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?

I agree about excelling in every area of the subject - but how does this tie in with your suggestion we prefer someone with a 2:1 who can spell over someone with a first who can't? That doesn't sound like excellence to me.

Well, because I specialize in actual English Lit, not the ancillary skills. TBH I don't think my SPAG are that bad, but they are certainly that bad when I'm writing exams in a hurry.

I'm sorry, but you do not seem to be understanding the point that English Literature degrees are not advanced training in SPAG. The aim is not to learn to spell more words than anyone else. The aim is to learn to read and respond to literature at a high level.

I wish I hadn't gone to uni. Well, not wish, but if I'd known how things were going to turn out I don't think I would've been so keen to toddle off into third level education.

I left my lovely little grammar school in 2007 and went into a bank to do cashiering during the period between exams and results. Got into my first choice of university, only to decide at the last minute that I did not want to spend four years in Aberdeen. I got into my (Russell Group) second choice to do geography. Plan B had been to apply for the permanent roles going at the bank I'd been working for, doing the same job. I purposefully decided I wasn't going to go down the ex-poly route.

Four years later, I've come out with a 2:1 (BSc). I've been lucky enough to get more experience in financial services, which I thought would stand me in good stead whatever I ended up doing. But I can't get a permanent role. I've applied for so many jobs it's hard to keep track. I watch my "you're" and "your"-s, my "their", "they're" and "there"-s, and my "two", "to" and "too"-s. And if in doubt I run it through bloody spellcheck! I love current affairs, I relate to people well, I'm keen to learn, blah blah blah. It's so depressing.

If I'd just gone into work from school, I wouldn't have this burden of debt, I would've built up more experience, maybe even been lucky enough to get a modest promotion before things went down the pan. For the moment I'm working as a Xmas temp in a shop, feeling as if my whole life is on hold until I can get a job with a salary, pension, dental scheme (well, a girl can dream), etc.

Poo.

Thanks.

(Not for me, a 2:1 and proud here, but on behalf of plenty of others who, had you seen their exam papers, would certainly fit your description).

Oh don't be so ridiculous. You cannot seriously believe that a person who knows exactly what is happening in a poem and can describe it all, is to be faulted for using simple terms and poor spelling/punctuation.

I know I am not being polite, but it is late and you seem to be taking great pleasure in insisting that English Lit is all about glorified SPAG, which is not entirely polite either.

Does it not occur to you for a moment that, just possibly, there might be more to this subject that what you found easy to learn at primary school? Does it not give you a tiny, tiny pause?

Dealer you are a lesson to me & my DSs. A university education is the be all & end all in my family, because I was the first one to do it.

I'd ask my boys if they really felt it was right for them as I feel degrees have been seriously undermined.

I watch my "you're" and "your"-s, my "their", "they're"

CraicDealer, I hope you're not actually using contractions such as you're and they're in formal letters. It looks bad: formal language is the way to go.

Haven't read all 22 pages of this, but it does annoy me when this debate goes on in the media as if it is the universities' fault that spelling and so on are poor. For years they've been doing as they're told and aiming to increase access. Surely we ought to be focusing on what is missing from school level education that leaves pupils unable to produce grammatical, properly-spelt writing?

Well, if it's true of keys ergo it must be true of poetry.

LeQueen, I know that these tools are useful. But that are names for concepts that already exist, aren't they? People have been using iambic pentameter, or assonance, for much longer than they've been using those terms. Why does it matter so much that they use the terms?

eighties - yes, I think we can all agree on that one!

Dear Nineteen Eighty,

I have not written a formal letter in approximately five years because printing them is such an horrific pain in the bottom.

I remain

Sincerely yours

Spermy

XX

Btw - and this is my last post as I'm sleepy, even though it is an interesting debate - I think part of the problem here, LeQ, is that you are assuming that a lack of knowledge in one area must be matched by other, similar lacks inn other areas. So that someone who can't spell, must also be ignorant of grammar, and someone who can't punctuate, will also be the kind of person who doesn't know a Shakespearean sonnet from a limerick. But I think we can discount people like this, because people whose knowledge is generally lacking, generally do not get to university or do not do well there if they do.

The kind of people who do well despite not being the 'good all rounders' you describe, tend not to be generally ignorant. They have littlle islands of missing knowledge.

Erm, do the graduates not go on to teach & compound these errors? My son's teacher is more interested in her nails than anything else & would struggle to recognise an adverb if it hit her roundly in the face.

A1980, don't worry, being able to tailor information in order to present it to different audiences effectively is just one of my many attributes Unfortunately, no-one seems to give two hoots.

Spermy, one of the reasons I didn't go on to do a PGCE after uni was that I just don't feel qualified to do it! But then I see Facebook updates from the 30% of my year from university who went on to do a teaching certificate and I just want to take a red pen to them.

spermy - that sounds pretty crap for your son.

I would hope an 18-year-old who went to university needing to learn, would actually learn. I mean, they have three years of teaching plus a PGCE.

I suppose it also depends on what kind of errors we're talking. If your spelling is shaky, you ought to be able to check someone else's work so long as you know where you're liable to make mistakes. If you know you misuse semicolons, you look it up every time. If you're more interested in your nails than your class, you get out of teaching.

LeQ - when you can show that spelling is more than an ancilliary skill, you'll have a point. What you are currently doing is saying 'I define 'necessary skills' thus-and-so. And now I prove that thus-and-so are necessary skills by reference to my definition'. You keep saying that these skils are terribly important, but when I ask how, you only say 'how can you understand literature without them, I have defined them as necessary and would not accept a student without them'. Well, maybe. But does that mean other academics are wrong when they do accept students who lack these skills? Does it mean that the current rules about allowance for dyslexic students are wrong? Does it mean my work, and the work of my peers who are similar, is some kind of statistical anomaly? Maybe so. If that's what you're arguing, fair enough. But I can't be very convinced by it when you don't seem to have an answer to why.