Make college great again...

[ny00m]

What's your Minecraft Username?: DadRP
What's the title of your suggestion?: Make college great again...

What's your suggestion?:
I know it's only been like a month, but please make college classes mandatory again. Ever since classes were made optional it's been a struggle to get students to join your class, and the knowledge that you'll likely get very few (or zero) students definitely doesn't help with your motivation to host. I'm not sure if the highschool side has ever had the issue of needing quota to be removed due to no one showing up.
On a side note, I think you don't need to cancel your class / remove a quota just because no one shows up. I mean I dunno what the official procedure is but I would honestly just yap to an empty class, ain't my fault no one came, I need the quota yk

And because I'm a nerd I made a funny lil chart about college class attendance from December 2023 - January 2024:

You can see that after 26th of December (when the announcement was made) attendance dropped from an average of 40-ish% to around 20%. (Obviously attendance usually goes down the longer it's been since exams, but still. I think it's kinda funny.)

I should also say that the ratio of afk students to actively participating students in class seems to be pretty much the same as before, at least from what I've seen.

How will this benefit the server and community?:
- It would make me want to actually host classes.
- It would probably allow professors to host multiple classes on the same period - a change was made to allow 3 classes per period instead of the usual 2, but with how low attendance is, there's not really any reason to host at the same time if you want anyone to join your class.
- It would hopefully prevent professors from needing to cancel their planned classes due to nobody joining.
- It would make me happy because I don't like it when students have a choice.

But thats just my opinion man lmk what u think

 

[kustomzero]

+1!
Yes Yes Yes. College should've been kept mandatory, I see no point why they removed that. What did they gain from it? Nothing.
Instead a decline happened from attendance in students. And with this as a issue, I've heard Professors get at least four to none students. How are they going to get their paycheck? By teaching an empty classroom? No. What's the point of schoolrp, if college classes aren't mandatory? I understand the point on why high school isn't mandatory but that shouldn't be an excuse to make college classes not mandatory. College is mandatory because it prepares the students for their future and careers. Make. College. Mandatory. Again.

 

[DarkEclipic]

Neutral

College classes are only NOT mandatory for GOOD STUDENTS. Students who have bad records(detentions)/problem students MUST attend classes OR students who wish to move up in College life(B > M, M > PhD), If they don't and continue to cause problems they risk getting their College Tag removed(This is how it was explained to me). Sometimes as a Teacher, there are if 4 people are teaching a period or a 'popular' teacher teaching/an easier subject vs less liked subject/Teacher, we can see a dip in students attending HS classes and sometimes maybe(If we are lucky)get about 1-10 students when situations like this happen or sometimes we do get 0 students if no one wishes to attend.

In my opinion, it doesn't make sense if High School aren't required to attend classes, neither should College students(I think that problem students for both HS and College should attend classes if they don't wish to get in trouble)

 

[StrawbeeViniq]

Pls, i gave up on teaching because of it. I found no reason to continue teaching because of this +1

 

[ErikFinster]

I LOVE that you used a proper chart to visualize the issue and present a great foundation for your argument! I am convinced! +1

 

[CakeRPiscool]

+1

 

[Tippie]

-1

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I don't see why we should be forcing people to go to classes they don't want to go to. Please remember that schoolrp is still a minecraft server people play in their free time. Why force people into doing something they don't want to do instead of letting them enjoy themselves?

Personally, I can totally understand that attending classes doesn't appeal to everyone. I don't think the solution to "Making college great again" lies within forcing people to go to classes, but in making them want to by making classes more interactive, more field trips and more rewards to earn from attending classes.

 

[Infi]

I’m against the suggestion. Obviously you can see a slight decrease in college student activity even before the change was made and that’s simply because the thrill of going to class faded as new college students played more.

The way I see it either college classes are going to be mandatory and players are going to evade going to class by changing characters/hiding or logging off (which they did all the time) or they’re going to be optional and the players who actually WANT to go to class can go to class.

In the end you can’t force players to do whatever you want them to do. If they don’t want to go to class they shouldn’t have their entire position as a college student threatened as a consequence. the consequence has been changed to more of an IC approach, which is preventing students from progressing past college stages if they don’t attend classes.

As a college student myself I’d rather have the option to go to class with the reward of progressing through the game than being forced to go with the threat of my tag being removed.

 

[philbertman42]

People aren't going to class because class isn't worthwhile in the slightest, since the lessons are usually boring and there's essentially nothing else to gain from participating. The only solution for this problem is to train up teachers and professors to be better at what they do, so that people will intrinsically want to go to class and participate in whatever the group is doing.

 

[Renidite]

-1
I am very against this. As a college student myself and as someone who normally attends classes, i hate being forced to go to classes. There are a number of reasons why i stopped going in the first place.

---

1. The classes are boring and not very interactive at all anymore. All I do is sit there and read lines and lines of chat has the professor talks without ever getting a say in myself and when i try to engage or when i see others engage some professors get mad at the college kids for trying to be interactive because they are 'ruining' the lesson they had planned.

