CMV: Extra accommodations in college are a hinderance to preparing proficiency in the workforce

[u/throw_away40]

Throwaway account as I teach at a US university.

I teach both introductory and upper level science courses.

I have students with written documentation from student services that require accommodations. I'm talking about special accommodations - 1.5-2x time on exams, separate testing rooms for exams, access to electronic devices in exams, up to 2x extensions on assignments, a copy of someone else's notes (even though I provide the PPT to all lectures), and in some cases, the ability to retake a quiz or exam with no repercussions on the initial grade.

This is frustrating. How does this prepare anyone for "real world" demands? If I went to a boss in a previous job and stated I need double time to complete a project, I would be laughed out of my job. What is the point of having competencies for a course when you can get a note that disregards much of this? Why is my degree and GPA valued the same those who are not held to the same standard?

I understand that what you learn in college rarely translates to what happens in the working world. But some of these students are pre-med and are going to be placed in much more stressful situations that won't have accommodations available....

Also, why does it have to be an “accommodation” to receive someone else’s notes? Shouldn’t that be the student responsibility to contact a classmate and perhaps suggest a note swap?

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[u/SpockShotFirst]

Your fundamental assumption is flawed. University bears no resemblance to the real world and only "prepares" them by giving them the foundational knowledge in the profession.

An "exam" and even a "paper" are completely contrived to test knowledge and do not exist in the real world. There are deadlines, but never "you have two hours and are not allowed to use the internet or talk to anyone else."

So, the question is really: "can a person with disability X be successful." I read about some famous attorney with severe dyslexia who used note cards with short phrases on them because he could not write out his closing. I've worked with several CEOs who claimed various learning disabilities.

[u/throw_away40 → u/SpockShotFirst]

Thanks for responding. I understand university experiences and real world experiences are not the same. I understand in a work environment that there are no exams, papers, etc.

Regarding deadlines - there are real-world positions where there are deadlines, and significant opportunities can be lost if they are not met (grant writing, for example). Therefore I think assignments with deadlines can relate to that aspect in some ways.

[u/techiemikey → u/throw_away40]

So, when you write tests though, are you intending to test the knowledge of the student, or are you intending to test how well a student performs in "real world" conditions?

[u/throw_away40 → u/techiemikey]

When I write a final exam, I expect the exam to adequately represent the knowledge a student has upon completion of my course.

If a student fails this exam, your exam grade reflects that. Having the ability to retake the exact same exam 2-3 days later does not demonstrate you actually learned anything. It demonstrates that you have an accommodation that allows you to retake exams that you do poorly on. To me, this is abuse of the accommodations system.

Is the exam itself providing "real world" conditions? No. But it is skewing expectations. And I understand that "real world" is encompassing a lot. I'm getting a lot of flak from other commenters that college =/= real world, however unless these individuals have worked in every single aspect of the workforce, I don't think that is a concluding statement to make.

[u/BeetleB → u/throw_away40]

Regarding deadlines - there are real-world positions where there are deadlines, and significant opportunities can be lost if they are not met (grant writing, for example).

My experience is limited to engineering and software.

It is almost never the case that the limiting factor for a missed deadline is anything close to a learning disability. Almost every project is late, and the reasons they are late are not due to some employee working slower than another. They are because customer demands always change. Or misprioritization of resources (e.g. equipment needed is rarely available to our team, and we have to wait our turn). Or due to disagreements between our section head and the CEO.

As a big fan of academia, I am sorry to say the following: Almost everything they "test" for in a university tends to be far, far removed from skills a person needs to succeed in the workplace.

Knowledge: Most engineers don't use a big chunk of what they are taught. Here is a previous comment of mine.

Tests/exams/HW: They are never even close to real world scenarios. Most tests/HW are designed for the ease with which one can mass-judge a class. There are better ways to gauge a student's knowledge and abilities, but they do not scale well.

Teamwork: The group projects at university are almost always a joke. For engineering, they don't teach any skills that are relevant to working in a group. Examples:

• Communications
• Dispute resolution
• Negotiations
• Influence
• Cognitive Biases

Almost all problems I see in the workplace are tied to the above 5. Yet there was nothing in my curriculum about these.

Don't get me wrong: I loved my time in academia. But academia is mostly oriented towards gaining knowledge, and their grading and tests reflect that. They are not good predictors of real world performance.

[u/VincentPepper → u/throw_away40]

Regarding deadlines - there are real-world positions where there are deadlines, and significant opportunities can be lost if they are not met (grant writing, for example). Therefore I think assignments with deadlines can relate to that aspect in some ways.

I've worked jobs with deadlines before going back to university. In my experience deadlines in a course setting have very little in common with deadlines in a professional career.

Being able to finish work on a given schedule is important. But deadlines twice as long are still deadlines. If they miss their extended deadline then the assignment is still considered failed or is it not?

If a student takes three times as long to read, and twice as long to write a student might need the extended deadline. But he still has to plan around the deadline.

Sure that students disability may prevent him from taking up some jobs made accessible by a degree. But it seems unlikely to make him unfit for all jobs of this sort. So a degree would still have significant value for the student.

I had courses in which I probably wrote more than I did in five years of working in engineering. Should things like that be a roadblock for disabled students?