In this article, The Seven Deadly Sins of Students, that was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the author analyzes his undergraduate students. These college students create “sin-like” behaviors that soon become habits over time. Sometimes these actions are what cause students to take the simpler road, even if it causes them pain in the future. The author, William Pannapacker, better known as Thomas H. Benton’s main argument in his essay is that students identify with the seven deadly sins unconsciously and he divides these behaviors in each sin category. Sloths to Benton is those who defer their assignments, which makes it worse for them in the future classes. He also states that Sloths arrive to class late, lose interest in the lectures, along with the temptation to skip class. They also …show more content…
Benton interviewed twenty students to see who believed that they were better than their parents and all twenty rose their hands. He believes that students do not need to learn what their past generations learned and considering that they are young, these Pride students think they have limitless potential. Due to their pride, students do not give themselves a realistic point of view. The Seven Deadly Sins originated from Christian tradition and Benton believes that students have the ability to escape these sins, especially those whose main sin was Pride. Benton also believes that education is not about becoming wealthy or their own desires, but to show how little they know about or can know. The way students should handle their sins is to balance it with the “Seven Contrary Virtues”: Diligence, Charity, Patience, Chastity, Temperance, Kindness, and Humility. He believes that students’ deficiencies and dissatisfactions are their intense drives Benton observes these college students Seven Sins and believes that they can change their sin flaws by balancing them with their
Going start to big leagues of party schools according to the counseling director at the University of Alabama Lee Keyes, “’Today it’s [alcohol consumption] aimed at the obliteration of consciousness.’” (68). Alcohol consumption in and of itself does not contribute Marano’s argument, but the tendency of 24 percent intending to binge-drink into oblivion with no concern of ones actions is what gives her justification (68). She is building up to the point that this generations actions are reckless, but even so these actions are not new just socially acceptable. There is no understand from the authors point of view that in the individuals she is referring, the offenses are reoccurring, nothing is unexpected. These have been labelled college experiences for decades or
Frequently throughout the article, Nathan discusses cheating as a part of college culture. She explains that certain forms of cheating have become more “accepted” in college society and that a student’s personal life and experiences must be factored into the reasoning behind cheating. Nathan (2005) uses student answers from her online posted query, in which she posed as a student, asking “When is it OK to cheat?” (p. 29). The answers of many of the students showed that many students recognize certain exceptions that would allow cheating to be seen as
In Henry Wechsler’s, “Getting Serious about Eradicating Binge Drinking”, he discusses the issue of binge drinking. Binge drinking is an extensive problem on college campuses. The majority of colleges merely focus on the student, rather than what encourages students to drink. Fraternities, sororities, and athletics are huge sources of the students on campus who drink. There are many approaches colleges can take to decrease the problem, and many colleges are already getting a head start. It is also important to not ignore how often colleges indirectly encourage students to drink (20).
The everyday “sins” of typical college students are not of great severity at first, but by consistently repeating the “sins”, they could possibly become habits. Thomas H. Benton’s essay “The Seven Deadly Sins of Students”, describes the seven “deadly sins” that a typical college student makes in everyday life and how the recurrence of these “sins” could lead to habitual behavior. The seven “deadly sins” explained in Benton’s essay is: Sloth, Greed, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, and Pride. Constantly repeating these “sins” will eventually become habits.
