Comments on: The Decline And Fall Of The British University http://www.scatmania.org/2007/01/09/university/ Scatman Dan's stuff Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:57:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0-alpha hourly 1 By: Suzanne Chilestone http://www.scatmania.org/2007/01/09/university/#comment-1477 Suzanne Chilestone Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:23:58 +0000 http://blog.scatmania.org/archives/2007/01/09/university/#comment-1477 I have to disagree with you when you say that it involves teaching you what to say to pass the exam. As far as my degree went, that didn't happen - yes the lecturers did write the exams based on what they knew that we knew, but that is good service in my opinion. They also gave us an enormous amount of coursework, knowing that some of it would not count towards the final grade, but so that we had at least done the work and knew what we were doing. If I didn't learn what I needed to know, I wouldn't be able to grasp the next part, and it was up to me to learn it. As for the pass mark for first year being very low - that's true, but if I had not learnt what I needed to learn in first year and got at least a 2.1 then, I would never have passed second year. I didn't feel at all like it was a business - I honestly thought that they had our best interests at heart and that they wanted to actually teach us stuff. And that's why they run courses on subjects that interest them, that have nothing to do with your degree, but that they teach as a module to one or two students, in their own time, for the sake of the subject. I do agree with some of your points, but I honestly disagree with it being businesslike. If it had been free I probably wouldn't have been there - the fact that it was costing me so much money meant I worked as hard as I could to make it worthwhile. But having to pay for it meant that technically you could think of it as business-like, but the learning and the teaching was all about the subject and not about passing exams. I have to disagree with you when you say that it involves teaching you what to say to pass the exam. As far as my degree went, that didn’t happen – yes the lecturers did write the exams based on what they knew that we knew, but that is good service in my opinion. They also gave us an enormous amount of coursework, knowing that some of it would not count towards the final grade, but so that we had at least done the work and knew what we were doing. If I didn’t learn what I needed to know, I wouldn’t be able to grasp the next part, and it was up to me to learn it. As for the pass mark for first year being very low – that’s true, but if I had not learnt what I needed to learn in first year and got at least a 2.1 then, I would never have passed second year.

I didn’t feel at all like it was a business – I honestly thought that they had our best interests at heart and that they wanted to actually teach us stuff. And that’s why they run courses on subjects that interest them, that have nothing to do with your degree, but that they teach as a module to one or two students, in their own time, for the sake of the subject.

I do agree with some of your points, but I honestly disagree with it being businesslike. If it had been free I probably wouldn’t have been there – the fact that it was costing me so much money meant I worked as hard as I could to make it worthwhile. But having to pay for it meant that technically you could think of it as business-like, but the learning and the teaching was all about the subject and not about passing exams.

]]> By: Heather http://www.scatmania.org/2007/01/09/university/#comment-1476 Heather Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:50:53 +0000 http://blog.scatmania.org/archives/2007/01/09/university/#comment-1476 Interestingly enough, I think my degree does the opposite. The first year was very much "pass these exams, here, this is what you'll need to know", and a lot of the papers were part multiple choice. However, in my final year, we're actually taught comparitively very little. That is to say, we receive the same volume of information per module as we did in the first year, but as there are fewer modules and they're weighted higher, we're expected to do an increasing amount of work ourselves, making it our fault if we perform poorly. I imagine this is in no small way due to the fact that science graduates are "expected" to go on to research, where it is necessary to think for ones self, remember a wide range of things and apply them to previously unseen things. :S Interestingly enough, I think my degree does the opposite. The first year was very much “pass these exams, here, this is what you’ll need to know”, and a lot of the papers were part multiple choice.

However, in my final year, we’re actually taught comparitively very little. That is to say, we receive the same volume of information per module as we did in the first year, but as there are fewer modules and they’re weighted higher, we’re expected to do an increasing amount of work ourselves, making it our fault if we perform poorly.

I imagine this is in no small way due to the fact that science graduates are “expected” to go on to research, where it is necessary to think for ones self, remember a wide range of things and apply them to previously unseen things.

:S

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