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John Gallo
Professor Zino
English 110
November 8, 2010
Letter to Provost Stellar
Dear Provost Stellar,
My name is John Gallo, I am a student in Professor Zino’s English 110 class, and I was
assigned to write you a letter regarding “my generation” and some reforms in education and the
environment for learning that can be made to help better fit “my generation”. Anybody can see
that the world has truly changed in the last fifteen years and these societal changes prove day in
and day out to shape what my generation is today. Some of today’s new revelations include
texting, the extensive resource that is the internet, the rising costs in tuition, new electronics such
as the iPad, and now-a-days people are not taking their jobs very seriously both students and
faculty members. Before I begin to elucidate my point, don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not
saying all people do not take their jobs certainly although today more and more people are ot
worried about their responsibilities at work, but it has been observed and recorded that people in
this generation are more selfish than those in generations before us (Sparano). I’d like to focus
on the selfishness of this generation in this letter. This generation has students that are different
than students of any other generation before.
Lately there have been changes in academic priorities in schools across the country
moving toward a “corporate model” in education. The “corporate model” incorporates teachers
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from the business world. This experiment in theory is to help students see a business structure
and give the students help to get jobs in the future because the goals of getting a degree for
students is to get a job in the future (Traub 132).
If I were to define “my generation” I would definitely focus on this generation’s
selfishness. Twenge shows this with one distinct statement, “we speak the language of the self
as out native tongue” (50). I definitely see this more and more in this generation. I feel like
since “my generation” is the product of the baby boomer era, who were on a journey trying to
change the world with protests and group sessions we were given everything by our parents
because they want to make sure we don’t need to change the world and just focus on making a
way for “ourself” (Twenge 51). For example, I know my parents had their first jobs at eleven
and twelve years old and at sixteen years old they were both working full time and going to
school at the same time. They worked so hard to make sure I can worry about school and
making a way for “myself”. Indirectly, parents now-a-days from the baby boomer era have
fueled to the selfishness of “my generation”. For instance, Twenge uses an example of a twenty
year old named Maria whose mother reminds her frequently, “What really matters is how I
perceive myself. The real person I need to please is myself” (51).
Many recent sources of research prove that texting is the one of the most important or
most used form of communication in this generation. Texting is very distracting and could prove
to bring down test scores or cumulative grade point averages because it has become such a large
distraction. It is seen that texting promotes selfishness because students and faculty members as
well are more worried about texting and figuring out “what’s up for tonight” or “where we going
after class”. Herman points out some terrifying facts in his article that points out:
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For example: Nielsen says that this rate of texting results in somewhere over 3000 text
per month, per teen, on average. This means that nearly half of every day is texting time
for these people, which, assuming they sleep at all, means that they're either texting
steadily all day, or a ton during after-school hours. And let's say these texts average out to
about 80 characters, which is half the maximum length for a text message: Even if the
average word length is very generous five characters (that's six, including a space), these
kids are tapping out about 40,000 words of ephemeral nothingness every month, or
roughly one Catcher in the Rye's worth of "WILL UR BRTHR BUY US SUM BEER?"
and "R U REDDY 2 DO IT YET?" every two months.
I would say that this very true and I agree that texting just causes distraction. If there was no
texting what can be covered in twenty to thirty text messages between two people can be covered
in at most a two minute phone call. This proves that texting is not an efficient way of
communicating to one another. Also texting uses a whole different language and personally I
more often than not see myself almost slipping text message slang such as “u”, “nothin”, or
“every1” in my writings for school. This distraction of texting can only hurt a student in his or
her writings for class.
Next, the rising rates of selfishness are really taking away from the whole idea of helping
others. Sparano doesn’t claim that people were not selfish in his generation but he is observing
that people are more and more selfish in this generation. He sees selfishness more often than he
would like and his article clearly states this:
As a T.A. at a community college as well as a regular consistently visiting alumna of
another university I witness selfishness more regularly then I care too. It is an interesting
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form of selfishness. It is selfishness paired with a complete lack of work ethic. The
culture seems to be loosing all aspects of accountability or drive. It is a well you do it for
me kind of selfishness, a truly sad state of affairs. It is a society that wants everything
and doesn't expect to have to do anything to get it and sadly my contemporaries don't
even feel the need to show up on time or at all for that matter.
