McCurry 1 Josh McCurry April 30th, 2014 English 111 4th Hour Emily Jarema Self-Motivation in College Why

y do people ever feel that they lack the ability to complete an objective? Why do they feel like they have a lack of energy in their system? Every individual in this world has had a lack of self-motivation to complete a task that needs to be completed. People would think that this is a common problem in our modern world. But some of our college professors dont believe that students have a self-motivation problem. Its just a matter of being lazy and having horrible time management. For the topic of segregation, or the presence of equality being obsolete; Theodore Sizer mentions in his article, What High School is, that Young males and females are treated remarkably alike; the schools goals are the same for each gender (264). This could lead to selfmotivation problems very easily; if everyone is treated the same then there wouldnt be a competition for being better than another individual. Its almost like communism, no matter the amount of work an individual does, the person who did way less work than the one who does more work gets the same benefits as the one who did all the work. As in, when the lazy students do the bare minimum for a good grade and the over achiever students go above and beyond for almost the same grade. Why go above and beyond when the minimum can get the same grade. This usually occurs in high schools, and this can lead to a horrible first start in college where to be independent, responsible, confident, etc. is expected. But in the article Why College isnt for everyone by W.J. Reeves, he stated It is hard to be a productive worker if one appears

McCurry 2 occasionally, yet token appearances, sometimes just cameos, are tolerated in college (342). This statement proves that if successful students are surrounded by the wrong students and environment, those students will stoop down to a negative level. This is why coaches, parents, etc. encourage kids/students/players to practice/learn with someone whose abilities are stronger/better than theirs. In high school in this modern world, most students dont go over the top and do the bare minimum or the average amount of work. Then when college arrives, by the end of the first year a lot of freshmen will drop out because of their self-motivation issues. Those self-motivation issues would lead to not studying, not doing any homework, or just the traits of an unsuccessful college student. On the topic of the self segregation, W.J. Reeves mentions Outside the class, at home, and everywhere in their existence, they converse in a language other than English (343). This might sound irrelevant, he is talking about foreign exchange students or students in college where English isnt their main language. If students from one country went to another country where the language isnt their main source of communication, a self-motivational problem can be a result from that. How? The students might not understand the professor, they dont understand the questions/format of the homework, or the students dont understand the tests/exams assigned. This can lead to frustration and to the point of giving up and just dropping out of school in general. There has been an increase in the United States for foreign exchange programs. Colleges usually prefer diversity on their campus because according to U.S. News [foreign exchange programs] could expand worldliness, enhances social development, prepares students for future career success, prepares the students for global society, promotes creative thinking, enhances self-awareness, and it enriches the multiple perspectives. Colleges like to have the reputation of accepting everyone no matter what which is nice for the students to realize that

McCurry 3 everyone is people just like them. But if the college isnt in your main language and you arent bilingual you will have a very difficult time and there is a chance of dropping out. And most of these colleges who have a major diversity, most of the students self-segregate themselves anyways just by comfortability. With the diversity, it will be difficult to work together in group projects or to come to multiple consensuses. With the frustration among the cultures, this can lead to frustration and to people just giving up. This doesnt correlate with American born college students but with the foreign exchange students from other countries. WQ In the

article Black Men and Public Space, by Brent Staples, he would agree with diversity producing a self-motivation problem. He explains it by saying After dark, on the warren like streets of Brooklyn where I live, I often see women who fear the worst from me. They seem to have set their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps strung across their chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as though bracing themselves against being tackled (16). Brent understands that when he does his best to put on a good impression, he will always get put down because of stereotyping. There has been surely been days where Staples didnt try to put on a good impression and have an I dont care attitude. That is a lack of self-motivation to become better and to actually prevent this people from judging him. Stereotyping occurs in schools all the time. If someone is being discriminated, stereotyped, judged, etc. they will be more focused on stabling their emotions than focusing in class. Or the student will be wondering why the other students are doing such an action to hurt them. This will bring down morale and ruin their self-motivation. Its more of a distraction than a self-motivation issue, but they go along together. This could easily be correlated with bullying, and try to tell someone the last time someone who has witnessed a bullied kid receive a fantastic grade point average. There might be a few in the case, but majority dont do well in school if they are having bullying problems. Some people say that bullying is positive peer pressure, but those people who say

