u/Honest_Wheel3842

So two things are simultaneously true:

1. When an orchestra decides to program a Beethoven/Mahler/Bruckner/etc. cycle, some people complain about not needing yet another one, about old stuffy music (maybe insert something about dead white men).

2. Performances and recordings of the above attract more concert goers and listeners than new or rare music, by a long shot.

As a listener, I'm always happy to give new music a shot, which I think should be part of the job of a balanced classical performer. But at the end of the day, classical music is kinda definitionally the music that has retained interest across the centuries. Of course there are shifts in what is appreciated, meaning there is also room to promote music that could end up moving more into the standard rep. I'm personally always a little irked by the dismissiveness of the old classics, though. It's the center of classical music and always will be. So sure, don't check out that new Mahler cycle if you don't want another one. But no need to be snooty about it, either.

So I'm finishing my undergrad at an online school. In many ways, it's been a great experience. I've been able to move at my own pace, meaning working while keeping a job over more than a decade. But increasingly, the quality of interaction both with the professors and other students seems to be degrading. For one, there is AI. It's everywhere on discussion boards, and there doesn't seem to be a good system to stop it. (It's possible students using it get their grades docked, but there is no way to know, as there is no class average grade posted for my school.) But the professors (called mentors at my school) often do almost nothing. No engagement with discussion boards, grades are posted weeks late, with generic feedback. I'm not here to complain about my grades; they've been good. But I can't shake the feeling that work quality can be quite low and that students will still get a passing grade--possibly more than a passing grade.

I've tried making comments of this nature on other boards, including one specific to my school. But feedback tends to run something like this: good luck finding another school that's better; stop bragging about your good grades; your major (liberal arts) just isn't hard. But really, if this is really the system, if AI and bad work getting passing grades is just par for the course now, doesn't this just deflate the value of the degree for those who actually work? Isn't it only a matter of time until students who have graduated from such schools have effectively worked for nothing?

Am I the only one asking such things?

So I previously posted about my frustration with a seeming trend of mentors becoming less engaged. This current question is related to the current mentor situation, where my mentor has given virtually no feedback. On the one hand, I’m not complaining: I’ve received 100 on every single assignment so far (the entire course except for the final paper and presentation). But feedback from my mentor throughout the project has been non-existent, outside of compliments like “beautiful work” and “thanks for sharing your project with me.” Based on the quality of work from other students in the class, I suspect I’m near or at the top of the class (well, lol, I guess no students are higher) but I’ve been half tempted to submit shoddier work just to see if the grade drops at all. Oh, and this mentor has never commented on discussion boards other than general announcements like this one, that dropped the other day after students submitted their presentation:

“Dear writers, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for sharing your amazing presentations. I am so impressed with your work, and I am so impressed with your thoughtful feedback to your classmates. It has been wonderful watching your work develop this term!”

I mean, really. I’m the only student as far as I can tell that has even tried to leave meaningful feedback on the presentations; the other students are writing almost exclusively positive, vague feedback, much of which is no doubt AI generated. 

So in light of this, my question is this: how the heck are these students going to actually generate 25-40 page papers, per course requirements? Perhaps they aren’t but they won’t be docked enough for it to tank their grade too far? Many of their shared thesis topics seem hard to justify that kind of length, too. How about this: “AI and algorithms influence the way users engage online.” And no, the discussion comments and final presentation from this student barely got more specific than this (the presentation was also half the required time). It seems like a half-baked idea drudged up from concepts taught in the Information Literacy class. No actual research is cited, just statements like “the research shows” without any specific examples. I wish there was a way to see class average grades; are such students’ grades suffering? 

Anyway, I got out of TESU what I came for: I’m an adult student who was able to work at this degree while still working and am accepted into a far superior grad school this fall, which was the whole goal anyway. Still, I can barely believe the standards here are as low as they seem to be, because it sure looks like TESU is charging students thousands of dollars to do all their work on their own, pat them on the back regardless of their work quality, and hope their degree means something in the end.