To think Uni students are a right moaning pita compared to when I went

[ohtobemoanproof]

Im a lecturer.

When I went to University-we went to the lectures, took notes from the board or overheads, went home, studied, did the exams etc, got our marks whenever they were ready and went away. No bothering the lecturers ( ever), no having their emails and demanding appointments, no arguing the toss over coursework marks, no moaning and complaining.

Now, I feel almost "bullied" by some of the students (not high fee payers, in fact some are on a bursary). They constantly moan (about everything, not just me in case anyone suggests its my module leadership in question), are always at the door, send email critiques about the quality of highly appraised visiting expert speakers, threaten to sue if coursework is returned a day later than you suggest it will be back, blame the lecturer if they get lower marks than expected, demand formal public apologies if they dont receive central messages about "one off" timetable changes, bitch if lecture notes aren't on module spaces a week before the lecture is held...it goes on. Bloody nightmare.

Aibu to think this is a new breed and we just weren't like that "in my day".

sniffs and has some more gin

cory - I am the same age as you and interesting to read " like all my colleagues of a similar age have seen my role change considerably over the last 10 years".

I think I used to teach just down the road from where you are now but the approach you are using is likely the one I wil try and take in future. You sound like your dept backs you up well too.

These issues were just creeping in when I last lectured 10 yeras ago - I caught a student cheating in an assignment (absolute incontrovertible proof) but the Uni basically made it clear they were not interested unless 'I' was prepared to raise the issue and then 'I' would be expected to give evidence and even then it would be my career at stake if he made a counterclaim .... you get the drift.

Basically the student was an MSc student from a rich family (overseas) paying a fortune for his qialification and no one was going to put their head above the parapet because they knew the Uni would never back them up.

It's not all the students fault though ,my ds has been told that he writes in too sophisticated a style for A level ,he has been told that 'original thought is great but it doesn't get you the marks because it's not on the examiners mark scheme,' and if you want an A stick religiously to the marking scheme and the syllabus ,to the point where they download the syllabus from the exam board website and use it as a tick list,how discouraging is that and we are talking humanities subjects here.

Luckily his school encourage a lot of thinking outside the curriculum and give opportunities for this but they are also clear about what you need to do to get that magic A and admit that as teachers it can be pretty soul destroying let alone for the students.

My ds has just resat a paper where we got the original back ,sure enough he was marked down for not using key words and phrases,he has resat and used the set phrases etc that are being looked for but after years of training in this sort of stuff it is hard to relearn things at University level.He is desperate for more freedom of thought but may need help to make the transition