This is my reply to one of my professor’s emails concerning the class’s overall unreasonably lower grade average.

That’s interesting; I was actually discussing this with my family at the dinner table tonight. The only explanation that I can come up with, quite frankly, is that they lack the desire the learn. The reading questions, for example, are points that no students should be missing out on, provided that they do their work. Most of them are new high school graduates, and some of them are probably being forced to attend college by their parents, so they really lack a sense of purpose for their education. In other words, they don’t take ownership of their work and education. I think this is also the underlying issue with our educational system, especially with higher education; it is becoming so saturated, and most people don’t even know what they want to achieve at school or what they plan to do after graduation. I have witnessed so many of my peers, some younger and some around my age, who have no idea what they want to do. When I confront them, asking them where they want to transfer to, they almost always refer me to their counselors and the plans that they have made for them. This, to me, is evidence that they are not doing their research or simply lack life experiences. Personally, I do consult with counselors, but I do not totally rely on them to plan my classes because I know the counselors are not on my side. They work for the school, and hence it is in their best interest to keep us here enrolled, which is why I am constantly seeing my peers stay at Mt.SAC for over two, three, or even four years without ever transferring or planning to transfer. It’s genuinely quite sad to see it. I have been working on getting a degree planner service rolled out as a personal project to help those lost students to build their own academic plans to secure them to transfer out. Hopefully, it’ll help build some sense of purpose for some of my peers that have no motivation or desire to learn.