[9 April 2012] Quit bein' a baby!

[oddtail]

And MEH on underage drinking, it really depends on the person, being an adult doesn't prevent you from doing stupid things.

It helps that in most countries the legal age for drinking is 18, not 21 like in the US. As far as I can tell, the civilization has not collapsed in those countries yet - and I don't think I've met anyone from a country where it's legal to drink at 18 who complained that the age limit should be upped. In fact, few people I know are terribly concerned with teenagers who drink a little at the age of 15-16.

To be honest, I'm surprised and slightly amused at the strong negative reaction some people have to Lisa (and Sara) drinking what is not even ONE beer. Personally, I drank my first beer when I was, dunno, 14 I guess? And I *still* don't drink particularly much or regularly in any way. And don't American beers have a fairly low alcohol content, anyhow (a quick Google search seems to confirm that)?

[Otaking]

A lot of laws in the U.S. are worthless like this one. We'll draft kids at 18 and put an assault rifle in their hands so they can make value judgements on who to shoot while standing in for airport security but a beer is too dangerous.

The U.S. government thinks it can combat systemic decay of society with bandaid laws like this one and fearful people willing to trade freedom for security buy into this, and many worse types of laws.

[Corneel]

And MEH on underage drinking, it really depends on the person, being an adult doesn't prevent you from doing stupid things.

It helps that in most countries the legal age for drinking is 18, not 21 like in the US. As far as I can tell, the civilization has not collapsed in those countries yet - and I don't think I've met anyone from a country where it's legal to drink at 18 who complained that the age limit should be upped. In fact, few people I know are terribly concerned with teenagers who drink a little at the age of 15-16.

To be honest, I'm surprised and slightly amused at the strong negative reaction some people have to Lisa (and Sara) drinking what is not even ONE beer. Personally, I drank my first beer when I was, dunno, 14 I guess? And I *still* don't drink particularly much or regularly in any way. And don't American beers have a fairly low alcohol content, anyhow (a quick Google search seems to confirm that)?

The legal age is 16 in Belgium. I'd also like to point out that the legal age is for purchasing and drinking in a public space. What you do in a private setting is in general not covered by the law, and I'd imagine that campus rooms are covered by campus rules (but not necessarily by the law). So underage drinking is a very relative thing.

As for when I started drinking beer, that must have been around 8 or 9 or so. But it was table beer. First glass of wine at twelve (at the occasion of my confirmation). First time I had more than a few beers - when I was just under sixteen, last day of a summer camp that coincided with the Swiss national holiday.

[sun tzu]

To be honest, I'm surprised and slightly amused at the strong negative reaction some people have to Lisa (and Sara) drinking what is not even ONE beer. Personally, I drank my first beer when I was, dunno, 14 I guess? And I *still* don't drink particularly much or regularly in any way. And don't American beers have a fairly low alcohol content, anyhow (a quick Google search seems to confirm that)?

*shrugs* I pretty much always have that reaction to alcohol.

[Louisa]

I guess? There's a lot of time skippage in these strips so I'm never sure. Also I went through college in the most wrong-headed fashion possible but even as the underachieving slacker that I am I remember having a major my first week

IMO (based on my experience) this IS a wrongheaded way to do it ... If I'd spent the first year doing a survey of things I was interested in, to see which suited me as a course of study, I'd have likely gone into something I actually liked as a major in second year. (I'm not sure I could have gone into my school undeclared, though, which is kind of annoying.)

This "spend the first year of university doing a bunch of unrelated courses to find out what you're interested in" concept is quite alien to a Brit - over here, most people pick what they're going to study at uni when they apply to universities; i.e. about a year before actually starting. You can't go in undeclared, you have to pick a course to apply to, and most courses are specialised in one area from the outset (my own university course was actually unusually non-specialised, by which I mean it contained bits of all the physical sciences rather than being focused entirely in one scientific discipline. It still didn't contain anything non-scientific). I can understand why it would be useful to figure out what you're interested in before committing to it, but is there anything that prevents kids from figuring this out while they're at school?

Then again, I've heard the British system criticised as forcing kids to specialise too early: most students who want to stay in school beyond age 16 spend the last 2 years of secondary school specialising in 3-5 subjects, which they have to choose at the age of 15 or 16. And obviously the choices made at this stage affect what you're qualified to study at university. Which, on the one hand, might make it easier to choose a university course to study because it eliminates a lot of the options, but on the other hand, might screw you over because it eliminates a lot of the options.

I'd guess that specialising immediately, rather than using the first year as a taster year, is one of the reasons why degrees take less time to obtain over here. And fewer years of amassing student debt is always a plus. Especially now that our current government has decided to fucking triple the tuition fees...

[Captain LeBubbles]

I'd guess that specialising immediately, rather than using the first year as a taster year, is one of the reasons why degrees take less time to obtain over here. And fewer years of amassing student debt is always a plus. Especially now that our current government has decided to fucking triple the tuition fees...

Very few people know what they're going to do with their whole life when they're only fifteen, and those that do rarely hold to that ten or even five years later. At fifteen I was going to draw comic books for a living, or maybe be a zoologist, or study psychology, or archaeology... who ever remembers anymore. Anyway, since some courses are required across the board for many degrees (or at least, they are at my school), a lot of people take those in their first year (or so) while they try to work out what degree they want.

