Vientiane
College students' "involution": competition or internal friction
Recently, the term "involution" has become popular.
The original meaning of "involution" refers to the phenomenon that human society stagnates or cannot be transformed into another advanced model after reaching a certain form of development at a stage of development.
However, recently the term has been widely circulated among college students and has repeatedly gone out of the circle, causing waves of Internet discussions.
As colleges and universities enter the era of strict characters, the days when college students can graduate by "pull water" are gone forever.
Many college students said that the enthusiasm of "introduction" is not only a kind of self-ridicule of college students, but also a true portrayal of college students facing the pressure of academic and self-development.
How to crack the "internal scroll" is also a life issue that every college student needs to complete.
How many operations are there for "inside scrolling" in universities?
Speaking of "internal scrolls", the earliest "source" is a few pictures of elite schools.
The pictures of the "inner scrolls" of the college students' circle of friends are like this: some people read books on bicycles, some people dormitory beds are covered with stacks of books, and some people even ride a bicycle while reading. Writing papers on the computer.
These pictures were first circulated among the scholars of Tsinghua and Peking University.
After that, popular words such as "Tsinghua Scroll King" that "ridden while watching the computer" appeared in hot searches, and related emoticons also appeared in many college students' social software.
Through interviews with many college students and college teachers, reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily found that "involution" among college students is a common phenomenon.
Shi Keyu, a senior at Renmin University of China, used an example to illustrate the "internal scroll".
"For example, the teacher's requirement for a paper assignment is about 5,000 words, but many people choose to write 8,000 to 10,000 words or more in order to get better grades. In the end, almost every Individual homework has greatly exceeded the teacher's requirements, and the proportion of students who can achieve full grades is fixed."
"This also means that in terms of essay assignments, the number of words far exceeds the requirements and the results are similar to that of just reaching the standard, because everyone generally puts in more effort, but everyone's final income has not increased significantly." Shi Keyu said.
Yang Kai (pseudonym) from a science major at Peking University said that "internal scrolls" are very common among students with good academic performance.
"At first, maybe I studied for an hour, my classmate studied for an hour and a half, and later he took one more point than me. Now, my classmate has studied for 5 and a half hours. I have no choice but to study for 5 hours. In the end, he still took one more point than me. From the results, nothing has changed, but we are all involved in this kind of life." Yang Kai said.
Wang Yang (pseudonym) is a student of a 985 college in Beijing. Recalling a summer homework during the freshman year, Wang Yang still sighed with emotion: "That was the busiest week in my four-year undergraduate course except preparing for the graduation project."
At that time, Wang Yang's homework was to use what he learned to make an electronic calendar.
The grading standard for assignments is: the more calendar functions a student submits, the higher the score will be, and the work with the highest score will be rated as a perfect score.
In this case, in order to achieve better results, students try to make their work as close to the highest score as possible.
This also means that as long as the work has room for improvement, they will continue to add new features to their electronic calendar.
"So, everyone has been perfecting their homework in this way. They have been doing and doing it. Almost all of them have reached the final assignment date before it ends." Wang Yang said, "And we were just freshman then!"
Recently, Chen Jiaying of the Law School of Fudan University was reluctantly "rolled" into an exam.
"I have been hesitating whether to apply for the National Computer Rank Examination. A voice told me: The exam has little to do with the profession I am studying, and it is a non-essential exam. If I start to prepare now, it may take up more Overcome the time for professional courses; another voice told me: If I pass the computer exam, I will be able to get another skill certificate, which will be reflected in various resumes as a very competitive bonus item, which will allow me to apply for a job China is more competitive than others." In the end, Chen Jiaying decided to apply for the exam, and preparation for the exam started immediately.
"Involution", ineffective consumption or competitive power?
If we analyze the reasons behind the "involution", we cannot do without one word: competition.
After entering university, everyone's definition of "excellent" has become diversified, and college students have much more choices for their own academic development and future life planning than they were in middle school.
However, there will always be more "powerful" people on every road: if you want to do scientific research, someone will publish more papers and more important; if you want to play in a club, someone will have a higher level of interest and professionalism; if you want to find a job, someone will accumulate on your resume Certificate and experience more...
In such an environment, the "involution" of college students is also a normal response to the pressure of competition.
"As competition intensifies, we need to constantly improve our competitiveness to get what we want, and we are driven by'involution' to move forward and continue to overcome difficulties." Chen Jiaying said, "Even this way forward It's passive, but when we do it, and look back, we will find that the difficulties that we once thought are actually nothing more than this."
