Community College Sweetness

I'm currently taking my last couple of classes for my undergraduate degree through some online classes at a local community college. The best part about online classes is the required participation on discussion boards, as teachers and profs somehow think that steps need to be taken to compensate for a lack of discussion that might occur in a normal classroom setting.

Hi, I'm a nontraditional student. When I'm not wearing jerseys over long sleeve t-shirts to cover the stench of desperation and failure, you can find me rambling about how the government eliminated my low skill manufacturing job, or posting irrelevant replies on discussion boards using this weird, electrical, type-y gadget thing...

My opinion is that this is completely unnecessary. At the community college level (where classes consist of those who struggled through high school, empty nest mothers, and bored retirees), virtually nothing important is ever brought up in a class discussion. Why? Here is what each discussion boils down to- 1) The kids who barely escaped high school aren't interested, unless it's a discussion about parties, drugs or alcohol 2) The retooling mothers are incapable of discussing anything other than children and 3) the retirees can only talk about what things used to be like. Add a good dose of idiocy, and you get get discussions like the one going on in my Intro to Computers Class, over the required topic of "Are Computers Necessary to College Students"-

Highlights (typos, poor grammar, and stupidity included):

" Students do not need a computer for success,but sure does make it easier when they work. They have made us lazy. Students do not research papers as they used to by reading different litatures on the subject. Students use the search engine to do our work. It does make it faster and easier,but I can do the same a little longer but same results."

The point this older lady appears to be using is that she can do something in a way that is both slower, and more difficult, yet only returns the same results. Note to her- doing something faster, easier, and getting the same results is not technically laziness, I believe it's called efficiency.

"I think that it is very important to use computers in college and it does help you become sucessful! In most classes you end up doing papers or some type of work that involves a computer. Computers are involved in everything now days, pretty soon everything will be ran by computers. Computers help me out alot for my classes, without them I would not be albe to take my internet classes and then I would not be able to work as much. "

Pretty soon everything will be ran by computers.. ummm, what? I'm not saying she's wrong, I'm just saying I can't wait to get my first digital belt, or my very own wireless Q-Tips.

This next one was under the subject- "Computers in todays world... have become A MUST BUT it doesn't have to be"- Thank you CNN. Anyway, here is what she had to say.

"Though computers seem to be becoming "smarter" they can't replace our own human brains. I think that is one thing scientists and the technical world haven't been able to duplicate it yet. At least to our own magintude, besides HUMAN's invented and make computers. They're only as smart as we can make them. So yea they can help in many ways it still doesn't replace being able to use our heads in LEARNING."

First, I don't know why the phrase "At least to our own magintude" is before the comma, but after the period. Had it been the other way, it would have made more sense, but still not much overall. Nor do I understand what the "HUMAN" is possessing, or how most of this paragraph relates to the intended topic. If I was the prof, I would respond to this with a comment like this-

"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Finally, my personal favorite is this reply-

" I agree, I to use my computer for school because I'm forced to work full time and internet classes are more convient. They are still very stressful when things do not work as they are supose to like the internet to stay on or when I push a wrong button it dosn't leave forever into cybird space. I have many assignments out there!!!"

"Ummm... what?!"

The absolute highlight would have to be "cybird" space. I don't think this can be a typo, because I can't imagine typing "bird" instead of "ber". The letter "i" is just too freaking far away on the keyboard to accidentally hit. I really think this lady thought she used the correct term...