College Requirements

When I headed off to college in 1981, I loaded up my 1979 Chrysler Cordoba with my stereo system, album collection, a portable electric typewriter and my clothes. That's what was necessary. The college bookstore was where I shopped for my textbooks and they were pricey...I remember spending about $30 for an "Intro to Sociology" text that for some reason the professors insisted needed to be changed every fall, so you couldn't just buy a used text from someone who took the class the year before.

Today's new collegians still need to load up their clothes, but their music is probably on a mp3 player about the size of a pack of gum. Text books are getting more expensive and some professors still insist on a new textbook each year. But probably the biggest change has been in the requirements for personal electronic equipment.

At the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND, where I attended in the early 80's, there was a computer lab equipped with the state of the art at the time in personal computing. There were some Apple II's, Tandy TRS-80's, some KayPro10's and for those in programming classes, an old IBM Mainframe. Most of the teachers on campus though didn't want to see assignments turned in that had been typed using a word processor because the printer technology back in those days was "dot matrix" and they didn't want to play "connect the dots" with your paper for English 101.

I was just reading that the Missouri University Journalism School, one of the premiere schools of its kind in the country, is now going to require its students to purchase an iPod touch or iPhone.

The reasoning being that lectures alone are a poor way for students to learn. If they listen to a lecture a second or third time they'll be able to retain much more. As a result, classes will be recorded and podcasts of the lectures will be available for the students to download. And by making the devices a requirement, students will be able to include them in their financial aid applications.

Now this makes a lot of sense to me. I would like to applaud the forward thinking faculty at Mizzou for making sure their students stay on top of the learning curve in any way possible. And there's no sarcasm in that statement at all. The only criticism I would have is that one brand was singled out over all others. Is the retirement fund at MU vested in Apple stock?

It would have been easy enough to write the requirements to state students need a device able to store and play back audio of certain formats and up to a certain size. Keep the whole process as open source as possible.

One thing, if Johnny flunks out of J-School, he'll have something he can listen to as he mops floors at the local fast food joint.