Earlier, some media reported on the phenomenon that “Grade points are king” among top universities in China, and stated that many students at top universities were confused because of “involving.” “These brightest young people in China succeeded in extreme competition. Overwhelming growth, companions PK each other, exhausted."
Some college students believe that competition has always existed, and that the discussion of "involution" on the Internet is more about selling anxiety.
He Rusong is a graduate student in the Department of Precision Instruments, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, and he is in the same department as the hottest "Tsinghua Xueshen".
"The classmate who doesn't forget to look at the computer while riding his bike has a solid learning attitude and I admire him very much. He is actually not the kind of'genius' that netizens ridicule, but he has always done his own work step by step. He Rusong said, "In fact, he also has a variety of entertainment activities, both to study hard, but also to play well, I think this mentality is very good."
He Rusong has spent 4 years in Tsinghua Park.
In retrospect, he felt that he did not feel the involution obviously.
"The classmates around me don't feel that they are'involved'. Maybe we are more Buddhist. As for those particularly powerful'big guys', they are already very capable. How about'rolling'? I can achieve the goal I want to achieve through generalized efforts. But if sometimes the competition is too big, then I will just give up.” He Rusong said.
He Rusong believes that the discussion on "involution" on the Internet now, in essence, is mostly based on sales anxiety, with few rational expressions.
Most people's eyes only focus on the fierce competition under the "involution", but they do nothing in real life and continue to be "salted fish".
"For most people, competition exists, and if you want to go higher, you will have to work harder than others.'Kou Hei' will not help, so it is better to spend more time in the library."
How not to be "rolled"? Competition is not a competition of quantity
Nowadays, the term "introduction", which is "out of the circle" among college students, appears in all walks of life, and has become synonymous with social pressure that has nowhere to release.
It is often said that a university is a small society. For college students who are experiencing "involution", how to treat "involution" correctly and get out of it is an important topic.
When universities enter the era of "strict words at the head", strict teaching and increased burdens for college students have become the key tasks of colleges and universities, and college students will naturally feel greater academic pressure.
Stress is not an excuse to escape. Appropriate academic burden is a good medicine to help universities grow.
However, how to treat such pressure positively requires not only the self-regulation of college students, but also the corresponding guidance from colleges and universities.
"When students talk about internal scrolls, they often want to express this kind of confusion: They are clearly busy and study hard and earnestly, but they don't seem to have achieved much breakthroughs and have not improved too much." Associate Professor, School of Journalism, Renmin University of China Chen Yang told China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter.
The confusion about the future and the confusion about the present have caused many college students to fall into "involution."
In 2019, a survey by the School of Education of Peking University showed that 29.2% of the undergraduate students surveyed had neither a clear self-development plan nor a low degree of independent academic participation. Although 32.8% of the students had a clear self-development goal positioning, but Lagging in action.
In undergraduate colleges, nearly 42% of the students have no clear career plan for the future.
Chen Yang said that "involution" itself is an anthropological academic concept, which was first proposed by anthropologist Giltz.
In China, the historical sociologist Huang Zongzhi was the first to use "internal scrolls" to study the small peasant economy in the Yangtze River Delta during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Some students regard "involution" as competition and think that high-intensity competition makes people exhausted.
"Strictly speaking, this understanding actually deviates from the original intention of Giltz and Huang Zongzhi."
Yu Hanyu, a counselor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Hunan University, found that many college students who were looking for a job were often trapped in "involvement."
"For example, if some graduates are looking for a job, if I see you post in Moments and say that you will participate in 10 presentations this week, I will participate in 20 sessions next week, and my resume will take a lot of time and energy. Even pay to typeset and beautify." Yu Hanyu said.
"Introduction now more expresses an endless cycle of energy consumption. In fact, as a counselor, I personally can understand this kind of competition and a certain degree of comparison psychology, but we are now in the process of communicating with students. I hope that students should think consciously and don't let themselves enter this topless loop." Yu Hanyu told China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter.
Yu Hanyu said that he often emphasizes the need for "thinking awareness" with students.
She believes that the assessment in many universities is not a competition of quantification, so students should jump out of their inherent thinking mode, jump out of what they think is highly integrated competition, calm down and analyze themselves inwardly, and then analyze the overall competitive environment outwardly , Combine the general trend to exercise and develop yourself.
Chen Yang believes that facing "involution" is a challenge both for individuals and for society as a whole.
She said: “Students themselves need to think about'what kind of person do I want to be'; and the makers and executors of education policies, as well as the parents of students, need to think clearly about'our educational goal is to cultivate what kind of talents.' We hope See what kind of person the child becomes'."
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Ye Yuting and intern Li Mingyuan Source: China Youth Daily