by: Nathan Schultz, President of Learning Services at Chegg
When I was in school (let’s just say it was somewhere between the massive-computers age and the internet-in-your-pocket age of today), college life was your life. Whether that meant spending hour after hour shuffling through books in the library or mastering syntax and grammar rules by hand in your buddy’s dorm, college was inescapable. It was all-encompassing.
And guess what? It still is.
Even though the students of today have the world’s information at their fingertips, life isn’t any easier. According to our State of the Student report, 3 out of 4 kids are working while juggling school because tuition isn’t getting any cheaper. So, not only do they have to balance a full course load each semester but they’re elbows deep in kitchen grease trying to make ends meet. I wasn’t in college that long ago and I’m still surprised by the drastic changes that I see on campuses. For me, college was life. For the American students of today? College is a mere attempt at existing.
However, academia remains unfazed by the students struggling to keep their heads up in classes. The modern student can’t stay at the library all hours of the night, they need easy access to materials 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and certainly can’t be tethered to a physical location. So, when they get off work at 11pm on a Monday night, they can return to the safety of their apartments and dive right into their books. And yet, when approached with a modernized, digital way to connect with their students, you can hear a resounding ‘No!’ in all corners of the world.
Undeniably, there is a sense of gatekeeping. A kind of back-in-my-day-we-didn’t-have-internet attitude. Well, of course we didn’t have the internet or, if we did, it was terrifyingly slow. At the same time, we weren’t saddled with the $1.56 trillion in student debt that the American students have today. Universities and academia must evolve in the same way that society has evolved around us. A back-in-my-day attitude doesn’t promote success, it merely stops the future and creates a massive divide between what students want and what academia offers. Without this evolution, the education industry will continue to pull away from the purpose it serves: to uplift and support the intellectually hungry.
But not all great minds think alike. Some universities have recognized the potential of digital learning tools. With their Online Writing Lab (OWL), Purdue University has been ahead of the game for years. Realizing the importance of efficient writing skills, Purdue launched their first OWL in 1994 in the hopes of improving academic success for all students. They were truly a trailblazer and are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. The growth of academic success through online tools was recently researched by Arizona State University. ASU found that digital learning can improve student outcomes and provide better affordability. The report also suggests that digital learning is beneficial for institutions by expanding access to their universities and reducing operational costs for institutional planners.
At Chegg, we’re expanding our work with institutions but we’ve already figured out what the modern student wants. They want easy access to tutorials, study tools, expert created and curated content, and (with increasingly less frequency because they’re as outdated as PalmPilots) textbooks at the palm of their hands. We are a leader in solving these problems and brought digitization to students so we can promote their success. It’s not as if educators are simply at a loss for what to do, it is a lack of understanding the current generation who are preparing to be the leaders of America and the world abroad. Why not provide them the best tools possible? Why doesn’t all academia equip students with tools that are both engaging and educational? We know that is what students want and no industry can succeed if they don’t adapt to their consumers’ needs.
Change is difficult, I’m not the most modern person in the world. No one is. I will always argue that the music I grew up with was the best, that’s a hill I’ll die on. I might not immediately follow all social media trends (I refuse to ‘snap the chats’). Change happens, regardless if I want it or not. Our society advances, our students change and now, it is time for academia to evolve. Not just for me but for the duty they’ve been honored to fulfill. The duty of imparting knowledge onto the students, our future leaders of America.
