An experience of university life

by Lifelong student Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:20

It is hard to pick a starting point here, but here goes:

It is a strong possibility that some students are destined to fail through no fault of their own.

Universities rely on student failure for income - they get paid for the year regardless. Universities rely on student failure to maintain standards - increasing dropout rates are the easiest way to select quality students without employing more staff. Student failure is a win-win solution for the universities. The Students Union should be up in arms about the commoditisation of education, the loss of staff, declining staff skills - where are they on these issues?

Of course students must be criticised in part, either directly or indirectly, as the consumers in this expanding market: How is a student supposed to study without books? - these grants are not paid until about the sixth or eighth week - the college library (has) a handful of the prescribed text books. These were all known, or at least knowable, before registering - they happen every year. Also the reliance on irrelevant technology - “design” a timetable using the computer - “Blackboard”? an internet system - internet work at home - memory stick - what is wrong with a sharp pencil and pad of paper? Teaching and learning haven't changed - get the curriculum, text and sample papers, ask questions. This modern obsession with notes and online delivery is often a distraction, not an aid, to the process of learning.

To fail the first semester’s mid-term exams is about the most de-motivating experience for any student.

The annual cost to student and government is between 10,000 and 30,000 euro depending on subject, not merely a tragic economic waste but a destructive and inhumane expenditure of the students who fail, who have been destined to fail from the outset, who are the marginal buffer of this mode of selling higher education.

Every student accepted to a course should be capable of completing with a pass with suitable teaching and support. Where was the personal tutor all semester? What pastoral care or needs support do students receive? Where are the lecturers when you have difficulties with the material? Or have all the staff been replaced by Blackboards and memorysticks?

by The Doctor Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:01

This is one of the best articles I have ever read here. Long time listener, first time caller but asides from the obvious failing stigma, the notes online are based on one persons knowledge of the Internet and therfore can be difficult to understand and a cop-out for lecturers!

Bravo!

by Gaz Sun Oct 08, 2006 19:32

Judging by your problems i assume that you're in ucd. Methods of registration, modularisation etc are all part of the president, Hugh Bradys modernisation plans to make ucd more 'internationally competitive'. profit first, students second

by Peter Flynn - UCC Webmaster Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:21 webmaster at ucc dot ie UCC +353 21 490 2609

> What about “Blackboard”? This is an internet system whereby a student is supposed
> to be able to access all the lecture notes. In practise, it does not work for a number of
> the modules, as it can take up to forty minutes to open the lecture notes

Have you reported this to the Learning Technologies Unit?

I'm sorry about the problem with response rate in the last two weeks (almost every student and member of staff on campus was trying to login at the same time), but it should be improved now.

A part of the problem is also the overuse/abuse of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and similar non-text documents, which are typically 10-100x bigger than their HTML or PDF equivalent. If you can persuade your lecturers to use HTML or PDF instead of DOC or PPT files, it will make things much easier for the students.

///Peter

by Cagarista Wed Nov 01, 2006 20:36

I could have written the exact same thing!!!!! I know exactly what you mean. Firstly, if you can still change institutions then do, and tell anyone you know to stay away. For me, it is too late, so if you are in for the long haul, then read on:

Costs:
Use the 'copy center' or the 2nd hand route.

Library:
Yes it's shit.

Blackboard:
Some don't use it and it sucks. Tell your departments to have essay titles up and dates for everything and booklist BEFORE TERM STARTS! Tell them again. Send them a xmas card with this request on it. Tell them it is a bit tricky to write an essay in less than a week on something you have not read yet. Tell them again, slower this time.

Failure
At least you can repeat with this new system. Don't let it get you, it's probably not your fault. Time managment is only skill you need under modularisation. But, TELL THE ADVISORS, THE HEAD OF DEPT'S, anyone who will listen. The students need to work with the lecturers on this because they are being dictated to by top managment.

Finally
Keep a diary, try your best to make your deadlines but don't beat yourself up about not making it. The powers that be in UCD have incerdibly managed the seemingly difficult task of bolloxing up the college making it impossible to fail (providing you make it through the chaos of first year) while at the same time making it impossible to achieve top grades (because everyone wants more than one sixth of your time). The result is that the student body is becoming divided between those who are trying to achieve and those who have no interest and should stay at home but are annoying the rest of us, using up resources and attending because of continuous assesment and the ridiculous process of having to sign a sheet for attendance at lectures.

JUST TELL WHOEVER WILL LISTEN. TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN A SIMILAR POSITION TO TELL EVERYONE. STUDENT TESTIMONY IS IMPROTANT.

good luck.

P.S. If I catch you disrupting any of my lectures, I'll kill you ( :-) 'sort of')

by yawn Wed Nov 01, 2006 21:04

Hey, come on, Blackboard works the same way that a notice board works - there's information up there related to your course that you might otherwise miss out on. A memory stick - well, its your own fault if you lose it, just copy everything you have on it onto your allocated space on the server on a daily basis. Back in the old days if people lost their paper+pencil notes or had them robbed they were fucked - imagine if an essay (or thesis) written in pen or on a typewriter with no backup vanished. Students probably gave out about the same things in the sixties, maybe not just with the same technological slant. Just be thankful you're priviledged enough to have made it to a university, one of the top ones at that, and deal with what you're given, its called growing up.

As for a comment making out that dropouts are the result of mismanagement by the authorities... come on, it also has to do with age + new found social freedom. I dropped out of a college, because at the same time I started, I was legally able to get drunk. And loads of my peers suddenly lived in FREE GAF student flats and not being constantly monitored by parents, so half my time was recovering on couches, floors, or the occasional other half of a bed when the charm flowed. There is some element of individual choice there. You may regret it in later years of course.

Hugh Brady seems like an idiot - but there was something in the news today about making the front entrance of the land around UCD into a more vibrant "24/7 quarter". If its managed correctly and not mirroring the likes of the sterile IFSC or south docks, then its definitely welcomed. UCD is like an airport, its incredibly oppressing and boring, there's nothing attractive about it whatsoever, anything that injects some sort of life into it has to be welcomed. Knocking down the perimeter wall would be a start. At the moment its like an Oompa-Loompa fiefdom that shuts down at 5pm.