Green II

So, my job involves helping students at a university. I am happy to help these students with their questions, but frankly some of the questions are just plain stupid and only require just a bit of common sense to figure out the solution.

Some ask how to get upstairs and when I tell them about the stairs they ask if they should go up them...are you serious? Some ask for a course requirements guide; look at it, and then ask what classes they need to graduate. What has happened to today's student where they need help 24/7 on every problem, whether it is finding a building (campus map on every corner/online, etc.) or contacting a faculty/staff member (contact lists in course catalog/online, etc.), these kids (yes, kids) are not prepared for any kind of "real world."

I recall watching the movie Say Anything, the scene where Ione Skye's character is making her valedictorian speech. She talks about being in the "real world," and that most of them have already been living in the "real world." What "real world" was she referring to I wonder? The world where they have a part time job? The world where they are in school taking 12 hours of classes? Maybe in the 80s, the "real world" meant a little more than a crappy MTV reality show, where reckless behavior is excused for the sake of entertainment.

What kind of world do we live in where the future of our nation/world can't even figure out solutions to even the simplest of problems?