McCurry 4 that are usually the bullies themselves or they just have an arrogant/narcissistic attitude. The bullying can be physical or cyber bullying. On the topic of cyber bullying or using the internet, technology or impulses for anything opposite of the objective is associated with self-motivation issues. In the article Is Technology Making Us Stupid by Nicolas Carr he mentions The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition. It a paper published in 1936, the British mathematician Alan Turing proved that a digital computer, which at the time existed only as a theoretical machine, could be programmed to perform the function of any other information-processing device. And thats what were seeing today (373). This correlates with how technology in the past is vastly different than in the present. Technology in the past was used for academic subjects or to basically complete a task/objective. Maybe not technology specifically but the internet. The internet can be used for a majority of things today. Yes, its good for research and other specific requirements, but there are so many distractions on the internet where a person reacts to their impulses. The internet can turn students or people from a proactive individual to a reactive individual. The distractions include social media, gaming, etc. And these distractions correlate with time, and the time is not being used for anything beneficial. Specifically, Google is used widely throughout the world. In Googles perspective Information is a kind of commodity, a utilitarian resource that can be mined and processed with industrial efficiency. The more pieces of information we can access and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers (375). What can the population of the world do but Google cant? The world can think, they can process new information and do all sorts of things. But most of the students in college arent really taught about critical thinking (in most cases). The students usually obtain or absorb an information/content then they continue to regurgitate the content back. The students wont be thinking they will be memorizing which requires not a lot of critical thinking. With Google, an

McCurry 5 individual can just type in a question and the answer (in most cases) appears on the screen. Since a lot of people know that Google is a good search engine to find all the answers they will use it. Self-motivation problems will occur because of the lack of energy it takes to Google a question. As in, instead of students completing their homework, they will proceed to just Google most of the questions. Their work might get done and be on time, but this will lead to problems in the future. If Google wasnt there, some students wouldnt know what to do with themselves. With Google being an option and at everyones availability, theyll wait to do their homework because the time to find an answer has decreased exponentially. W.J. Reeves would agree with the statement above because he mentioned It is hard to be a productive worker if one appears occasionally, yet token appearances, sometimes just cameos, are tolerated in college (342). When he mentions to only appear occasionally, this can go with occasionally being a thinker. People dont critically think all the time during their productive/non-productive days. If colleagues dont appear to every class, they will obviously fall behind. If colleagues just use the internet for all their homework, they wont be as beneficial to the world as they should be when they receive their degree. This is a macroscopic stretch but W.J. Reeves would agree on the point of procrastination. With all these aspects; occasionally showing up means that the students have self-motivation problems or maybe just procrastination. Clive Crook stated in his article Why College isnt an Economic Cure-All, that, In 2004, 67 percent of American high-school graduated went straight to college, compared with just under half in 1972. This is widely applauded. It looks like progress, but is it really? Failing to go to college did not always mark people out as rejects, unfit for any kind of well-paid employment. But now, increasingly, it does. In a cruel paradox, this may be one reason why parental incomes predict childrens incomes in the United States than they used to. In other words, one reason why America is becoming less meritocratic (367). To relate to knowing the students success or future income by the income of their homes in the present, this can be true. In this school, the kids with low incomes do have a

McCurry 6 procrastination problem or a self-motivation problem. Most of the time a valedictorian does not come from a lower income family, unless majority of the school is in a poverty area. In the elementary school here show the same resemblance. The students who dont show improvement on their work or they dont do their work come from a lower income home. Their parents dont help them with their reading, math, writing, etc. This could affect them in the future in college (possibly). Of course they have plenty of opportunities to turn their motivation skills around, but that value is part of their background. It will be difficult to break out of when the students have already learned to do so. Of course, schools who have better funding can do better but thats if the school uses their resources properly and effectively. Sometimes the lower income families dont know the value of a good education. With a family in poverty or moves a lot, this could put a child through physiological/emotional issues. Usually with the lower income relates to a inefficient school. According to Matt Bruenig Politics, the SAT scores in 2012 showed that lower income students perform worse than the kids who have a higher income. This can be considered a stereotype, but stereotypes are made based off personal judgment. Which means, people have witnessed this happen numerous times. Theodore Sizer would agree with this statement because of the statement he had in this article. School is to be like a job: you start in the morning and end in the afternoon, five days a week. You dont get much of a lunch hour, so you go home early, unless you are an athlete or are involved in some special school extracurricular activity (264). Schooling or college is repetitive. If the students do the same thing every day, they will eventually get bored of the repetitive routine and start to develop self-motivation issues. Students will realize that sometimes the bare minimum can get them to squeeze by passing the class. And the students who have always been slackers will learn this quickly and just take the

