Losing the will ....

[HungryAndBoredInNeedOfChocolat]

I am currently marking 1st year undergraduate essays. 63 down, 18 to go.

I am slowly losing the will to live (light hearted) ...

I appreciate that Jemima prefers clubbing to writing essays and that Oliver would rather hang about the student union smoking dope and listening to whatever music it is that undergrads listen to nowadays (yes I am feeling old!) than put any effort t ok into this latest assignment.

But ....

Do they appreciate that I actually have to plough through the 2000 words of drivel they have written while smashed or at the end of an all nighter?

Slowly slowly losing the will ......

Help me get through the final few ....

Oh dear! Please give some examples sounds strenuous yet comical in a way.

Surely you could mark Jemima's and Oliver's first. Leave Freya's to the end. She loves your course and is really committed to making a difference. Or something.

Oh I live for Freya! Unfortunately there is only 1, and 80 Oliva and Jemima's!

Well make sure Freya knows

Ooh- what degree course? 🍷might improve what you are reading!

Absolutely ScarletSahara! ... I'm thinking if they were on the booze while writing the flipping things, then if I'm on the booze while marking, I might see where they were coming from! :)

Preparing to don the wine goggles .....

HaHa Hungry- I like your reasoning! DH has just told me that one of his essays was marked with the comment “You are one of the most literate graduates. As a result I can tell you don’t know what you are talking about whereas with the others I haven’t a clue what they are on about”. Kind of a compliment!

oops that should have read students not graduates.

Scarlett - I wish I could write that without fearing losing my job!!! There's loads of comments I'd love to make! Especially to the students I know, and know have a sense of humour!!! (perhaps with the wine tonight I'll get brave and add in a few disguised jokes!!)

It's soul destroying. I've just finished correcting exams. I think small numbers like you have are nearly harder as they just expand to fill the available time and you feel worse because you should have finished them ages ago, whereas with big numbers (I have one course will with 500 students) you just get on with it. Soul destroying too but at least you go in to it expecting to go slowly insane.

500!!!???????????????? Oh my God! I actually think I really would lose the will at that point!! Or I would definitely start making inappropriate comments on the papers!!! I honestly couldn't do that many!! You r a saint!

I was going quietly (well, maybe not so quietly) insane. Wine helps though.

I just yell the inappropriate comments at the scripts. That way, the external examiner doesn't have to have me committed as she only sees the vaguely polite comments 😉

Thankfully, next year, my largest class is about 70.

This could explain why my daughter is disappointed by her course! She doesn't live on campus but at home, thus she doesn't socialise with anyone at Uni other than friends from her school, she's a non drinker and doesn't really like going out in the evening as it is. She is concerned she is finding the course too easy (all her marks for assignments, tests etc are easily enough for a 1st) as there really is not anywhere near as much work or effort required compared to A levels. She did go to an excellent school though, she says it has really helped to know how to construct essays, and answer questions properly - some of the people on her course are struggling with some aspects of 'how to' as well a stuggling with some of the content. Yet she still has masses of free time for her work, her hobbies and her voluntary stuff. She's worried she isn't doing enough because she has so much spare time, and she really thought it would be a lot harder and more time-consuming than school.

Do all your students submit sub-standard work as you say, HungryandBored, or do you have one or two who just knuckle down and get on with it and do well, or are the wasters in the minority, and you've exaggerated for this post because you are bored with marking?

I have maybe exaggerated slightly Ariela! I have some great students, but not enough! Out of my 80, I will have about 2 firsts. There will be between 8 and 20, '2.1's. Then there will be a whole bag of confusion and craziness from outright fail-by-miles! to some good highish 2.2s. Some students are v capable, but just don't work (because as was also the case in my day, uni is about far more than work! and for many, the work is bottom of the priority list!) but there are also a staggeringly large number of students who, although they might have the skills in some respects, simply CANNOT write!!!!! and that drives me to the edge!!! In quite a few essays I have no idea what the student is talking about (much like Scarlet mentioned about her husbands lecturer earlier!) and that is a chore! A reeeeeaaal chore! And there are also a massive amount of students whose work does not resemble the teaching in anyway! (why do I teach you if you write about something completely different and unrelated (and wrong) in your assignment?) were you not at the lectures??

Don't worry about your daughter, first year is quite easy on the whole, but she'll get a bit more challenged in subsequent years, and if she chooses to pursue a masters.

BTW, Ariela, for when the time comes for my DC, what school did your DD go to? It sounds good! I will need a good secondary very soon!!! Unlikely you r in the same neck of the woods as me, but would like to know what the good schools around the country are (there are way too many undergrads arriving at uni completely unprepared!)

I feel for your DD Ariela.

lol "were you not at the lectures?"....probably not

!!! MrsOprah! Exactly!