To expect that would-be final year degree students ought to be able to communicate?

[drcrab]

I get a call this morning from someone who purports to be a student going into her final year. She didn't ask for me, didn't tell me who she was, didn't tell me what year/programme of study she was on.... And proceeded to ask me these garbled questions. I didn't know in what context she was phoning about.

I had to interrupt her a couple of times to ask who she was, why she was ringing etc. When she finally told me who she was, I said 'oh I remember you... I approved your change of programme etcetera' to which her reply was 'oh uh yah'. No thank you.

WTF? Do these same 'students' expect to graduate with a 2:1 or higher and earn pots of money immediately? And this from a university that's rather highly ranked.

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

Mind you ... I've mostly had issues with emails and in that situation it is almost always enough just to model correct behaviour for them, then they imitate it. I do cringe a bit when they say 'hi mrs lrd' but it is not deliberate rudeness. I just tell them that they should always check people's titles and use them. That's the commonest problem I've come across. There are day workshops from our careers service that are pretty good at going over the basics, too - might be worth recommending them at the start of each term if your place does something similar. My supervisor still tells us about them!

[drcrab]

They have these workshops and I hammer it home every start of the year (ah I wasn't there at the start of last academic year coz I was in labour with DD doh!!).

I can deal with the bad emails. I have stopped replying (but I forewarn them about it). But this is about a phone call isn't it? Frankly if she was nervous then if I was her I wouldn't have used the phone. I would have just sent an email.

I don't recall ever ringing my profs or lecturers as a student. Heck I don't think I've even emailed them!

[drcrab]

*were her

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

Yes, it is a bit strange she rang you if she could have emailed - I was assuming this was something where she was required to phone. Still, I think I would tell the whole class, just quickly, what you should do. And of course you tell them til you're blue in the face and tehy keep on ... as Adela says, it is a hazard of the job really, isn't it?

I get a bit sensitive about this stuff as I'm not so great myself and it is a bit close to home - I feel so awful for them making mistakes I don't want to be judging them for it too.

[working9while5]

Now you are being unreasonable: "Frankly if she was nervous then if I were her I wouldn't have used the phone".

Is it not possible that she quite confidently picked up the phone to ring you but found confidence waned when you answered? Might she then have picked up from your tone that you were not impressed with how she was conducting herself and fallen to pieces?

Have you really never had an awkward phonecall or felt nervous or intimidated? Have you never made a social faux pas? You found her phonecall socially awkward, but you are not demonstrating much empathy or understanding to indicate that you eased it in any way for her. Initially I understood where you were coming from, but you are sounding increasingly arrogant.

My cousin is an academic, one of the top names in his field internationally: he is also a facebook friend. He periodically posts cutting status updates about these minor infringements of his RL atatus by graduate students who deign to treat him as a human rather than a god. Frankly, it makes him sound like a twat. Someone phoned you today, they didn't manage the phonecall very well. That is all.

Okay, so you are academic, but you are reading far too much into this. I think any of us who have ever had an even vaguely stilted phonecall with a person in authority must be cringing to read your words. Most of us hope when we falter in a phonecall that the person on the other end of the line won't be as hard on us as we are on ourselves after it end. She is probably feeling terribly stupid. Imagine how she would feel to read a thread on Mumsnet lamenting the lack of standards in students on the basis of a fumbled phonecall?

[working9while5]

*ends

[drcrab]

Nah. Not required to phone. Goodness no!

It is a hazard of the job. I just wish there weren't that many.

[Scuttlebutter]

I look on this with interest. I now work part time in a university library so deal with a range of students, under and post grad, from a variety of disciplines. As most of the books are self issue, the queries we now deal with tend to be a bit more varied and are often to assist with preparing presentations, using software, helping track down references etc. so it's important that I listen and that the student explains what they want/what their problem is, so I can help them. We also take a variety of email and phone queries. In my very unscientific experience, the most polished and exquisite manners/communication are from the Middle Eastern engineering/computing students - a joy to work with, very hard working, quiet, extremely polite and highly appreciative of any help given. I've also had lots of interesting conversations about, among other things, human rights in Yemen and women in Iran.

