To wonder how the HELL some people get into university?

[SayYuleNowSayWhipTheReindeer]

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.

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

LeQ - thanks. I do see where you're coming from ... I think where we disagree is that you are an optimist who believes there are loads of brilliant all-rounder students out there, and I'm, well, not! I think if someone is good, they should be snapped up by the university.

It's also absolutely rotten to be someone who is skilled and misses a chance for reasons that could be overcome. And this is why I do keep making the disability comparisons. I can see why to you the difference is clear, but does it feel that way to a student who's told he can't go to university because he is dyslexic, whereas his mate who is partially sighted can go? I don't know that it would feel fair, even though the two disabilities are obviously not comparable.

LeQ - well, my students will say things like 'these two words begin with the same sound'. And if they are good, they will say what effect that might have. If they are bad, they might write 'There is alliteration in this poem', and leave it at that. Obviously, the first one gets the marks!

It's also very useful to be aware of non-standard grammar if you are at all interested in English Lit. My mate is working on the language of some poems written in the north of England and her awareness of (modern) Geordie grammar was what got her started on it in the first place. But I think I am partly agreeing with you and BP here, since understanding non-standard grammar is still understanding grammar in that you're still recognizing rules, even if they are different rules from standard English.

No, I don't believe there are. I'm sorry, I am a horrible pessimist here.

I think it is much rarer to be good at English Lit than to be good at the technical side of writing good English. Loads of students are perfectly capable of writing correctly-spelt, well punctuated, grammatical essays. Few of them get firsts, let alone go on further than that.

My lecturers, btw, have not in general found it especially hard to treat me as equal to other students ... but perhaps because the would respond to the term 'man up' with some disgust! (They're feminist academics I'm afraid)

Bertha - absolutely.

I agree - I can't see how anyone could fully 'get' English literature without 'getting' punctuation - it's not an optional extra, it sets the tone for the whole rhythm of the piece, the music of the language.

Try leaving the punctuation out of a piece of text to see the huge impact it has.

bread - well, people managed without modern punctuation for centuries. Chaucer? Malory?

It is an optional extra. A very helpful one, but historically not a crucial component of literature.

Actually, it is really useful to remove punctuation from a piece of writing to give students a sense of what some medieval texts were like - it really makes them understand how much more skill was involved in reading aloud these texts. But I digress, and it's not (I fully admit) an argument for being bad at punctuation, only a solution to what you do when a student can't punctuate and you want to show him or her why that's very annoying to the reader while also teaching some medieval lit.

Sorry, are you suggesting that nothing written in the last 500 years or so merits study?

Assuming that your course is slightly more up-to-date, of course punctuation is a vital skill.

TShat's like saying we can leave out the spaces between words and it will all be crystal clear, because the Romans did. Only relevant if reading Latin (and very, very good at it).

Excuse rude typos .

I don't agree. If it were as you say, LeQ, you'd expect the top 7-9% in undergrad exams to be good at SPAG, and beating those who aren't good at SPAG. They don't.

There is nothing wrong with saying 'these two words begin with the same sound'. The reason you use the term 'alliteration' is because it is quicker, and because there is a convention to use the correct technical term. No more.

I would tell the student that the term is 'alliteration', but I would rather they understand what the alliteration is doing. And the point is, there is not a huge pool of students who are brilliant at both.

Cross-posts, sorry.

bread - no, I wasn't saying that. I was explaining that punctuation is not integral to all literature, and providing an example of how I teach students who don't punctuate well.

leQ - so you're saying that it'd be better to pick students who get good 2:1 degrees and spell beautifully, rather than those who get firsts and can't?

I am not saying we default to the random. I've said consistently that I do teach these skills and I do think they are useful.

I just don't think they can tell you whether or not an 18-year-old will prove to be any good at English Lit, and I don't think they are essential to the subject.

Btw, no-one would be 'reverting', FWIW - people did have spelling rules back in the day, even though the spelling was more phonetic than it is now.

I fully understand the need for standardized spelling, punctuation and grammar - but as I have said, university is a place for learning, not for punishing people who have not yet learned. If a student has got into a good university, it is very likely that student has aptitude. If they do not, they should not be there- and I am sure mistakes do happen, and students are kicked out sometimes. But often, a student at a good university will simply pick up the information they didn't learn before and overcome their problems. Or he or she will learn to work around them.

Worst case scenario, he or she will end up having to check dictionaries or google spellings all the time - annoying for the student, but hardly reason enough to kick them out, if they are genuinely good at their subject.

LeQ - what is 'wrong' with it? Is it incorrect? No. Could a more technical and precise term be used? Yes.

There is a difference between 'wrong' and 'imperfect', which I would submit is a difference of precisely the same kind and magnitude as the difference between 'alliteration' and 'starts with the same letter'.

I have said before that I do not think we are talking about large numbers of students here. However, yes, of course there are quite a lot of students with firsts whose SPAG are faulty (my brother has a first and his is shocking).

Why should a student who is better at the actual subject be knocked back in favour of a student who is worse, but good at SPAG? This is what I do not understand. Why not teach the student who is poor at SPAG how to use dictionaries, spellcheckers, how to proof read? Then they will be both good at the subject, and capable of producing readable work when needed.

I think if you prioritize 'good all rounders', you end up with mediocre people winning through, and that is plain inefficient, isn't it?

University is not there to give gold starts to people for being good all rounders. It is there so people can specialize in an academic subject.

LeQ - I don't have a problem with you using an imprecise term, I am simply pointing out that it's not a particularly awful thing to do, and doesn't impede understanding (which seems to be your problem with poor SPAG).

I am beginning to feel like a really pessimistic person. I came on here wanting to be supportive of students at university at the moment and now it feels as if I am saying they're all awful. They're not. But I think you do have a slightly rose-tinted view of the kind of knowledge and skill that most students have as standard.

It's a bit like sports though. Say you have someone who's been trained from birth to be a brilliant tennis player. And someone who's just knocked the ball around in the back garden. And the two seem pretty evenly matched. Well, of course, you train up the second one, the one who has the raw skills and can learn the rest, don't you?

I love seeing it when someone who has come up with some missing bits of knowledge, or who didn't learn quite as much at school as they should have done, suddenly realizes they're saying things that make sense, and things that are first-class material.

I don't think SPAG have anything much to do with specialization in English Lit. Sorry, but they don't.