The reason I feel chaotic and trampled upon all the time is that students and faculty are such chaotic tramplers. People with Ivy League degrees never had to organize their time, and working class people do not have enough freedom to organize their time. They are all chaotic and invasive. I get so tired from repeating to people that I am trying to work on a schedule. A faculty member just asked me what right I thought I had to keep research hours.
We instituted a freshman seminar to try to improve retention, and it is not working. I am sure I know why. The one thing students need to know — that they should study on a schedule, and eat, sleep, and exercise on a schedule, the freshman seminar does not teach. Instead, it fills their days with petty service obligations, group exercises, and allegedly educational excursions, thus disorganizing them yet more.
I am not saying you have to be rigid to work on a schedule. I am a spontaneous and flexible person. I am just saying, I know why the students are failing. They have no idea about studying except if it is cramming for a test, and no idea about eating unless it is drive-through pizza consumed while doing something else. These things explain both their failing grades and their difficulty ascending a flight of stairs.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Hrrmm-hrrm. Ivy Leaguer here (though the one reputed to be most like our undergraduate institution, so perhaps that makes a difference). I completely agree with you about the poor freshmen, and about similar programs for new faculty—orientations that take up a stupid amount of time when people most urgently need to know where the copier is.
Was the question about research hours one of those “jokes” that expresses underlying hostility or an openly challenging question?
Undergraduates from all Ivy League institutions and Stanford did poorly at Berkeley. The only private school that seemed to train people at all well was Reed.
I do not mean programs for new faculty, I mean academic advice for them. What other faculty say, and what books on how to be faculty apparently say. How they assume one never did research or wrote while in school, for instance.
Question about research hours, wasn’t a joke. People here prioritize service.