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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder how the HELL some people get into university?

600 replies

SayYuleNowSayWhipTheReindeer · 01/12/2011 18:50

I'm currently doing a degree as a mature student alongside work, and am just amazed at the stupidity lack of knowledge some of my fellow students have. For instance, nearly all of them - on a fecking ENGLISH LANGUAGE degree course - mix up "your" and you're", "there" and "their", and use the spelling "definately".

I overheard a conversation today that involved several students talking about how they didn't know their times tables above 5 or 6. Shock

AIBU to seriously wonder if it's even worth doing a degree if this is the standard they're allowing in at the moment?

OP posts:
thetasigmamum · 02/12/2011 11:42

D'oh! Entrance exam. Lucky it wasn't in typing!

Original poster
SayYuleNowSayWhipTheReindeer · 02/12/2011 11:42

LRD - no he didn't apologise. He's a twunt not particularly nice person and proceeded to keep us late that particular seminar although he knew I had to catch a bus home. I missed my bus and didn't get to see my DD before she went to bed :(

WorkingItOut - it's my favourite t-shirt. Go to Zazzle - it's fab. Xmas Grin

OP posts:
TroublesomeEx · 02/12/2011 11:43

My friend and I both graduated from our university with first class degrees. It wasn't a redbrick/russell group university, but still. We both worked really hard, studied hard and, despite us having 'things' going on in our personal lives, never once applied for an extension, extenuating circumstances of sent an email like those ElaineReese has received. (Although I do now feel really bad for not sending one thanking them either Blush)

My friend now works at same university and said we had no idea at the time just how "fucking amazing" we were and how our essays will have been a breath of fresh air to the lecturers. He said that some of the crap he has to wade through is ridiculous and years ago these people certainly wouldn't have got into uni.

It explains now why we were the only students to be invited to lecturers house parties and the pub!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 11:44

elaine - well, I said it after I'd set them a piece to read, and since she was constantly very quiet and I have to mark them for oral contribution, I did pick on her and say 'ok, would you like to start us off with a comment on this then', to which she replied 'no'.

I did think after that it was fair enough to point out that wasn't an appropriate response really! She wasn't being deliberately rude actually, she just didn't realize that after 20 minutes reading a passage, she should have had something to say.

Pendeen · 02/12/2011 11:46

Both - thanks for the information. Rather than Wiki I have actually dug out a book to look up your references.

MillyR, as a horror devotee I am particularly embarassed that I have blithely read novels / watched films including the Four Horsemen without further query. Blush

If TheLastChocolate had said simply mentioned holocaust and apocalypse without using the I would have never commented. I found the examples a little irritating precisely because they were included to demonstrate other students' lack of general knowledge.

I am probably reading too much into this, ABU and need to get on with some work.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 11:46

sayyule - TBH, I would have been tempted to complain about him then! Not just for the comment but he should have apologized after you'd said that.

TheSmallPrint · 02/12/2011 11:47

This is an interesting thread, some of which I agree with regarding standards but on the other hand, I work with professional people of my age (old) and many of them can't spell or structure a letter correctly and I frequently wonder how they ever got their degrees.

marmiteandjam · 02/12/2011 11:48

Not relevant but just felt like boasting as feeling very proud of myself. As of yesterday, I am MarmiteandJam BSC (Hons), so I managed to get into uni!! I don't claim to be the brainiest person in the world so it can be done!!

Original poster
SayYuleNowSayWhipTheReindeer · 02/12/2011 11:48

I find this a lot in my classes, LRD - the lecturer will ask a question and NO ONE answers. I find myself being the only one who answers, which makes me feel a little like a Hermione Grainger type (which I don't really mind tbh!). And this I don't think is stupidity, but the embarrassment of being seen as clever / swotlike, which I have NEVER understood.

OP posts:
Original poster
SayYuleNowSayWhipTheReindeer · 02/12/2011 11:50

Well done marmiteandjam - have some Thanks

OP posts:
ElaineReese · 02/12/2011 11:50

Sayyule that was right out of order, and he should have apologised but I imagine was too embarrassed.

For what it's worth, I almost invariably really like my mature students - they're more polite, harder-working and much, much better at attending. And, it must be said, at spelling and grammar.