Sparano sees selfishness not only in the work force. He shows that he sees selfishness in the
classroom as well. Sparano points out a classroom of a ceramics class, students have all the
resources needed to get an easy A but their pure laziness and selfishness make them not take
advantage of these resources and they end up failing. I think selfishness is purely consuming this
generation unlike any other new innovation that some strongly think create most of the major
distractions. I have a personal example of this pure selfishness from my experience at Queens
College’s Academic Advisement Office. I made an appointment to seek advisement as to what
classes I should enroll in next semester and wanted to talk about my interests. I walked in and
the advisor asked what I was interested in and I said possibly the accounting program and with
an attitude she printed out a list of classes needed for the accounting program. She handed me
the list and said alright you’re done and before I could even ask a question she was already out of
the room. This advisement appointment was a huge waste of time and possibly the most
annoying experience of my life. I left that room thinking to myself that advisor was the most
selfish person and didn’t care about me or her job.
Twenge states that this generation is engulfed in “what I have” or what she calls
materialism which fuels selfishness even more (Twenge 99). I definitely think this is true
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everybody tries to have the newest and best cell phones, lap tops, and cars. I’m going to focus
on cell phones with this new iPhone and Blackberry craze everybody is getting these smart
phones. In class and in this generation as a whole everybody uses these phones to show they
have the best and newest technology and furthers Twenge’s argument of materialism in today’s
society. Some would argue that students these days are getting these phones to receive class emails and use the internet as a resource while on the go, but I would combat that with the cultural
laziness and selfishness in this generation students have a computer in each household and don’t
need a smart phone to check e-mails and use the internet it is all for their “self-image”. These
students are just trying to “keep up with the Joneses” and show they fit in with the crowd
(Twenge 102). Who really cares though? Surprisingly, everyone wants to “keep up with
Joneses” even those people who say they don’t care how people look at them want to keep up. It
is very true that everyone wants to fit in with the crowd, so in turn many people will do what
they have to do to fit in and in this case it would be getting the latest smart phone.
I think this new communication method of texting should not be allowed in a college
classroom because texting just adds to the selfishness pointed out earlier. Texting keeps a
student in a bubble of self focus and makes it nearly impossible for the student to learn or retain
anything in class. In Sparano’s example of the ceramics class, the students were probably in the
bubble of self focus promoted by texting fueling their selfishness and laziness making them not
take advantage of the class itself and attributing to the possible low grade they can earn down the
road. So, I suggest as a reform in Queens College texting or use of cell phones should be
prohibited in class and in the offices because these same cell phones and the use of text
messaging promotes the same selfishness to a faculty member as it does a student. So,
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prohibition of cell phone use in the office and in the classroom would benefit the school as a
whole and make the whole college just a little bit less self focused ad less selfish.
I feel like one great reform that Queens College can make is incorporating a class for
community service and make it a requirement for general education. I feel that a class of this
nature will promote awareness to the unprivileged in society, wrongs of society, elderly, etc. A
class like this would force students to leave their bubble of self focus and finally see people who
aren’t as fortunate as themselves. So the goal of this class would be to make students a lot less
selfish and I think this reform would prove to be very beneficial to the students at Queens
College.
The “corporate model” should be endorsed by Queens College in some ways. I feel that
Queens College should endorse the “corporate model” in classes that are built to get a student
ready to enter a certain field that the teacher, who would be a business person in that field, could
be able to get their students jobs in the future while teaching the class what the real workforce in
that field is like. I feel like that would be a very useful and effective way of teaching a class. I
don’t think the whole “corporate model” should be endorsed because I don’t feel students would
get as good as an education in the general education requirements with a teacher from the
business world. There are some classes that trained teachers need to teach and in my opinion I
feel they should teach the classes needed for general education. Essentially, I believe that the
“corporate model” can be very effective but should only be used in classes designed for a certain
field of work for example accounting, engineering, nursing, etc.
Thank you, Provost Stellar for taking the time to read my opinions I hope they were of
some help to you and improving this college.
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Works Cited
Herrman, John. “Texting Is the Scourge of This Generation.” n.d.: N. pag. Date Accessed(n.d.)
<http://http://gizmodo.com/5468836/texting-is-the-scour...>.
Sparano, Kearney. “Are We Becoming More Selfish as a Society?.” n.d.: N. pag. Date
Accessed(n.d.) <http://http://www.helium.com/items/1453487-society-sel...>.
Twenge, Jean M. Generation Me. New York: Free Press, 2006.
Traub, James. “The Next Univerisity Drive-Thru U.: Higher Education for People Who Mean
______Business.” The New Yorker n.d.: 131-137.