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

Most people do realise admin does not = lecturers dont they?I have no control over timetabling etc.

See i think this is where there's a difference, asking about the water cooler is ridiculous, but if the vast majority of the class have no idea what he's talking about then I don't think it is necessarily better to just accept it and ask students who probably don't know either to explain it. Especially nowadays that people are paying loads of money to learn. I know, I know, outside reading etc but if someone's not being clear at all then maybe they're not aware that their students are not getting it and telling them so can help both. Otherwise what is the point of oaying for lectures when you may as well have a totally book-based course.

And yes we do, but we are talking about university students whining a lot, and the poor admin is one of the issues.

I work for a major University, dealing with complaints. I reckon I have the safest job in the sector...

@ohtobe Yes totally. But giving marks back is not ness admin? or is it at your uni?

I am really surprised at how little contact DS has with anyone in his Dept. He did once ask for a copy of some notes as he'd had surgery and couldn't attend a lecture. Was given a very sarcastic response, which I thought was well out of order. Aren't lecturers supposed to help students at all, other than give lectures?

Yes, it has an impact as admin and the print room is responsible for downloading the coursework fro the module space etc and logging into the system. We might not get the coursework until 2 weeks after submission. Then there is the moderating and photocopying pieces for the exam packs and external examiners.

aribura - Yes we should have said we didn't understand it. But the point was that there was a very different power balance then and students wrre much more likely to just accept what happened.

I only graduated 4 years ago & I don't think most people were even like this then! OP I agree if students are like this it seems weird & quite immature, why can't they just get on with it

Must be a different breed. When I went, I would never have dared complain to a lecturer (although moaned about many behind their backs!) You took notes, did your own study, sat the exams at the end and passed or failed!

We have work-experience at our work, and they can't seem to take initiative for anything- if you want them to carry out a simple task (say, sweep a floor) you need to talk them through it and explain every aspect. I find it very frustrating. I'm sure that as children (and young adults) have more and more done for them, they become less and less able to do things independantly (at least that's my excuse for making my 8, 6 and 4 yo's do the jobs I hate basic housework )

Out of 4 years I only worked hard in the last one and came out with a 2.1. This was in the 90s.

Nearly everyone was there for fun, the work was purely incidental. I think students today seem far more switched on, hard working and motivated in general.

I am well past university and graduated 10 years ago. I stopped going to certain lectures in my 2nd year because I had to sit on the floor. Only one of the lecturers was able to build a relationship with the class. Half the time we couldn't hear what was going on if we were sat in the back half of the lecture hall. It couldn't have been easy for the lecturer to stand infront of a sea of students (around 200+ students in some lectures but the average was 100).

Since moving to the US and going to community college to get accounting credits I was suprised to see the difference a smaller lecture size made. For accounting classes the max number in a class was 45 and I had to do a management course where the max was 60. The lecturer wasn't happy with the rapport with the class so he split us in two. The difference was incredible and I got so much more from the class. I paid a lot more for my community college classes but I also learnt more. I would also comment that I don't think A'Levels promote independent thought now. It is all about learn and churn. I remember my six form tutor taking us to the library and showing us how to read around a subject area. If my teacher hadn't shown me I wouldn't have known how to navigate the huge university library which initally intimidated me.

I think people forget what it was like to be young and know nothing. Or not very much anyway. What I do remember is that older people made similarly disparaging comments about my generation. I'm sure old people were doing this in the stone age.

AIBU to think that my lecturer could have given the seminar preparation (the list of reading/questions to initiate discussion) for my seminar at 9am this morning to my seminar group at some point before 8pm on Wednesday? It works both ways.

I'm a final year student and have recently been having meetings with my head of department because there are massive failings on the course and everyone was bitching about it. I emailed him and requested a meeting so that, rather than lecturers/tutors and students all being unhappy we could actually try and be proactive about it. He was a bit at first but now he is totally on board and very apologetic about things that should have been tackled a long time ago. If that makes me a moaning pita then sorry, but I don't really care because we ARE paying and we do deserve a basic level of respect.

If a lecturer doesn't post something a week before I wouldn't dream of complaining (2 or 3 months later I'm still waiting, but still no complaining) but in return I expect a bit of respect from them and acknowledgement that their module isn't the only thing I'm doing with my year.

My earlier example of my seminar prep being distributed about 36 hours has happened ALL year. The seminar notes are, generally, the same as last year's (nothing has happened that needs to be updated) and they are computer documents. The lecturer could have posted them online in September and then just added additional materials as and when they arose. Instead I didn't even know what this week's topic was so there was literally nothing I could have done in terms of preparation. I want to email and ask him to be a bit more efficient but I'm very aware that he has a lot on, so I don't. I suck it up. But it pisses me off and makes me less inclined to make any effort at all for his seminars because he doesn't seem to care much.

But for stuff like water coolers, YANBU.

I find the more organised you are and the more you spoon feed, the more (my) students want and complain. Just my experience. I actually have a highly organised module (well I have 6 but the one Im thinking of...)

