some professors no not care if you cannot understand what they are teaching. Their reasoning is this is how the real world is and we have to learn how to find the answers ourselves because no one will sit down with you and help you understand a proposal at work, it is your job to define it. In a way, it makes sense, but wouldn’t it be better if they did help us more? Don’t get me wrong, our books are for the most part pretty easy to understand, but the professors sometimes love to hear themselves talk and are instead focusing on how they sound rather than how we are understanding it. They throw in as many big words into their lecture as they can and they make us feel dumb for not understanding them. Granted, we are at a higher academic level than we were a year ago, but we have no gone through grad school or even gotten our 4 year degree yet so why are we expected to understand what they are talking about the first time? We shouldn’t feel stupid for not understanding someone with a phd the first time, otherwise we wouldn’t need to be in school, right?