2. Another reason is in a realistic environmental setting college isn't mandatory to go, you pay for those classes yourself. Of you are on scholarship however, in order to maintain that scholarship its a requirement to go to classes.

3. When college classes was mandatory, I would be in midroleplay and get stopped by a faculty member and threatened that if i don't go to the classes that i'd lose my college tag, both ic and ooc threatened constantly even if we were in a roleplay situation that was almost over.

---

If professors want people to attend their college classes then instead of forcing people to go who play in there free time as Tippie had stated, maybe its time to take a look at how a class is taught. Maybe change up their approach and keep people engaged in the class room instead of just writing lines and lines of text and getting mad when people have questions and 'interrupt' the teaching by asking simple questions.

 

[Lazeas]

-1
We just need more consistent exams

cool chart tho

 

[Valentine_Lols]

-1/+1

Been a professor, but I usually had advertised as a fun haha things (Culinary)

 

[AppaRp]

-1.
Im a professor and this isnt even the first time i was a professor. In my opinion i always hated the fact college classes were mandatory as thats not how college classes work in the real world. In college kids don't even have to stay on school grounds as they only have certain class they go to cause its what they want to be to strive forward. All forcing kids to go to classes will do is make the amount of college students drop more then it already has also at the end of the day in realistic terms professors don't care if you go to class or not in ooc terms. Like they care if something bad is going on but if your just not wanting to go its no sweat of there back cause at the end of the day were gonna get paid no matter what id rather kids come to my class cause they actually want to join the class and not because they were forced to. If you are forced your not going to want to participate and in classes like mine where it is a participation class what is the point to it. I usually get quite a few student due to my subject being one where they get to play sports with other people but also at the end of the day unless it was changed we can host a class and we will get credit if no one shows up(dont take my word on it cause i dont have confirmation that it didnt change). Ive also never taken the exams cause i didn't want to be forced to go to class but at the end of the day im going to take the next ones because i need to go through character progression. I also believe a lot of college students just want to have fun without worrying about there tag.

 

[Ramen_Noodiles]

-1/+1

In all honesty on the surface I feel like removing mandatory classes for college feels sorta upsetting knowing I have peers in the Professor tag that feel like people aren't going to their classes. This actually strikes a bigger issue at hand that I feel like there's no right or wrong answer to as currently things are still being adjusted (from what I noticed) for school faculty.

On one end depending on the country, you don't need to physically attend all College classes as long as you do well in the classes you do attend, but this leaves another issue as well as should High School classes be a requirement? Some could argue that it shouldn't be as a lot of newbies of the game don't understand a lot of the mechanisms of SRP yet and forcing them to partake in classes they already DON'T understand feels very intimidating, but on another hand it's also more realistic to have highschoolers go to mandatory classes compared to college but that is very debatable to a lot of people.

Now if College classes are boring this begs even bigger concerns, what are Professors even ALLOWED to do? Like, I've heard that some Professors/Teachers feel like they can't host classes due to a lot of limitations compared to a few months ago, forcing a lot of Professors/Teachers to have mostly exclusively lecture-based classes (depending on the subject) instead of ones that feel more hands-on like games or class events or mini quizzes. I understand that the school for the server is currently going through a lot of transitions when it comes to school faculty like the new sticker system and possibly a new test system entirely to make things more plug-in based to have fun, but currently it's hindering a lot of roleplay scenarios from the more stricter rules that are now in place.

I liked the risk I had as a college player that a member of school faculty can find me at any moment skipping, even if it is unrealistic for college and more realistic to highschool (and even then I don't think we have enough classes at a time to make highschoolers forcefully go to classes) it was still a little fun to be a troublemaker in a minor sense.

So there's no real true answer without other issues being at hand and making more questions;
Should there be a new greenie system for newer players compared to old players who aged themselves down?
Should High School classes be mandatory instead but also increasing the 3 classes at a time count for Teachers?
Should not attending classes in College hinder your College tag at all even if classes are mandatory or not?
Should Teachers/Professors be given more things to do for their classes?
Should plugins/schedules/limits be changed to accompany a more realistic-esk environment for the school?
Should they change the grade system and graduation cap?

These are all hypotheticals that some people might differ but in all honesty I don't know, I'm personally indifferent with pros and cons of it, but it IS kinda sad joining College classes at any point of the IRL day and there's barely 10 people per class that show up, and it was fun being a little bit of an ic troublemaker hiding from faculty so my character could sleep all day on school grounds.

 

[Miamorchito]

-1

The problem here relies in both the capacities that teachers have when it comes to teaching and the willingness of students to attend the classes. As seen in the chart from the OP, there was a clear decline between the first 26 days and the second 26 days. Just for some more details, here is some information:

In the first part (Before the change), there was on average of 45.35% students attending mandatory classes; with a total daily average change of 0% in the first 26 days.
In the second part (26 days after the change), there was on average 23.85% students attending optional classes; with a total daily average change of -0.96%.