Can I just ask a general question from interest? Why do students need lecture notes ahead of lectures at all? We just turned up and got what was lectured on the day and took our own notes. No powerpoint existed then, just chalk and talk. OHTs. I actually think we took better notes that way.

You see when I went to uni we didn't have lecture notes or seminar prep notes. You turned up at the lecture and if it was good, furiously scribbled notes. At seminars the tutor told you the question or topic for next time and you chose yourself, with the help of the course reading list, what you read.

And if you weren't at the seminar to get question for next one, you were expected to get it from a student who did go.

So actually it was very different and set up very different expectations.

I don't expect to be spoon fed, but my weekly two hour seminar is the only contact time we get with the professor who runs the module and there's no point in turning up just for everyone to sit in silence. If he said "next week the topic is X. I'll send the materials in 5 days but in the meantime if you want to go to the library feel free to do some background reading" I'd happily do it. I just think it's unreasonable to expect us to process the information enough to have an informed discussion about it. If it is a tutorial following up from a lecture then fair enough, but it isn't, it's the first time we see any of the content.

Do you find first years the least complain-y, or the most?

ohto - I actually agree with you generally, and I think some students want the notes in advance so they feel they don't have to turn up! But others may be like me - I have a partial hearing impairment and simply never went to a single lecture at university because I couldn't follow them (let alone take notes). If I'd had notes in advance, I'd have been able to follow what the lecturer was saying and only need to write down 'extra' notes.

I am doing a PhD now and am in awe of how much better provision there is for students with disabilities of all sorts now. It never even occurred to me 20 years ago to think that anyone should be helping me overcome these things.

Nomoreinsomnia, I don't think most people are criticizing the students as such, more that the different in systems between university teaching in the 80's/early 90's and now is very pronounced and this has lead to different behaviour by both students and tutors. When I was at university, there were far fewer students, I had a much more personal relationship with my tutors, but in return I was highly independent and the system encouraged that (there WAS no email with which to pester your tutors). Now, there are large classes (although usually capped at a certain number) and much more structuring of courses/material/lectures, to the point where this appear to be decreasing the independence of students.

Of course, there has always been crappy administrators (though most I know are great), a few complaining students, and staff who don't do as much as they can (although these days it is unlikely that they are being lazy as we are constantly monitored on student satisfaction with our own personal modules so if we are crap,there is a feedback mechanism, and our failure would be circulated to all the other members of staff). But the system has changed a very large amount, and the question is whether either staff or students or the country at large have benefitted from this.

YABU, because you don't mention the fact that you were pretty much guaranteed a job after completing your free, grant-funded degree, whereas now they will probably be straight onto the dole with £30000 debt. No wonder they are stressed! Though ones I've taught recently seem to all be the rich kids who are really not bright enough to be doing a degree (even in 'sports science', ffs) anyway, so aren't that stressed. If you're teaching intelligent ones who are not parent-funded then you should have a bit of sympathy, poor sods.

RedRiding, this is one area that has massively improved IMO, if you were on my course, I would know about your situation, and have a list of things to do in relation to it (e.g. send materials in advance, be available in person, whatever made it easier for you to learn).

The problem with producing lovely powerpoints every time, some with notes, is that students either don't attend, why do they need to to take notes when they are provided, or they can fail to engage with the material, it's just in front of them and they don't have to understand it as you would if you made notes. I do notice a lack of depth in many of my students' writing which is distressing given they all have high grades at A level (well, let's not even go into grade inflation).

We don't need lecture notes. I personally prefer a lecturer who just speaks and just writes up key points/important words which might be incorrectly spelled. BUT if you are going to use lecture notes then it is frustrating not knowing when to expect them.

The best lecturers I've had use a powerpoint but only with maybe 2 bullet points per slide, and just a handful of slides for an hour lecture. It's enough that if the lecturer is boring or you get lost you can find your place, but not so much that it's pointless going to the lecture. If you regularly post detailed lecture notes ready for downloading then I'm amazed people stay in your lectures.

Ah those were the days - the only work I had to produce in my degree was one short essay and a calculation ... over three years. And the lecturer for one subject couldn't be bothered to give tutorials so got us to write a dissertation instead (which was never returned and didn't count towards final degree marks).
My first personal tutor was a known wife beater, the second was an alcoholic.
This was a 1994 group university back in the 1970s studying a mainstream subject.

On my course in particular we have to have 'group discussions' and 'seminars' and 'group works' constantly within the lectures so you are supposed to have read things/case studies in advance to be able to have things to discuss. I don't think we particularly need the powerpoint in advance though.
The first time I went to uni I went at 18 so had nothing to do but uni and clubbing. Now, as a single mum with two pre-school dd's I can appreciate how having things posted earlier is so much better as I don't have time to read tons only two days before.
BUT people do seem to moan a lot at uni - most of it about rubbish. The only time I've ever agreed with them is about the shocking admin which has been a total shambles for the past 4.5 years... but that's not the lecturers problem and certainly shouldn't be passed on to them.