For the record...

[kellinator]

Apparently I am not as clear a writer as I hoped I was. I do not know how people are getting the idea that I think MIT should be dumbed down. Nor am I suggesting that students should be coddled and babied. My points are twofold. Let me spell them out in black and white (or purple, as the case may be in my LJ):

1. Refusing someone a position they are qualified for on no basis other than the fact that they have issues with mental health such as antidepressants or therapy is discrimination, pure and simple.
2. Institutions that provide physical health care (such as employers and universities) should have a moral, ethical, and in my opinion legal obligation to provide mental health care as well.

I would like to add, though this is more of an opinion than a firm belief, that the high-stress pressure-cooker environment so prevalent in our society, especially at the top universities and pretty much any sector that is high-powered, does little to increase productivity or knowledge, probably contributes to the sort of mental problems that cost billions each year in lost productivity, and to boot turns people into insufferable raging assholes.

EDIT: penguinicity makes a powerful point I forgot to mention: Statements like Dean Jones' are only going to discourage students who need help from getting it, creating even larger problems.

Comments

Tangential

[sempereadem.livejournal.com]

May I be bitchy and point out that if today's youth weren't so damned spoiled and indulged before they got to college, they wouldn't need medication to deal with the fact that they are not a beautiful and unique snowflake?

I'm speaking about the types of kids who can afford to go to MIT. I know not all kids today are like that. And not even all kids that can afford to go to MIT. But when you buy a child an $80k car for their Sweet Sixteen, you are not exactly preparing them for life in the Real World. When you give a child every single thing their grubby little hands seek out without making them earn it, you are not preparing them for the fact that sometimes, you don't/can't get everything you want without any effort. When you focus your entire life on pleasing your child and protecting them from every harsh word, disappointment, and dust mite that is out there, you are not preparing them for the fact that they might fail. Schools that no longer allow field day competitions because not every child can win and they don't want the children to feel bad about themselves is not preparing these children for mistakes or failure. School systems that promote failing children because they don't want to damage their self-esteem are not preparing these children for the fact that they will be unable to cope with the demands of the real world.

I'm pro-mental health and pro-medication, but frankly, unless they are blatantly rejecting people based on mental health problems, MIT has nothing to apologize for other than being insensitive. They should provide the basic care that any university would provide. It is not the university's job to clean up and fund the quivering wreck that the kids' parents have created.

Re: Tangential

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

I'm pro-mental health and pro-medication, but frankly, unless they are blatantly rejecting people based on mental health problems, MIT has nothing to apologize for other than being insensitive. They should provide the basic care that any university would provide. It is not the university's job to clean up and fund the quivering wreck that the kids' parents have created.

uhm, i just wanted to leave a comment and bring out this point. agreed.

Re: Tangential

[assaultdoor.livejournal.com]

Stop me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to guess that neither you nor sempereadem has ever taught at a school like MIT. Therapists at schools like these really don't have time to treat some small group of spoiled rich kids. They have enough to do treating all of the people who were fairly normal until they went to college.

I was shocked to learn how many of my lab assistants had been reduced to tears by our intro programming class. I picked all of these people because I knew they were unusually sharp and had done well in that class. Things have actually been pretty calm these last few years. I think it's been two years or more since my department had its last suicide. We've reduced the pressure since the last student threw himself off of the tenth floor of our math building. It's not that most professors in the department have learned anything about teaching. No, it's not that. It's just that we don't have as many students these days, so we no longer need to make them fight each other. That's just Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, though.

Schools like MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley are full of professors who have trouble telling the difference between teaching and torture, largely because they don't know the first thing about teaching. It's not really their fault. Very few SMET programs try to talk to their Ph.D. students about teaching, probably because the people in those programs wouldn't know what to say.

Far too many professors believe that placing students in high-pressure situations and giving sadistic exams and nearly impossible homework will make up for incoherent lectures, unhelpful textbooks, and a whole host of other problems. What it actually does is drive out most of the rational students, leaving those who lack the sense or spine to walk out and go somewhere else, or whose parents won't let them.

What Marilee Jones is really saying is, "If we could pick students who can tolerate four years of bullshit and teach themselves, life would be a lot easier."