[Louisa]

Well, yeah, few people know what they want to do with their life at age 15, but your degree subject generally doesn't dictate what you do with your life. There's a few specialised disciplines like medicine or engineering, but for the vast majority of graduate careers, what matters is that you have a degree, not exactly what subject you took. (And for the specialised things there are generally postgraduate conversion courses available. Like, you can still become a lawyer even if your bachelors' is not in law).

ETA: I'm not saying that our system is a perfect one, just that the American one often seems kind of strange to me, especially the idea that people can't start figuring out what they enjoy doing while they're at school. And I feel like I sometimes fail to connect with the nuances of this comic because it's set in a system that's so different from anything I've ever experienced (the "omg underage drinking" responses to the last 2 comics being another example of this).

[Alice Macher]

There's another reason why North American undergrads take such a variety of courses their first year, and it's that many schools in fact require it, because it's their philosophy that students should have a well-rounded education. So in such universities, everyone has to take at least one humanities course, one social science, one pure/applied science, and sometimes courses in other areas, such as Phys. Ed. Often, there'll be broad survey courses designed for just that purpose. Students take these in their first year to get them under their belts so they can concentrate on their major (or major-and-minor) from sophomore year on. Also, many North American universities and colleges, due to the, er, varied educational standards among today's high schools, have a mandatory first-year course (which may be either graded or Pass/Fail) in essay writing.

All told, the Bachelors' requirements at many North American schools simply don't leave you much room to start right off majoring in one subject. Is this a better, or worse, approach than the British system Louisa describes, in which you're expected to hit the ground running with your major in your first semester? I don't know, but I'm sure a strong case could be made for both approaches.

[Otaking]

There's another reason why North American undergrads take such a variety of courses their first year, and it's that many schools in fact require it, because universities can make more money off students this way.

I fixed this for you.

I have real problems with our educational system because so many people out there are in real need of concrete, employable, productive skills and we have this archaic educational system that attempts to turn everyone into a Renaissance scholar. Colleges and universities, which are at heart businesses, do nothing to focus a student's caseload and make sure most of them start their working lives with large debts. I'm in the IT field so I'm very biased but I believe in certifications, technical schools, self-teaching, internships and apprenticeships more than traditional education. I wish I had not listened to what a lot of my university and society had pushed onto my thinking and gone with the above instead of a traditional education. Truthfully the times I did go with the above in addition to traditional education is really where I learned to do what I actually get paid for. Universities are slow to adapt also and by the time I got out, COBOL was pretty obsolete for example. "Well you learned programming logic" "Well really I knew programming logic before going in because I used to rewrite RAINBOW magazine games in BASIC for fun as a kid."

I feel that students could be an income producer much earlier and take all those extra courses universities espouse so they can be 'enlightened thinkers' (read: someone you can have a conversation with at parties) on their 'own' time, and later in life when they have income and time to play around with, with a more focused educational method. They really are in need of a path that gets them into a paying job as fast as possible in %99 percent of cases. Get a paying job first and then learn about world history through Google or the books you borrow at the coffee shop at lunch.

[Freemage]

Otaking: For the most part, I agree with you--the notion that everyone needs a degree has so infested our society that it's completely distorted the educational system. Frankly, we need a ground-up overhaul in the U.S., but any attempt to do so is so bound to be corrupted by conflicting agendas that we are left just making minor tweaks to the margins, because no one wants to risk letting 'those guys' have a say in making a complete system. (Who 'those guys' are, of course, completely depends upon what your own agenda would be.)

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

My agenda is a simple one, Freemage. White rats and hot sharks for all. Can't see why anyone wouldn't want those...

I'm in complete agreement on the educational system, too. So far my Associates degree in Network Administration hasn't gotten me a job in that field for the past almost 3 years. Yet when I look at several of the jobs around here, more often than not, they want certifications that I just haven't had the chance (or money) to get yet. Sometimes, the system is so stacked against you it's a tad overwhelming. x.x

[Alice Macher]

Happy Tuesday night, everyone! I found this gem of a comment on the current strip, left via Facebook, and wanted to share:

...Those faces are not inspired by a Budweiser. Unless she also has serious problems handling the intense and overpowering flavors of Wonder Bread.

[Freemage]

Happy Tuesday night, everyone! I found this gem of a comment on the current strip, left via Facebook, and wanted to share:

...Those faces are not inspired by a Budweiser. Unless she also has serious problems handling the intense and overpowering flavors of Wonder Bread.

Heh. that's almost my own reaction to Wonder Bread, actually.... Not because it's so strong, but because it's so meh and bleh at the same time.

[Bardlp]

There's another reason why North American undergrads take such a variety of courses their first year, and it's that many schools in fact require it, because it's their philosophy that students should have a well-rounded education.

And that would by why I didn't graduate. Could not meet the lib ed requirement for maths. There's a point where you hit "I'm just paying someone to make me feel stupid". I do not understand why algebra was the only class to meet the math requirement for an English degree. And it's not like I wasn't trying. I did the remedial class after failing algebra the first time, aced it, and then failed algebra again. Took a year off maths, did remedial again junior year, aced it again, failed algebra again next semester. It was different teachers, so it wasn't like it was just a bad instructor. I did the tutoring. Just... ugh. Poorly designed lib ed programs are the reason people don't believe in the liberal education philosophy.

Looking back on it I probably should have just taken it online and cheated the third time.

[delciotto]

I registered just to post this, enjoy and touch it up if you want it was a very quick job.