[Spooky23]

I felt similarly wrt office hours. I never understood what I was supposed to do with office hours, and felt like an idiot when I tried used them.

My slightly younger cousins went to fancy private schools growing up, and were sort of trained how to work the system. They are still in communication with multiple professors 20 years later.

[phkahler]

>> trained how to work the system

Seeking help or advice is not "working the system", it's normal. I was not programmed with this understanding either, and it can take time to adjust once you see it. Life gets easier when you stop thinking you need to face it alone.

[wdutch]

It's funny how "working the system" has connotations of foul play but if you're talking about software or a machine and you say "I don't know how to work it" you're saying that you don't know how to make it do it's expected function (at least in my dialect of English).

It's great that you overcame your initial difficulty. Personally, as a state-schooled white male I never did get comfortable using office hours while I was at university like other people in the comments have mentioned.

Some of the students mentioned in the article have it far worse than I did because they don't even know the meaning of the term "office hours". They can't use the system as it's expected to be used because they don't even know there's a system. Perhaps they don't even think to look for a system because they're accustomed to systems being stacked against them and they have no conception of a system that's there to help them.

[Spooky23]

I agree. Professional life is much easier in this regard. I don't mean "working the system" is a negative -- you need to be aware of and able to work effectively in your environment.

Our training in K-12 in my experience was that most academic collaboration was cheating. It's difficult to unlearn that. My kids go to a private school, it's very different -- they are intensely collaborative in elementary school.