by Aaron Morgan

Created on: June 28, 2008   Last Updated: September 10, 2009

Do you associate boredom with lectures in college courses? If so, you are not alone. Is this passive learning style really the best way for college students to learn?

Like it or not... we live in a hands-on world. What we do to make a difference and get ourselves or the companies or the organizations work for noticed positively is more important than the facts we know. Think about it... would you want a brain surgeon operating on you who had studied from a book for ten years, but had never even witnessed an actual surgery?

In my experience, college lectures are filled with two things: dry facts and the opinions of the professor, some very controversial. Many professors have little real world expereince in the field they are teaching in. They are very knowledgable of the subject area and its ins and outs, however they may not know how to apply this knowledge to a real life career in that particular field of study. Are they really the people who should be teaching students planning to pursue an actual real-life career?

We all have been there... in a classroom staring blankly at a teacher or professor who seems to open their mouth and emit words that never seem to end. Even if we try our attention spans are limited. It is nearly impossible to pay attention and take in every single word of a lecture that lasts more than 20-30 minutes, no matter how interesting the teacher or professor tries to make it. If students aren't taking in every word of a lecture and making practical use of it, wouldn't teaching time be better spent in other ways?

I believe that we could better prepare our college students for the real working world by presenting them with more real-life simulations during their undergraduate years. It is important that they understand all that could possibly happen in their field of interest, not just that they are able to memorize a great deal of facts about that field of interest. Those facts can only go so far, if they can't use them to make a difference and accomplish something; they are useless.

There are many, many students in today's world who graduate college and struggle to find a job in their field as companies are looking for real work esperience. They want to hire someone who they know will survive the pressures of the working environment, not just someone who appears knowledgeable of their field in an academic sense.

It is true that lectures are easier to prepare than hands-on lessons, and that changing their methods may be daunting and require a great deal of time for professors and/or instructors, however I beleive this is necessary in giving our college students the tools to succeed in the real-life working world that they will be entering.

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