To expect university students to engage with their studies?

[PissedOffProf]

User name changed because I don't want to totally out myself.

I am a lecturer in a management department at a mid-level UK university. I have tons of experience in teaching, love my job, am nice to students and go out of my way to help them with their learning.

Increasingly, however, I am faced with classrooms of blank faces. Students who clearly have zero interest in their studies. Students who never prepare for their tutorials and have nothing to say. Students who are disruptive in class. Students who watch videos on their phones or do online shopping instead of engaging in classroom activities. Students who do not seem to have any respect for each other as they ignore the others when they speak. Students who, in the end, deliver mediocre work with zero critical thinking or creativity.

AIBU to ask why people decide to get tens of thousands of pounds in debt to spend three years of their lives being bored to death?

If the students do not do the work nor attend lectures, why are they not booted out?

One professor would say things like, "once you've read Dostoevsky, your lives will never be the same again...",

If I said that to my students (arts subject) nowadays, I would be called "arrogant" or exclusionary.

I once got the comment in an end of module student questionnaire that "She kept on talking about books we hadn't read."

Um yes, this is my job. I was exhorting them to read Virginia Woolf. For fun, for pleasure, because she's a great writer, and heave forfend - they might learn something.

I love love love teaching, but some students nowadays are entitled twats. I once had a student asking to swap his dissertation tutor (not me) because "I can't learn from someone who doesn't like me" - it's all about their feelings.

As if a tutor has the desire, time, or energy to "like" or "dislike" students.

I worry about how some of them will survive in the workplace - employers beware!

But if you go over to the HE forum here on MN, you will see some of the reason for why undergrads are the way they are. There's a huge dollop of contempt for university tutors mixed with ignorance about what we do amongst some parents.

It does seem ridiculous that with Brexit most employers are worried about a skills shortage but we are sending close to 50% of young adults to university But the country is still left with a skills shortage. The government should concentrate on funding the degree courses which the country needs so we are not reliant on foreign workers. There should be quotas for subjects and removing the recruitment cap on universities has contributed to the mess we’re in with up to 50% unconditional offers by some places. My other concern is up 50% of student loans will never be repaid so it will be us taxpayers who will end up footing the bill for all these Mickey Mouse courses at these “Unis”

And

BRAVA to chemenger btw

I seldom venture on to the HE board now, although that was what first drew me into MN. The parents there who have had a couple of children apply through UCAS know so much more than me that I feel there is nothing I can contribute. It’s the only place in MN that I’ve been accused of flat out lying, when I described the recruitment and selection process in the department I’ve spent a quarter of a century contributing to.

It's been a few years since I was at uni (12!) so feel free to ignore me. I started my course age 21 and I had chosen a subject I was interested in and wanted a career of. However, the method of teaching was completely different to high school. At high school we were spoon fed, any ideas and critical thinking had been crushed out of us in primary school. It is all about passing exams. No scope for exploring around a subject or showing an interest, the curriculum was king.
At uni from the first week we were expected to come up with ideas for projects with no training or knowledge of how to do that. Some initial coaching on generating ideas, being able to be be creative would have worked wonders.
That may just be me though.
Most of my peers went to uni just because it was expected of them and they didn't want to get a job. They had no life experience to draw upon whereas I had spent several years working in low paid jobs from age 16 and was therefore motivated to do well.
Perhaps some of you lecturers could spend a few days observing a high school class to see what level of robotic learning you're up against?

@corythatwas I think whether students are unwilling to work or not does depend on the university. I have worked for several different types of university and there is definitely a very big difference in the attitudes of students. In my current post-92, it definitely is that the students think any expectation that they should work is unreasonable. Students who have prepared for classes are made to feel bad by their peer group to the extent that they actually pretend they haven’t done the reading. And many students get really quite angry at the suggestion that being able to figure out what the question is asking is part of the assessment. And senior management do respond to that by telling us to basically tell them the answer, how to write that answer and exactly what to read.

When I worked at other universities my experience was much more like what you describe. Friends working at universities with very high entry requirements tell me that the levels of anxiety and competition between students to be working harder than anyone else (because they are terrified they won’t do well) is really getting out of hand.

Weird that posted twice hours apart.

@crustaceans and @corythatwas It seems that's the way. I've not worked in as many institutions but I imagine places that are harder to get into in the first place are less likely to be filled with people who want their nappies changed 24/7.

I think many universities now are at the mercy of the 'student voice' and the dreaded NSS that they feel the need to pander to all 'complaints' no matter how ridiculous. And they will still complain if they don't get a first class degree without putting the work in.

the dreaded NSS that they feel the need to pander to all 'complaints' no matter how ridiculous

Oh god, the NSS. That hell is just about to start in my dept. I dread it every year. It's a completely pointless exercise that, without fail, reduces at least one of my colleagues to tears and never, ever solves any actual issues.

I agree with every word in chemenger's first post.

My favourite student demand is 'I need to get a first for this'.

Well, sweetheart, that's fine. Just consistently submit work that meets the criteria for a first and we'll all be golden, won't we?

Oh, sorry. You mean that you want me to give you a first whether or not you're capable of reaching that standard? Even if you don't bother attending the seminars or doing the reading? Even if you wouldn't know critical analysis if it bit you on the arse? Just because you've told me you want one?