“Developing in students the desire for the good is the ideal in character development. In this way, students come to a place in which they choose to pursue morally good behaviors, rather than the alternative, as a matter of
Winston Churchill notes that students are living purposeless lives because the education they receive does not inspire them to chase change and seize opportunities. He states that in order for education to succeed students should be encouraged to pursue a craft and contribute to society before their education starts. This idea comes from the experiences that he had as a child, while Churchill reflects fondly on his early childhood the same is not to be said for his time in primary education. From his own experience he
Kohn argues, “Many [students] may have been desperately unhappy, filled with anxiety and self-doubt. Some of them may have had eating disorders, substance abuse problems, even suicidal thoughts” (Kohn 7), this shows the emotional issues that students face while Jones states that many “take bottles to the head” (Jones 59). This statement by Jones explains that many will abuse alcohol and compares drinking to shooting yourself or physically harming your head. These two statements both show that in the pursuit of extrinsic happiness, many deal with stress in a non-effective way and in the process, harm their bodies. The pursuit of intrinsic happiness is often clouded as society choses to focus on the pursuit of extrinsic
During our childhood, we are continuously reminded that too much of a good thing is not always “good”, or in this case, virtuous. In American culture, alcohol quickly becomes a vice that becomes prominent during many students’ time during their high school and college years . Many students drink when they come to college for the thrill that coincides with rebellious acts during their youth. As we mature, we try to live the best life we can achieve while maintaining a certain level of happiness. Making mature decisions in college in regards to one happiness is difficult for many because students tend to avoid thinking about future consequences. In Introducing Moral Theology: True Happiness and the Virtues, William
Hart gave some very important information, but the most interesting fact she gave was about the brain. Dr. Hart informed the students of how the brain is undeveloped until the age of 25. Because the brain is undeveloped, college students tend to not think thoroughly. In situations students don’t think about the long term affects one choice can have on them. The consequences of choosing to drink a lot can be deadly, but because the students have an undeveloped brain they go with the “hell yeah” decision. The undeveloped part of the brain is often referred to as the “hell yeah section of the brain because of its spit decision to have fun. Hearing this in the audience made the students really think and realize that there is always a better choice and to think things
In “7 Ways We Lie”, Riley Redgates wrote in seven high schoolers point of view, switching in between chapters, from person to person. Each of these seven characters had a one of the seven deadly sins, lust, envy, greed, sloth, gluttony, wrath, or pride.
She discusses the result of students not being taught how to take care of themselves. A report by a business-research group by the name of, The Conference Board, found that incoming graduates were lacking skills such as communication and decision making (Whelan 258). Employers want to hire strong, skilled leaders who can perform tasks in the correct manner. When a fresh college graduate is put into the job market, who knows if they will be able to make important company decisions, communicate effectively on the phone or in person. If an over involved parent has done these things for their son or daughter all their life, they are not going to know how to handle specific situations in which they will need a select set of skills.
When asking a student do they think cheating is bad most will say yes and will even admit to cheating.Cheating doesn’t affect many students on a regular day basis until they have been caught red-handed.When it comes to cheating blame automatically goes to the student but what about the adult as well.Some teachers have admitted to seeing student cheat but haven't said anything because it was on homework.Some teachers have even gone to the depth of helping a student cheat on a test.There was a survey that was taken through all of the high schools asking students if they had ever cheated on a test, the results were that there were 64 percent who cheated,58 who plagiarised, and above all 95 percent of them admitted to cheating of some sort.(Academic Integrity Under Statistics paragraph 3 )Students cheat to make it through a semester and to make their parents proud.Students cheat simply because of lack of knowledge, pressure from the adult looking for them to do their best, and last lack of time.
The most common characteristic of a human being is the necessity to adapt to a given surrounding. This trait consists of both good and bad aspects. Certain adaptations are positive while others can be destructive. Many students enter college with extensive education on substance abuse. Unfortunately, these students receive a hands on lesson from peers that indicates using is inconsequential. Fraternity parties and dorm room gatherings overcome the students. Some of these students even disapprove of these social functions at first. However, they quickly become immune to the atmosphere. The end result is the participation of these once pure students in the conventional behavior. The facts and statistics are quickly forgotten and washed away.
While the problem of cheating has persisted in higher education, the perceived seriousness of cheating continues to change (McCabe & Trevino, 1996; Stephens, Young, & Calabrese, 2007). Notably, students with higher moral development levels view cheating more seriously than those with lower moral development levels (Leming, 1978; Semerci, 2006). While the process of going to college promotes students' moral development (King & Mayhew, 2002) and higher moral development levels correlate to lower incidences of cheating (Leming, 1978), determining the relationship between the two is necessary. Prior research has demonstrated a positive relationship between higher moral development levels and lower cheating incidences; however, most data is more than 30 years old (Leming, 1978).
Many questions as to why students decide to preform acts of unethical behaviors have been posed. The most common reasons students resort to the unethical behaviors mentioned above, are because of objective parameters of academic life, such as; difficulty of the course, or not enough time to prepare. While on the other hand, the least common reasons are related to subjective factors, such as, the teacher’s leniency or the importance of scoring a good grade. (Iorga & Romedeac, 2013)