Student expectations…

[Thermobottle]

I’ve recently started a lecturing / tutoring job in a fairly niche institution and field. I’m completely new to academia. I’m in a course at PG level with a real mix of ages - students from early 20s to late 60s. All the faculty work part time and I have quite limited support from line managers.

I have been absolutely shocked by the expectations of students - from thinking that a late submission is no big deal if they’ve had a busy week; opting out of group work because it’s feeling stressful; feeling genuinely aggrieved and discriminated against when I can’t provide tutorials within a couple of days of a request (because they are dyslexic and need that support); asking me to repeat material or explain things 1:1 to them when they (the student) turned up late for a seminar and missed the start etc. Our course handbooks and online info is really clear and we’re signposting students to them all the time - it’s really unclear to me why they think their expectations are realistic.

This week a student stopped me in the corridor to ask if she should put a particular specific sentence in the introduction section of her essay. As in, I’m thinking of writing this, is that a good thing to write?

Is this typical for postgraduate study? I’m quite a mild-mannered person with a tendency towards being fairly supportive, understanding etc., but I’m feeling pretty incredulous at the level of handholding / spoon-feeding that a decent proportion of this year group seem to want.

Same circumstances. In fact I’ve nearly started the same post several times. In fact some of my students seem to think I should write the assignments for them. It’s ridiculous. Some of the other lecturers really seem to pander to them. Quite how these students will function in the real world of work, I have no idea.

When they do enter the world of work they think they run the place after a few weeks. They know how to do everything better than the way it's usually done. And they won't accept work if they're stressed, anxious or whatever - no qualms in saying "I'd prefer to do something else" or similar when given work they don't fancy.

I mostly teach undergrads. I do find some have unreasonable expectations, but none as bad as that, no.

having just read my course evaluation... i can only agree.
they want more, but less also. They want interaction, but also more didactic sage on stage stuff - but without notetaking. They want all the content performed for them in contact time and no prep to be required.

our feedback, which we really work on, is not enough.
the assignements not clear enough regarding what exact answer we actually want

and the exams... how dare we. Exams?
Interestingly, we reintroduced exams because we got tired of marking chatGPT outputs, go figure...

but then exams dont truly test the subject matter if its basically remembered to then forget just to get the grade etc

give us a little bit of credit... it s an open books exam, time adapted, designed after a full consultation with people who graduated in previous year.

this is the most tiresome reply to the exam topic, here, or elsewhere.

I no longer trust anything not produced on pen and paper in an invigilated exam hall.

Huge sympathies, OP.

I am in STEM. When I have been assigned to a projects course my experience has been similar to yours, just slightly less awful. Aside from the use of AI and the plagiarism, a number of students want an unbelievable and frankly unhelpful amount of feedback. If I gave it, we would be marking my work rather than theirs.

I would expect more of PGs. If ypu teach this module again perhaps you can lay on a lot of stuff about ‘developing the capacity for independent analysis’ as an outcome in the syllabus.

@Xenomorphs we put a vast amount of effort into constructing exams that aren’t just about memorisation and are of a suitable level of difficulty. Students would strongly prefer to memorise, because they would feel they could ace it with enough routine prep.

Our undergraduates have a background of excelling with relative ease. The delightful ones enjoy opening their minds but are a minority. Many of the others struggle with the fact that they won’t be strolling to a First

Students might expect these things, but you can learn to turn them away.

Yes, their expectations are entitled, but these are the young people we’re raising nowadays.

That is rarely what exams are nowadays. But given how many students now cheat, they get what they deserve.

And actually, a timed open book exam over say, 24 hours, is a good approximation of a situation one might find oneself in in the workplace.

“Here’s a policy document, from the Department of Silly Walks. Can you read it, pull out the significant points for us, as designers of innovative walking products, and present your findings to the team meeting the day after tomorrow.”

I can only imagine it will get worse. I teach secondary and the reassurance required to follow simple instructions is off the scale

This is not my experience, for balance. I teach STEM at a RG place. Mine aren’t any more demanding than they were 5 years ago really. Slightly more anxious.

In my experience, students are definitely more demanding than 10 years ago, or 35 years ago, when I started teaching.

There's a difference between Masters and UG I find - it's the masters students that need and expect more support. This is partly because masters courses (meaning part or whole taught) are basically cash cows. So the intake is not like UG - only the top of the cohort is similar.

We have also had to go back to in person exams - just so difficult with the whole AI thing. There are better ways to examine for sure - but they are too labour intensive - maybe in the future. HE will change radically - it will have to.

Personally, as a mature student back in 2015 I was also shocked by how relaxed the students on my course were. Tbh I was amazed they could re-take multiple topics and still pass. Group work became a chore to do because only about 5 of the entire cohort read anything so we had 1 "worker" per group while the rest dossed/didn't show/did no work, meaning the worker ended up with the worst mark of their entire 3 years. I was shocked at the level of people getting a 2:1 at the end after fluffing so much of the course and still not fully understanding some concepts.

Uni was the biggest waste of £60k and I feel so embarrassed about my degree and getting the same result as so many people who are clearly not uni material that I actually don't tell anyone about my degree because I feel ashamed.

It's just a business now for most subjects.

As opposed to the same sort of questions (essay or problem based) submitted for particular assessments, where students have to answer in the same way, but have many days to do it and access to all their notes, the internet, the uni library? These somehow truly test the subject matter, but if they have to do a slimmed-down version, without citations and bibliography, in less than an hour per question and just from memory, it's worthless?

I'm admin support in a university STEM department (forgive my intrusion on a board for academics). I've worked here for a year having come from an industry background. I look after masters and PhD students as part of my duties and I've been really surprised at how needy some of them are and how much handholding they want, both from me and from the academic staff.

I'm also surprised that if a student decides to challenge a grade it almost always ends up being changed upwards, because nobody wants to deal with the fallout of not doing so. When I was at university in the 80s we wouldn't have dared to query a grade or challenge the academic staff in any way. I've been quite shocked at how different it is now, to be honest.

It's extremely rare for students' grades to be revisited. Every institution I've worked or examined at is clear that academic judgement cannot be challenged (only failure to follow processes). This is usually enforced very rigorously.

Same for us, grades are not challenged

That's interesting @GCAcademic and @bge. I'm in Ireland not the UK so there will be differences of course. I should have stated that in my post.