Yeah, no. That's not how this works. Sorry. Feel free to rant about my 'unfair marking' and 'shoddy teaching' in the NSS, though

I think it's mostly down to the fact it's become very difficult to get a well paid, reasonably interesting job without a degree

It's not always the case. In my department there's a pretty equal split between graduates and those who went straight to work at 18. The Director and senior management team are all in the latter camp. I don't have a degree and earn either the same or more than peers who did graduate and who do the same job as me. I had to work hard and do some strategic moves into new roles and firms to increase my market value, to catch up the graduates who started on higher entry salaries than I did - but it is possible.

@UnnecessaryFennel we get pressure from the powers above to stop them complaining. If they don't like the assessment, be altered it must.

CBHE. College based higher education. Aka HE in a FE setting or similar. You are expected to deliver HE while subject to rules that were invented for FE. It's better now but we had to argue for not removing phones from students at the classroom door, allowing them to use non timetabled periods as they wished instead of in supervised "tutorials", not making them go to healthy eating workshops, awareness days etc. Still the expectation is 24 hours a week contact time plus all the planning, marking, CPD, course marketing, outreach events, networking etc that goes with it. For £29k a year. Not really the kings ransom that people assume, though I accept it's not minimum wage.

WE have no need for almost 50% of the population to have a degree.

50% of the population are not suitable for a degree.

If we insist that 50% of the population 'gets' a degree, then we will have situations described by the lecturers on this thread.

Some of those numclucks that lecturers have described will one day end up being your doctor; the person who stress tests the bridge you drive over; your child's teacher; your social worker.

On the flip side DS is a second year student. He has become very disappointed with his course as there seems to be very little challenge or depth. He is not an academic high flyer but he wants to do well. He had to work harder for his GCSEs than this degree and that can’t be right.

When I say he wants to do well I mean he wants to really learn new skills on tne course that will help him move forward in a career. So far it’s not much more than what he did at A level.

The parents there who have had a couple of children apply through UCAS know so much more than me that I feel there is nothing I can contribute. It’s the only place in MN that I’ve been accused of flat out lying, when I described the recruitment and selection process in the department I’ve spent a quarter of a century contributing to.

Yes. Similar experience here too.

And parents who see UCAS applications as some sort of game that they need to win.

If the students do not do the work nor attend lectures, why are they not booted out?

I can think of about 9,000 reasons why.

aconcert no they won't! Have you any idea how competitive medicine still is? And how few universities offer it? You are only getting into medicine if you exceptionally academic and can demonstrate at interview that you have the potential for a career in medicine.
An increase in people going to university doesn't mean standards are slipping across the board.

Its widely accepted within the sector that the 50% target is unachievable.

I teach dull, unresponsive A level students and spend my life trying to get them to engage with the subject. I do spend a lot of my time teaching to the test too, because not to do so is grade suicide.

I'm starting to be thankful that at least some of my students DO work and don't expect the grades to be handed to them on a plate.

I graduated six years ago, and I studied a subject I loved. I couldn't wait to go to university, I thought it was this wonderful place of debate and mental expansion and intense young people chewing over the issues of the day, and and... You get the idea.

It was nothing of the sort. I went to a school where you were laughed at if you put your hand up in class, and university was more of the same. Most tutorials consisted of me and one other student actually engaging with the tutor, the rest sat there like Jack Wills beclad zombies. Some of the lectures were dire, some were amazing, but none of them went on for long enough, in my opinion. Contact time was minimal, and sometimes the lecturer would just not turn up, ever, for most of the module. This was an RG university. We just skimmed the surface of everything. You could see that half the students couldn't be bothered, and half the staff were hobbled by the laws passed down from on high. It was an underwhelming experience. I come from a working class family full of clever people who were forced to leave school at 14, and I'm proud to have my degree, but if I had my time again, I'm not sure I'd bother.

This is how my son is feeling Millenial.

I graduated back in October from a three year, full time degree. I was 40 when I started my studies.

University was nothing like I expected. It was sold to me on the basis of one full day and two half days in uni, and I planned to work the rest of the time. In fact, I was in uni most days to use the facilities and during the last year, I rarely took a day off at all (even on the weekends).

Having worked, I know the true value of money. Leaving uni with over £40k worth of debt, I took the view that if someone had handed me that cash, it would be a life changing sum of money and therefore I needed my degree to have a life changing impact upon me. I was really hungry for my education and passionate about my subject, and worked my socks off for my first.

However, we had around 50% of the original year group drop out over the three years. Many students had to be spoon-fed everything. Very few of the students could be bothered to research properly and most of them just wanted to engage with the practical elements of the course, rather than the contextual studies and dissertation. Most of them were used to having their parents involved in every element of their lives, and were lazy and unmotivated as a result. It was a real eye opener for me.

At the same time, my own child was at uni too. We enforced a gap year before they went off to uni so that they could get a job and save towards uni expenses, but also so that they learned the value of money, how hard it is to earn it and to also become more independent and self reliant. My child worked damn hard at their degree, and were passionate about their chosen subject. They refused to take a single penny from us whilst they studied, instead choosing to hold down a part time job. Their work ethic really surprised me and I'm immensely proud of their achievements.

FunkyKingston Sun 03-Feb-19 10:15:02
If the students do not do the work nor attend lectures, why are they not booted out?

I can think of about 9,000 reasons why.

I find that depressing I thought if a student was not working at the end of the first year they were booted out. That would save their parents and them a lot of money and grief.

Are there no longer end of year exams that you had to pass to continue???