Literature Review #3

Citation:
Arum, Richard, and Josipa Roksa. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2011. Print.

Summary:
Academically Adrift provides reasonings and statistics for the shortcomings of college students in classes and in their intellectual development. One specific reason is that college students may be stuck in a "directionless drift" in which they struggle deciding which major to pursue and thus either select low-level classes or are disengaged from their classes. The statistics in Arum and Roksa's research are fascinating.

Author:
Richard Arum - Professor in the Department of Sociology with a joint appointment in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. He is also director of the Education Research Program of the Social Science Research Council and the author of Judging School Discipline: The Crisis of Moral Authority in American Schools.
Josipa Roksa - Assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia.


Quotes:
“no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills for at least 45 percent of the students in our study,” (Arum & Roksa 36).

"‘their delay is characterized more by indecision than by motivated reflection, more by confusion than by the pursuit of clear goals, more by ambivalence than by determination,’” (Arum & Roksa 75). 

“half of seniors report that they have not written a paper longer than twenty pages in their last year of college” (Arum & Roksa 37).

“...approximately one-fifth of seniors, as well as freshmen, report coming to class “frequently” unprepared and indicate that their institutions give little emphasis to academic work,” (Arum & Roksa 37).

“their Facebook and Twitter accounts while – or instead of – taking notes in class. Indeed, in a recent study, students reported that they spend on average between 125 (white students) and 131 (African-American students) hours on various activities Monday through Friday, even though the school/work week has only 120 hours,” (Arum & Roksa 97).

Relation to my topic:
The concept of directionless drift offers one example of how college student tend to make poor long-term choices in college that affect their intellectual development. Students should be forgiven for uncertainty about their majors, but they curtail their own learning when they choose light classes and are disengaged in class. The most interesting research applicable to my essay is that "half of seniors report that they have not written a paper longer than twenty pages in their last year of college," even though in Making the Most of College, Richard J. Light finds that the correlation between writing-extensive classes and student engagement “is stronger than the relationship between students’ engagement and any other course characteristic…. Courses with more than twenty pages of final-draft writing per semester draw nearly twice as much time as courses with no formal writing assignments. The more writing required, the more time students commit.” In my essay, this correlation between engagement of students by writing classes and lack of writing accomplishment in college show that college students avoid the challenging writing classes even though they will be more engaged.

Literature Review #2

Citation:
Yarrow, Andrew L. Thrift: The History of an American Cultural Movement. Massachusetts: U of Massachusetts, 2014. Print.

Summary:
The book, specifically Ch. 5 "The Philosophy of Thrift," gives background into the mindset of someone who thrifts and lives minimally. The idea of thrift arose in the 1920s during Calvin Coolidge's presidency. WWI had just ended and while Americans tended to spend freely and live extravagantly, President Coolidge preached thrift in order to live within one's means. Thrifting does not mean pinching every penny made; saving all of your money defies the principle of thrift. Thrifting means to spend money where necessary and to save when possible, a strategy that author Andrew L. Yarrow deems "wise-spending."

Author:
Andrew L. Yarrow - Former New York Times reporter and U.S. History teacher at American University. Has written a number of books, including Measuring America: How Economic Growth Came to Define American Greatness in the Late Twentieth Century and Forgive Us Our Debts: The Intergenerational Dangers of Fiscal Irresponsibility.

Quotes:
"A broad definition of thrift embraced hard work, saving, and frugality, a call to spend and use resources wisely, an antipathy to waste, a strong belief in self-control, a similarly strong belief in industriousness, a call for generosity, a sense of responsibility to others, and an ethic of conservation, stewardship, or husbandry of resources" (Yarrow 66). 

"Profligacy, extravagancy, waste, debt, inefficiency, sloth, dependence, lack of self-control, the inability or unwillingness to plan for the future, loan sharks and those peddling fly-by-night investments were all seen as dangers to individual and social well-being and thus the enemies of thrift" (Yarrow 67).

"'Thrift is the exercise of the will, the development of stamina, the steadfast refusal to yield to temptation,' Straus wrote. This rigorous self-control was viewed as essential to good character, and even successful democratic self-governance, as President Coolidge declared" (Yarrow 70).

"Wise spending meant seeking value, whether in terms of prices or long-term benefit, buying useful necessities or things that would enhance one's physical, mental, and moral well-being" (Yarrow 70).

Relation to my topic:
The concept of thrift and wise-spending provides me the frame of which college students should live within. College students, with their limited funds and extensive debt, should monitor their spending habits and thrift to some extent. By applying the thrifting concept in my essay, it allows me to introduce the case of Ken Ilgunas, who demonstrated a radical form of thrift by living out of his van during graduate school.