Sadly, the worst manners, and often the least literate/communicative in expressing themselves are the "home" students - noisy, rude, entitled, and often with the worst telephone skills. We are always very happy to make allowances for the students who don't have English as a first language, but the level of inarticulacy is shocking for those who do. My special prize though for the rudest and most entitled are some part time students who are orthopaedic surgeons, and who come to the library as part of a post grad distance learning qualification. They are so breathtakingly arrogant and awful that we now quite look forward to them coming in a sort of Basil Fawlty kind of way. I dont' think their rudeness is a function of a deprived background.

[drcrab]

Sigh. I'm not trying to be arrogant. Honestly. It wasn't meant to sound like that.

If I was her oh 20 years ago, there's no way I would have picked up the phone to ring someone in this position (when I use the word position I don't mean that as a high place- I just mean it like say a teacher is a position). I would have possibly sent an email. And then see if the teacher replies.

If like you are suggesting, this girl might have been nervous, then if I were her I wouldn't have rung. There are other means of communication particularly during the Summer time when people are on leave, at conferences, writing etc.

I've had phone calls from students who say 'I came to your office yesterday and you weren't there...' well if we had made an appointment then I would have been there. And many other examples in my RL and other examples from friends in the same dept, other dept, other universities.

I get that she might have been nervous. But before I could have said anything other than hello, she started on her speech. I had to stop her otherwise we would have been more frustrated.

I did that once - albeit this was a first year (I think). She rang me and Before I could say anything she started to tell me that she'd failed her first year and was due to do re-sits but she didn't want to do them as she hated us (?!) and so even if she passed she wouldn't want to stay and would I allow her to transfer somewhere else?

After I got over that shock I gave her the number of my administrator for them to do the paperwork.

But I can assure you that that was just as garbled a message. So since then I've tried to stop these conversations and tried to get a context before it spiraled out of control.

[working9while5]

You are not trying to sound arrogant, but you do.

It sounds to me that as it is Summer, she possibly didn't expect that you would answer the phone and had been intending to leave a message, then lost her verbal footing, so to speak.
.
This is not 20 years ago, and I doubt you would have emailed 20 years ago (it wasn't quite such an obvious choice, then). I think you very much do see yourself as being in a high place and feel affronted that you weren't treated with the deference you feel is your due.

Honestly, it would be easier to just move on from this. The more that you write, the more it seems that your manner is likely brusque and stand-offish, which is likely to reduce students to garble.

[ProfessionallyOffendedGoblin]

How much does the desire not to be seen as posh and above your station have a bearing on this I wonder?
DD can code switch, and approach her target audience accordingly.
OH and DS can't and sound southern, posh and have slow and measured tones rather like an actor voice from the time when they spoke properly in films.
OH just sounds intimidatingly clever, but it has got DS into trouble with peers in the past.

[ProfessionallyOffendedGoblin]

I think you are being a bit unfair to drcrab, working.
Saying who you are and why you are phoning is not complicated, and they are key elements in an answerphone message as well.

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

POG - that's true, that might have something to do with it. I know that when I was 18 or so I found it very hard to write those phrases like 'To whom it may concern' or 'Dear Sir/Madam' because they sounded so pompous to me and I couldn't believe I wouldn't sound like a twit to the other person. Now I do it without thinking (obviously I try hard to use names instead of Sir/Madam too!).

So maybe that was part of it.

I have to admit I still answer my home phone with 'hello?' not 'LRD speaking' through long habit with annoying cold-callers who will not know my name, but I probably shouldn't.

[HardCheese]

I hear you DrCrab - am also an academic. I no longer so much as raise an eyebrow at finalists getting their mothers to phone me for extensions; expressing disapproval that I wasn't in my office when they called after 7 pm without an appointment; on one occasion explaining why they'd missed my 9 am lecture the previous week because - get this - her mother hadn't phoned her (from a different city) to make sure she got out of bed in time to make it to campus.

