New 'Academic Redshirt' For Engineering Undergrads at UW 147
vinces99 writes "Redshirting isn't just for athletes anymore. The University of Washington and Washington State University are collaborating on an 'academic redshirt' program that will bring dozens of low-income Washington state high school graduates to the two universities to study engineering in a five-year bachelor's program. The first year will help those incoming freshmen acclimate to university-level courses and workload and prepare to major in an engineering discipline."
misuse of the term redshirt (Score:5, Informative)
An athletic "redshirt" means you get to practice with the team but you're not allowed to compete, and it doesn't count as a year of eligibility.
Are they saying that you get to audit all of your classes as a freshman and then take them for real the next year? If not, then they're probably misusing the term redshirt. If so, then it's "welcome to whose degree is it anyway? the major where everything is made up and the grades don't matter"
Re:College isn't for education. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Informative)
Alternately, why don't we teach the kids in high school the things they need to learn in high school so they aren't playing catch up when they go to college?
Nobody is arguing that we shouldn't try and prepare everyone well before they get to college, but the simple fact is that we (at the universities) get these underprepared students every year, and that is unlikely to change soon. Rather than just throw blame at others and tell them to fix it, this is a proactive approach: what can *we* (at the universities) do about this problem? We'll all be ecstatic when K-12 education improves to make this a moot point, but until then we shouldn't just ignore the problem.