Comment by ineedasername

This phrase in my comment: perhaps not it kind but at least degree

That not negation of the article and is instead questioning the extent to which their observations are accurate vs caricatures influenced by an outlook on their customers that is already, in software terms, “user hostile”.

The last time I taught in college was about 8 years ago at a school with a similar demographic fit, and I can recognize a fair bit of what the author say but not at all to this degree. I still work in the industry and there’s a post-Covid shift that I think strongly explains a sharp downshift in students feeling attendance is important, but I think that aught to resonate with the HN crowd with respect to a now-common feeling that dogmatic adherence to mandatory full work-from-office isn’t necessary or worker friendly. Consider all the more how that feeling would take hold for young students that spent significant formative years just prior to college being fully or highly remote.

On literacy, that’s an area I have some analytical experience in. As far as I have seen, at least a fair bit of this perception is from the fact that students view homework etc as low-stakes writing but higher stakes get more attention and the end product reflects more ability than might otherwise be shown. Also, the professor in this article may simply not be adept at getting the best results from a group of students that sense the dislike aimed their way. However my analysis side also predates ChatGPT.