To ask if you work in a university have you noticed a recent change in student behaviour?

[0987ghj]

I graduated from university in 2019, and have now returned to study a different course. I've noticed a big difference in student behaviour and I wondered if it's something that university staff have also noticed or if it's just my course.

I'm hoping that this thread doesn't seem like I'm trying to slate current university students/gen Z. A few of the examples I've seen are from mature students, so I don't think it's generational/an age thing.

There's a lot of talking now during lectures, people just talking loudly whilst the lecturer is talking (not even whispering). It's pretty brazen and full on conversations, not just a quick question or comment, and really distracting. People are often late quite a lot, there's routinely a few students who are 40+ minutes late to a 2-hour lecture. I know there are some reasons people may be late such as childcare issues, or traffic or illnesses like IBS that make it hard to leave the house in the mornings so that might just be why, but it's a lot more lateness than I ever saw in my degree before. There would be the occasional person 5-10 minutes late, but not 40+ minutes.

People also start packing up and starting to leave before the lecturer has even finished talking. Our lectures always finish slightly early to allow time to walk to other lectures so there's not really any need for it. I don't remember this happening before, unless it was because the lecture had ran over and even then people would quietly/subtly pack up.

@MangosteenSoda in spite of not getting an extension DD managed to achieve a first for her dissertation, and a first overall. I know loads of people think a first is too easy to achieve these days, but DD worked extremely hard for her degree, not helped by struggling with CFS as well as covid.

Well done to your dd. A first is too easy to achieve these days and that is a total disservice to students like her. There is way too much focus on the poorer students and not enough on the good ones to my mind. It's all about retention and getting them through.

I’m in my 3rd of a nursing degree as a mature (30 year old) student, I do see some of this but not frequently I’ve been the student that’s had to leave a lecture early because I had to go and pick the kids up from nursery and funny enough the lecturer got a really bee in her bonet about it.

I hot a 7am bus from my local town to Dublin the other day that went through Limerick University at 7.45am and was packed with students. I asked one why everyone was so early and she said the next one got in at 8.45am and you couldn't always get to the lecture by 9am if it was a bit late. They are all communiting because there is no housing for them in Limerick. I was at uni in 1997 and we stopped having morning lectures because nobody turned up and we all lived within 3 miles of the uni. My experience is students are more dedicated than ever.

I wish I had a job like yours. The twenty somethings at mine work so long and hard and I get tired.

Thank you @OchonAgusOchonOh

Our mentors are regularly like this 😱😬🤯 when they deal with some of the students.

We even had one who said that she couldn't work in oncology because it was triggering - her grandmother had died of cancer when she was a child.

As much as I'd love to blame the Tories for everything, many of us in here grew up during the Thatcher years and mass unemployment, miners strikes etc and still managed to become a civilised human being. Mostly.

@daliesque yes. We've had that one. And with quality staff who couldn't be moved to oncology. For a similar reason.

Thank you all for the replies, I've really enjoyed reading them all.

One thing that's been mentioned that I've not really thought about is the number of students who now have mental health issues and support plans. Funnily enough I am now one of those students.

I studied a difficult undergraduate and master's degree in my early-mid 20s and definitely battled with anxiety during it, but I felt like there was no option but to press through it and try my hardest. I then started my first 'proper' job during COVID but the office was closed when I started and I found when it reopened I struggled to bond with my colleagues and just felt really isolated and struggled a lot with going from 100% homeworking to suddenly needing to travel abroad to meet clients, etc. My mental health significantly deteriorated from the experience, I ended up being diagnosed with anxiety and had to have a lot of support from my GP and employer's employee assistance programme.

I've had to declare I have anxiety to my university as it's a healthcare course, so not disclosing could get me in trouble later down the line. In a few weeks I have to have a 1-hour appointment with an occupational health nurse to check I'm suitable for the course and what adjustments I might need. I feel more resilient and mentally well now than I think I've felt in a long time, yet I'll still likely end up with a support plan in place.

@Toddlerteaplease I have to admit I find it really offensive personally because I am a cancer survivor. Many of our doctors and nurses on the unit have also had cancer, had partners, parents and grandparents with cancer....after all it's not exactly rare.

@0987ghj if you are able to manage your anxiety then you'll be fine. It's not that we don't want to help or be supportive, because do. But at the end of the day. We have a full workload of patients and a job to be done. And that has to come first, rather than trying to manage a student having an anxiety attack.