Reference from the chart I did like 5 minutes ago;


Now, the decline could means that clearly students did not wanted to attend classes after the announcement of an optional system. However, the missing information needed to figure out is the WHY students stop attending the lectures. I have two main possibilities:

1. Teachers/Professors' quality of the lecture is not according to the demand nor expectation of the students, either because it is boring, limited, or fail to interact with the student. The problem here relies in another two factors; limitation in the teaching system or lack of creativity from the faculty side, or both. Personally, I have interacted with some Professors in the server, and most of them have mentioned that they do want to teach the students certain topics, but due to regulations, it is almost impossible to deliver that class. Therefore is more likely that the regulations are the main factor that prevents teachers in presenting a lecture that could catch more students' attention,

2. Students lack of interest in attending classes, either because they seem the class boring, they consider other roleplay more interesting, or they want to engage in other activities outside classes (Or they change roles, but considering it is a minority I exclude it from the equation). With either little to gain from the lectures, or the lack of activities during school hours, students would tend to prefer to engage in another activates inside this time, which, as noticed, are not surrounding learning.

The possible solution here does not rely in the reintegration of mandatory classes, since as stated in many cases, people do not want to be forced in doing things they do not want to do. There is a chance that, if mandatory classes are reintegrated, most of the students would simply go AFK or change roles just to avoid being forced in doing something they are not interested in.
What we should do here is help the real people being affected by this, the Teachers/Professors, as they need to fulfill a mandatory quota and also spend their time and effort in preparing a lecture. Therefore, if we want to help in the increase of classes to go over the average 30%, we need to reduce the amount of limitations that are given to faculty (Some revisions in the regulation of classes) as well as encouraging the faculty to promote classes, either by posting grades more often or a higher frequency of rewards to students that participate.

I would also suggest the change in the possible prices for students with the sticker method, but as for now the solutions I propose could raise the percentage a little.

I do agree that we should make college great again, but I also believe that the solution would not be as effective as thought.

 

[meg0cci]

-1 / +1

I'm quite frustrated by the system here... Typically, only 1-5 students, and sometimes none, when I attempt to host a well-planned class. Especially for Europeans; GMT Time zone etc. Instead of mandatory attendance, I believe implementing a system that incentivizes students to actively participate in classes would be more effective. (Stickers doesn't really work to be real)

Maybe introducing a monthly activity requirement, where students receive benefits for attending 10-15 classes and additional rewards for exceeding this threshold by the end of the month. Although I don't mean as a 'quota' way, basically rewards for joining classes might be a good idea. It's sad to see the current lack of enthusiasm for classes, and I believe such an incentive system could make the classes a bit more active atleast. I'm a student myself as well as I dislike being forced to join classes however it's still something.

 

[Ocean Man]

im here to say something which is
i respect and love my students who join to my class, as its more entertaining and fun to have them than having students who disrupt, or are just forced to join my class

 

[Blossom789]

Neutral

 

[SanrioRoll]

-1

From my experience as a new college student, I'm very happy that classes aren't mandatory anymore unless you want to rank up or so on. When I freshly got my rank, I attended most classes but did miss the freedom I had to go around and socialize + RP with other students OUT of class. The professors always put effort into their classes (credit to yall fr) but after a few days it got very repetitive of info cramming. Sometimes I log online to just brainrot, not rlly rping but watching others or putting in my 2 cents here n there and constantly needing to attend class made me just not feel like logging on. Mostly because I'm a night owl so I do enjoy being on within the 1am-5am area but, during this time I don't want to basically afk sit and do nothing then be given some work afterwards (not all classes but yk). I feel like people will still attend classes based on if the class is fun and if the teacher made a good impression on them, for example I'll still attend psychology and medicine class just because they're things my character enjoys.

Good job to the professors for their hard work though!! Luv yall

 

[Infi]

To add onto what I said earlier; I don’t think the decline in students attending classes is as a result of the new system. Let me explain:

when a new wave of college students are accepted, classes will always boom. This happened in November. Since then the rate of college students joining classes will always steadily decline until new ones are accepted again. It was just coincidental that the change was made as the number of students joining classes was ALREADY dropping.

Personally I respect the teachers and professors for creating classes. I tried to be both a teacher and professor and it just was too difficult. That said from a student standpoint there were classes that stood out more than others and became my favorite classes to attend. Take for example Alimonino’s classes
(Payment as promised @philbertman42 )

His classes have never ceased to be thrilling and enjoying not only because he’s hands on with his students no matter how many are there, but has also developed a reputation for himself in terms of his outstanding classes. Sometimes what it takes is developing your reputation as a teacher and coming up with more engaging lessons that will attract more students to your class no matter what you’re teaching.

like many people said before, offer more rewards, interactions, field trips to get the attention of students alongside creating lesson plans that players will get excited about. Making classes mandatory will not do anything but cause students to hide or log off (which realistically isn’t good for the server if you have a system that causes people to log off to avoid)