Branford Marsalis’ Take on Students Today

I shared an apartment with three jazz musicians at one point, and I was amazed at how dedicated they all were. One of them has now become a semi-star on the Jazz scene - but it didn't come cheap. On a normal day he would get up at eight, go to school, then head straight for some training session when he finished. After a quick dinner he would go out and play one or two jobs. On weekends he played 4 or 5 jobs and did some jam sessions or did recordings.<p>Being a jazz musician may sound like a cozy job, but to get anywhere it takes an 80 hour work week.

I wonder if at least part of this phenomena cannot be explained by observer bias.<p>People complaining about their students are usually the ones with superior performance compared to the average student. Usually, top students become graduate students, top graduate students become professors. They are also more likely to have friends like them.<p>Couldn't it be that complainers were simply not aware of the extent of how bad students really were in their "good old times"?

Some interesting end of semester remarks from a CS professor:<p><a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2008-12.html#e2008-12-28T21_34_06.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2008-1...</a><p>The Postlude section is especially relevant.

This is similar to comments I've heard from profs in the CS area. It's probably cultural. We still have the students that break their backs to be the best, but the majority have been indoctrinated in this "everyone's a winner" mentality.

Yep, and year after year the media bleats on about how exams are getting easier because the scores are going up. The kids nowadays are going to hell in a handcart.. we've heard this since time immemorial. (Yeah, Marselis isn't the media, but still.. :))

Get back to work on your businesses, fools!<p>Quit circle-jerking on wannabe Entrepreneur feel-good sites.<p>The most successful programming entrepreneurs I know didn't have time to read news sites. They were too busy getting things done.<p><i>quietly closes browser and switches to Xcode</i>

Teachers have been complaining that students today aren't what they used to be at least since Plato -- probably even longer...

Today's universities are yesteryear's technical colleges. Universities used to produce intellectuals now they are primarily geared towards producing worker ants for modern "factories".<p>I'm a CS graduate. I don't consider myself a "Computer Scientist". I'm a factory worker who taps on his keyboard all day.<p>The fact is that a degree is now often considered the minimum qualification necessary to join the workforce.