But don't forget, the current crop of uni students are products of Thatcher's children...

My students aren't and behave similarly to the ones in the UK being discussed here.

I have noticed a distinct decline in attitudes to teaching staff, and all 'public servants' since the early to mid 90s amongst teenagers. A lot of it does come from parents. The emphasis to them seems to be on the 'servants ' bit. I do think Thatcher's rhetoric about unions and the public sector contributed or even kickstarted a climate of entitlement.

Mostly, I blame the poor attention spans of the digital age, though. And the constant need to mainline branded coffee as part of consumer culture.

I can remember a few years ago that the head of the Royal College of Nursing said something to the effect that making nursing a degree-related career had been the worst thing that happened to it.

It meant that the course became flooded with academic types who saw it as a way to continue to get some sort of bursary to fund a degree that they would then use to move into other fields (often hospital management, I think). They didn't want to do the "grunt" work of nursing. They were more than happy to spend time in a lecture room, didn't want placements, and preferred not to interact with patients or relatives.

Meanwhile less academic people - who just wanted to look after those who were ill, and who accepted that emptying bed pans, mopping up vomit, and calming anxious patients and relatives was part of the job - often felt intimidated by the thought that they would be pushed onto a degree course that they didn't really want. They wanted to be on the wards, "doing" and weren't comfortable with the amount of studying involved. These people weren't stupid - they just preferred practical work to abstract learning. They liked to learn what to do and put it into practice and work with people - not spend 90% of their time in a lecture room.

The result IIRC, was that we were losing students and nurses who had empathy. Everyone will be educated to such a high level that they will consider themselves "too good" to do the messy jobs.

Everyone will want a job where they don't have to get their hands dirty. There will be no-one left who will be prepared to do actual nursing.

Yes and yes. Totally agree with all of this.

I have noticed a distinct decline in attitudes to teaching staff, and all 'public servants' since the early to mid 90s amongst teenagers. A lot of it does come from parents. The emphasis to them seems to be on the 'servants ' bit.

Yes, I've had this from parents sometimes at Open Days, for example. Makes me cross - I am expert, highly qualified & very experienced. Nobody's 'servant' - the students are lucky to have my colleagues & me teaching them.

Of course, most students (and their parents) are just ordinary, hard-ish working people trying to have a life. But there has been a kind of slow creep of increasingly fragile students, unprepared to do the difficult bits of learning.

Don't have much recent experience but have heard from friends that their children sometimes don't bother showing to lectures because they attendance not marked and they're recorded anyway so they choose as and when to watch. They will only turn up for the classes where the attendance is marked and work handed out (sorry forgot the name of these).

Perhaps because it’s a different department or field? I switched disciplines for my MA (just finished it) - what was tolerated on my MA was not tolerated on my degree course. There were people answering phones and having conversations on my MA. I would look at them and look at the lecturer in disbelief. I know the lecturers found it difficult because they don’t want to treat students like children. On my degree course they would come across and ask what the conversation was about if people were talking, say no phones and if someone was late they would be reprimanded if they did not have a good reason.

That is very odd. I went to Uni 2007-2010 and our lexturers were tough. If your were going to be 10mins late don't bother coming. Some of the lexturers loved 2 hrs from uni and were aboe to make it everyday on time. One had to take a ferry whoch could sometimes be cancelled due to bad weather but atill made it on time with planning ahead.

I have IBS and was really bad it that time and I was never late for uni. I just factored it in and woke up extra early. No excuse.
I also had a driend in my class with Chrones disease and she was never late. Few times no show as she was too sick or in hospital.

Basically this is crazy what they get away with now. Like why bother???

I know the lecturers found it difficult because they don’t want to treat students like children

If they behave like children they should be treated like children.

Totally agree.

It’s not just students it’s EVERYONE!

I am finding rudeness, lack of manners and hostility. People with their phones on loudspeaker speaking at volume in fine restaurants. Yesterday a lady turned up in slippers!! Proper slippers for dinner. Children half dressed for breakfast jumping up and down on chairs screaming.

People have stopped caring about anything but themselves.

It's not just recently, DH and I worked for over 30 years in the same university and there was a gradual deterioration in student behaviour and engagement over the last 15 years. It's one of the reasons that we both took early retirement in 2017 and I'm not surprised that it's deteriorated even further.
Students had a really rough deal during the pandemic though so I did feel for them during that time.

There were other reasons but that was the last straw to be honest.