McCurry 7 easy road like they have before. With the students living in the lower income home, they know that their parents go out and do the same thing every day and receive very little. Then they will realize why they should put so much effort in school when little comes out of it. Some students will work a little harder and they will only get one letter grade better than another kid, thats it. Why not do the minimum on assignments and try a little on the test and receive a passing grade? Theyll realize that they passed like everyone else. The goal to them is to pass the class and to not to the best they can in the class. But what the students dont realize that good grades can get scholarships and other free college opportunities. Clive Crook also mentions A college degree has become an expensive passport to good employment, one for which drive and ability less often can substitute, yet one that looks unaffordable to many poor families (367). Most problems in America that the population comes in terms with is money issues. Most families cant afford the cost of college, the students can get student loans of course but will the job support the student loan payments? Even though the students have a degree, doesnt mean that a job is guaranteed right off the get go. They say college assists the students to make more money, but starting off with a cost of a house that they dont even own doesnt help. Some students do realize how much money college does cost and some will not even go because of the hassle it will be. They will most likely not be motivated because they figure that college isnt affordable. If the students are already poor and dont have much. Why waste a bunch of money to be in debt and have a piece of paper and still have no home? Kind of a pessimistic way to look at it, but it happens and not everything is peaches and cream in college when you leave. This wont necessarily make students unmotivated in college, but it will unmotivate population who is looking to go to college in their future. Some teachers/professors dont believe in self-motivation problems. Self-motivation

McCurry 8 problems have been here since the birth of humans. There have been many projects that have been postponed because of procrastination or self-motivation issues. The teacher/professors who dont believe in this issue are just blind to the fact that its a problem because not all of the populations in the world are robots and can be the same every day. Some days the students might be feeling it, or some days they wont. If there werent any self-motivation problems in the world, the world could possibly be more advanced in technology, medicine, economics, etc. That might be a shot in the dark, but its very possible. Students every day have experience their teacher/professor not getting the grades in the grade book or correcting the assignments/tests. This makes the teacher/professors hypocritical at times. That is a self- motivation problem, but they will deny it. The main reason why teacher/professors dont believe in self- motivation problems is because they think that the students are just making an excuse to not do their work. In some cases, maybe, but they have to realize that we are human just like them.

Revision: In the paper I tried to relate to the sub topics a little more. I added a citation or textual evidence to help with the low income students not being successful in school. I fixed some grammatical errors and surprisingly there was a word spelled wrong. I introduced a topic better in the second paragraph, and I also broke up some long paragraphs into shorter paragraphs. The paper may still seem random, but I tried to fix as much as I can without rewriting the whole thing and leaving the same information I had. I also deleted the asian culture idea, which you were correct about. It was very irrelevant to the sub topics but it did relate to the main topic. I think my problem was that I related all my evidence to the main topic and not the sub topics. Which made the paper random and very vague and not deep enough.

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Citation Page Staples, Brent. "Black Men and Public Space." Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. New York City: Pearson Learning Company, 2013. 15-17. Print. Sizer, Theodore. "What High School Is." Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. New York City: Pearson Learning Company, 2013. 259-68. Print. Reeves, W.J. "College Isn't for Everyone." Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. New York City: Pearson Learning Company, 2013. 341-45. Print. Crook, Clive. "Why College isn't an Economic Cure-All." Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. New York City: Pearson Learning Company, 2013. 366-68. Print.

McCurry 10 Carr, Nicolas. "Is Google making us stupid?" Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. New York City: Pearson Learning Company, 2013. 370-77. Print. Hymen, Jeremy S. "Why Does Diversity Matter at College Anyways?." USNews. Ed. Lynn F. Jacobs. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2009. <http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/professors-guide/2009/08/12/why-does-diversitymatter-at-college-anyway>. Bruenig, Matt. "MattBruenig Politics." Why do poor kids do worse in school?. N.p., 1 May 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://mattbruenig.com/2012/05/01/why-do-poor-kids-doworse-in-school/>.