Phillipson 1

Paul Phillipson

Professor Erin Celello

English 101

8 February 2022

A reader's response to “What Professors expect from you”

As a student, it is your job to learn new things and find something that interests you and

makes you want to pursue it in the long run. At a very young age that is what is drilled into you,

as soon as you get into high school. Most kids have no idea what they want to do after high

school, and that is not because they do not have options. Many people right after high school end

up going to a technical college, or a community college. While some want to pursue something

more and try to get a degree in it. Although this may be the case, many of the kids that want to

go to a four-year college have no idea what they are going into. At least a lot of them do not,

because at an early age they were told college is where everyone goes after high school.

Kip Wheeler is a professor at Carson Newman University, who wrote an article called,

“What Professors expect from you”, which opens our eyes to what goes on in kids' thought

process on how they make their decisions to go to college. Wheeler is trying to tell us how many

kids believe going to college is just so they can go and graduate and get a diploma. He wants to

show us that going to college is a big commitment. Along with college being a big commitment

he wants to let us know it's a lot more than just school. In high school many people just kind of

slide through with minimal effort and do the least because it is free education. While in college it

is you that is paying for your classes. In some cases, your parents help you pay for it but even

then you are still putting down money. With this being said people that go to college expecting it
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to be more of another high school. Wheeler wants us to know that going to college is hard work

and you have to grind it out.

Although Wheeler makes many good points when it comes to having many options, he

also goes on in-depth about how professors want you to be ready for college. He first expresses

the fact that most kids know how to do simple stuff. For example, knowing how to do basic

math, or knowing general American and European history. He says, “College professors want

students who can go beyond memorizing towards explanation and analysis”. He is saying many

of the kids that go through schooling are in a trance. They are being taught how to memorize and

look over things and analyze them. He gives the example of Ginny, who is learning about the

digestive system. She gets a checklist of all the parts she needs to know and memorizes their

definition. Now in college according to Wheeler, “...Professores want you to think critically and

make connections and go beyond knowing where it belongs”. He says this because most of the

quizzes and exams we get for a class are “harder”. Not because the questions are hard, it is just

the type of quests being asked. Instead of your normal where this is located, it is more in-depth

and explains what happens to the rest if one thing is out of place. He then goes on to talk about

how many of the people that go for a certain degree end up elsewhere. This just shows if

someone is determined they want to be one thing when they go to college they end up changing.

Because what they had in mind is not the same as what it is in real life.

From my point of view, I feel like Wheeler is kindly saying if you do not have a set plan

of what you want to do in college then don’t come. He gave examples of people that didn’t go to

college and became successful. The person he gave us an example was Bill Gates who dropped

out of college to create his software and became one of the richest. Wheeler is not also saying

everyone that drops out is going to become like him. Because the college he dropped out of was
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Harvard University. This means he is somewhat rich when going to that kind of school which is

hard to get into. With this being said a lot of people who drop out do it because the interest they

were pursuing didn’t entail going to college.

I have first-hand experience with what he has been talking about. For me when I first

started high school I didn’t care. I was just going to school for the social aspects of it to try to get

the best grades I could get. Before I knew it I was writing essay papers and sending out

admission letters to all colleges. I remember my parents telling me that I didn’t need to go to

college. I could take my time and take a gap year and try to find something I loved. My thought

was I want to go because I wanted to play soccer. I was told that I had time to choose once I got

to college too. This made me choose to go to college because I wanted to explore and see what

could be of my interest. College is fun, regardless of the homework that we have to do. It makes

me want to continue you to further my education and hopefully land a career that I will enjoy.

All in all, Wheeler has many examples of what to expect when going to college that

pretty much sum up how things will go for you. Whatever you decide to do with your life just

make sure you know what kind of obstacles will be in the way.