Disconnect and connect again

Haven't posted in months - guess that's how it goes sometimes.

This semester has proven to be rather irritating, not due to my classes, as I'm currently really digging most of them. The issue is one particular lab class, a 400 level at that. I realize that not all students are going to be gung-ho scientists, and thats why we have degrees in business, marketing, etc. Most liberal arts degrees require lower level sciences, and that makes complete sense as well.

What I cannot understand is how upper level science students don't retain anything they learn from previous classes. You know that what you learn now will be used later - that's the nature of biology and chemistry degrees. Basic microbiology - dilutions , colony counts, plating techniques, etc. It's not rocket science.

You learn dilutions and molarity from day one in chemistry classes, but ask a class of 400-level lab students to create 10x stock solutions, or calculate concentrations from a standard curve, and you get nothing but a clueless, blank stare. And yet, it's worse than that...they don't even care. They will stand around, look at the numbers, and pretend to be working on the calculations, though they'll constantly look up and see who has decided to sit down and work through them. They don't want to do the work, and they don't care if they learn how.

The bottom line now is just the grade. They don't care if they learn it or not, but make sure they get the lab grade and that's it. They will stand in their lab coats and wait for someone else to take the lead, to go through and find the magic number to begin working.

I get frustrated by this. Aren't you supposed to care? Didn't you choose this? I'm sure there are plenty of students who are pressured for whatever reasons into their course of study, but is the average that low that only 1 of 12 students give two bits about the class they're in?
Maybe it's the school. I'm not at a major industry school, but sometimes I feel completely alien because I'm actually interested in what I do.

I have a lot of respect for another professor. Even if his lab is sometimes a lot of review for me because I work in a lab, I really appreciate that he goes through the logic of experiment design step-by-step for the class. All the components of the labs are basic techniques, but the skills are utilized in different lab environments, and the training is beneficial. Again, I feel alien because if I pointed this out to a fellow student, they'd look at me like I have three heads and mumble about what a loser I was.

I forget, they're just there for the grade.