[drcrab]

Thank you working for your incredible prejudgment of me. It is not difficult to start off with
Hello, can/may I speak to x please? ( or no please is fine too)
Yes speaking
Hi I'm student. I was wondering if you could help me. Blah blah
Yes no maybe. Explain etc.
Thank you.
Good bye.

Calling someone hoping to get the voicemail? And therefore it's my fault that I'm in my office?? How did that happen?

[drcrab]

Thank you hardcheese. Much appreciated.

[drcrab]

I had an email once asking me if I'd fill in the blanks for her lecture notes (playing fill in the blanks was a suggestion to help improve attendance at 9am classes) because she hadn't turned up for class.

[NormanTebbit]

Personally I think a lecturer should be shown deference as they see in a position of authority. Just like your employer.

When I was a news editor I would get graduates as trainee reporters who still couldn't use an apostrophe or tell the difference between where/wear.

But when I think back to being 18 I remember some rather gauche dealings with lecturers. You are still so unformed, you don't have the veneer of professionalism.

[NormanTebbit]

*are

Blood phone

[FellatioNelson]

I must admit, I had to cringe listening to my DS on the phone to his first choice of uni the other day. He was gabbling nonsense a bit as well, and not introducing himself properly, but I put that down to extreme nerves. (he'd just found out he'd missed his firm offer by a whisker.) Generally his communication skills are far and above those of most of his peers.

I think this is why so many private school pupils tend to do better in the rush for uni places and graduate jobs - their backgrounds and their schooling still tend to focus much more on formality and etiquette, and generally they are primed and coached much better to handle these situations. They are less likely to feel out of their depth in an interview situation.

[bigkidsdidit]

Saying no-one has taught these students what to do - mine are 22/23. At what age do we stop saying 'someone should have taught them it' and start saying 'any intelligent 23 year old should pick things up'? Surely a TWENTY THREE year old should know not to go into someone's office and put their feet on the desk? I don't see that as a failure on the part of parents or teachers.

[InstantAtom]

LRD I wasn't talking about students failing literacy, I mean it's up to schools and parents to sort out literacy and communication skills long before university age. It's not up to universities to sort out these things, which should have been learned long before.

Some people say the quality of these skills in students isn't as good as it should be, but that's just because these skills are worse overall among the general school-leaving population and that's the pool of people the universities are choosing from.

[NormanTebbit]

It'll all sort itself out when they land that call centre job just after graduation

[Letz]

"I didn't know in what context she was phoning about."

Quite funny to go on and berate someone about not being able to communicate when you clearly can't either!

I've only read the first page, I suppose I need to read it all. Sorry, I don't know you. Was she phoning for directions? Ordering a pizza? Confused.

[Xenia]

Academics are dreadful. They tend to earn not much and not look too good. They think they are God like and they have many more barriers to contact with them than some of the pretty important people who respond to emails immediately (the business environment is so different). Perhaps we should send them all on humility courses.

How the point is valid. Students need to learn how to be coherent. More debating at school, more parents forcing them to ask for things etc help. We were in a restaurant yesterday explaining to one of the 12 year olds that if he isn't clear no one will understand and really laying it on thick you need to speak like this, very very clear English, say things quite a few times particularly if the other person is not Engilsh, use good diction. Not all parents will speak clearly themselves. Some people are never any good. I work with some pretty genius asperger type computer people some of whom are making a fortune but they often have only one person in the company who is able to interface with their advisers as the others have none of those skills. Even that one is laughably bad but it doesn's matter because they have all puicked behind the scenes/computer work where their genius will ensure they earn 100x what academics earn.

The hardest person I have to get hold of is an academic. You'd think he were Bill Gates given the barriers he has put up to contact. Given the fortune students and parents pay to these people in fees it is all going to have to change.