LRD I think you were quite right to pull her up, especially if there was an oral contribution component to the course! Cease with the guilt!

knittedbreast · 02/12/2011 11:56

I cant do my times table above 6 not inluding 9 or 10 (they are easy!).

Im not thick or lazy, but the education I recevied probably could not have been worse.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 11:56

Yes, I think that might be an advantage to being a mature student - you don't mind speaking up.

I think part of the problem is that if you've been taught in big classes, and you've perhaps had only very structured discussions (eg. 'what does Cleopatra feel about Anthony ... oh yes, she says she hates him ... and we know this because ... oh yes, line 217 where she says 'I hate him'), it is hard to know how to respond. The lass I made cry told me she just thought I was asking her 'do you want to comment' literally, and it'd be fine to say 'no', because she honestly didn't understand that I just wanted any observation that came to her.

She was much better after though, so it's not a lack that can't be made up.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 12:00

marmite - well done! Grin

ElaineReese · 02/12/2011 12:02

LRD (and I'm sorry if this is becoming a derailing) - do you get a lot of 'the reader' in essays? Ie everything in a text is a message to the reader, and this creates a powerful image (often 'incredibly powerful') for the reader to have in the reader's head so the reader can think about whether 'they' would do the same?

I didn't understand this (and slashed through it most of the time) until seeing my year 10 daughter's English book, which seems to be mainly focussed on showing 'how the text affects the reader'.

I think there's a much bigger jump from A level English to university than many realise.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 12:06

Yes!

I've never taught first years (too important to let me loose on them), but I've seen first year essays and they do this. There's also a bizarre and very absolute refusal to use the first person, ever, even when advancing an opinion, but no such objection to the passive. So it's all 'It may be thought that' and 'It could be said that', with no references to back it up.

I think it is quite hard though, I think I was taught English really well and am very grateful to my teachers but inevitably when the subject is a core GCSE, it attracts a lot of people who do it 'just because', as opposed to subjects that have more self-selection involved.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 12:07

(Is that passive, even? I dunno, my grammar's shite. Grin)

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 12:10

(Btw, how long until you get 'the text effects the reader'? Now that would be quite elegantly post-modern IMO. Wink)

ElaineReese · 02/12/2011 12:15

I never seem to teach anything but first years, through the junior nature of my position!

With regard to 'I', they seem to either shrink at the idea of acknowledging they even exist (hence 'it could be argued') or they go the complete other way (in my eyes, I think that it is .... and when I was reading deeper into this subject I began to think...).

HardCheese · 02/12/2011 12:17

ElaineRees

I remember nodding and groaning at your comments on another thread to do with being an academic and I'm doing it again here, somewhere between relief that someone else is teaching my students or their exact equivalents, and horror that more of them exist. Some of my students are great, school-leavers and mature students, let me emphasise - some of them juggle newborns and several jobs and complex family caring commitments with doing good work - but I would say there's a significant rump of uninterested and unmotivated school-leavers, who drifted into an Arts degree because they had the grades and not much idea of what they wanted to do with their lives.

Among that cohort, the standards of literacy have certainly dropped off sharply, which makes my job (which precupposes basic literacy) increasingly difficult. And I would have to say that their level of entitlement has certainly increased exponentially over the ten years I've been in my current job at a decent university, and manifests itself in barely-literate emails with no capital letters or greeting/sign-off asking for 'the notes' for missed classes or complaining that I wasn't in my office when they'd called by out of termtime or after seven in the evening. Grr.

gateacre1 · 02/12/2011 12:17

Sorry I have not managed to read all the posts, but I was chatting about this topic this morning.
I teach at a grammar school, we have targets of 60% of our pupils to get grade A/A* at A2, some pupils are not capable of this, we have to put on lunch time and after school lessons pretty much every day. The kids have no independant learning skills and I feel sometimes spoon fed . I worry how the pupils will cope when they get to uni !

slug · 02/12/2011 12:20
Original poster
SayYuleNowSayWhipTheReindeer · 02/12/2011 12:21

(Should be "independent")

OP posts:
LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/12/2011 12:22

I think it is taught at school that using 'I' is not allowed. I don't know why!

MillyR · 02/12/2011 12:24

It isn't allowed in some subjects at university.