Warnings at uni

[Wearywinnie]

My son has had 2 warnings over the past two years for poor attendance at uni. He has told me that if he gets a third they will kick him out. I am furious with him although he has been working much harder. Is it possible for him to get through another year without a single absence? Is it that simple? I don't know how the system works :(

Excellent motto, UptheChimney!

I much prefer 9am lectures to afternoons, we mostly have labs in the afternoon, for reasons that are lost in the mists of time. The other thing about pushing the day back is that most students work, often in the evening. Here most evening teaching is done to accommodate part time students who have day jobs, full time students are 9 - 5.

Excellent motto chimney!

Wanted to add that an echo to the others. We don't have a say in timetabling. It only takes into account size of class and size of room. Given that some modules are multidisciplinary as well, it would be difficult to schedule intro to psych that's taken by psych, econ, business students across 3 schools who will have a multitude of different timetables....

And lazy students will always be lazy... I had a class before Christmas which should have had 80 in. 8 turned up. It was a lecture, not even my module, but apparently the excuses were to do with some assignment due that day (really??) or trying to print out the assignment. Oh and of course it was Christmas too, so being the 16/12, they really needed to go home (whether home was Beijing or Basingstoke...I couldn't quite figure out...).

It's true. Good students don't usually have to wait in for the boiler to be fixed, miss the train, get fresher's flu, have GP appointments that can only be scheduled in teaching time, get food poisoning, have to look after their housemates, sleep through the alarm, forget what time the session is, have to dash home for family emergencies, get flat tyres.... it's funny, but they just don't.

I would say now that the dynamic at University has changed as you now pay a fee for a service rather than when I went and there was no fees and the state was funding it.

So when I went through they would be well within there rights to chuck you off as you would with any part of schooling.

I did feel for one guy though as he wanted to do sport but we had lectures everyday inc Wednesday afternoon and was given the blunt "its up to you what you believe is your priority"

Universities are not part of the service industry. THey are staffed by exceptionally talented, skilled, qualified people with a depth of expertise.

Students pay tuition fees for the opportunity to learn, and to study for a qualification. Better still, they are paying a tuition fee for the opportunity to undergo a testing, enriching concenytrated period of learning about their subject, about themselves, about the world. Von Humboldt called it a process of becoming fully oneself and fully human and the German word Bildung is really the best way to describe it.

Students are not buying hamburgers.

If it were like buying a bloody hamburger, the students would actually turn up to get what they're paying for. But it's not like buying a hamburger and many students do not turn up.

That's it! A bacon buttie for 9am lectures (lecturer included).

weary fwiw, I always email students after three absences and make them come and see me. It doesn't count as a 'written warning' as such.

It does sound like your son's attendance problems have been picked up though. But... In my experience universities are much more interested in looking after students than kicking them out. There is an awful lot of support out there if he is having problems/suffering from depression, but his personal tutor does have to know there's a problem. There are options for things like temporary withdrawal etc. one word of warning - some personal tutors are a bit crap/inexperienced. If this seems to be the case suggest he sees the senior tutor, or 1st/2nd/3rd year tutor.

As previous poster said, if he's submitting assessed work, and doing ok in terms of grades, this will be taken much more seriously than attendance.

My Ds says everyone turns up to everything on his course (except sometimes the lecturers!) even though there is mostly no register taken
UpTheChimney I think you are showing a lot of wishful thinking and need to move with the times.

Pressed post' too early.The students have sucessfully removed a don't-care lecturer earlier this year.

TooHasty -- care to explain your admonition that I "move with the times"?

I find it very hard to believe that everyone attends everything, toohasty in my experience that is never the case, even in compulsory lab courses there is always at least one student who contrives to do too little to pass, with no mitigating circumstances. I'm not sure how Upthechmney is behind the times, she is obviously, from the posts I see on here, an experienced, committed and engaged academic. She certainly hasn't said anything on here that doesn't reflect the reality in my institution. It is our job to guide and advise the students on their learning, but ultimately they are responsible for their own progress.

Going back to the OP's question - he needs to get through the next year without another warning, not without another absence.

He needs to start going to the things he's supposed to go to. All of them. Then if there's a disaster, he will have some slack available to avoid another warning.

If he treats it as "oh well I only need to go to 80%" so that's what he aims for, then yes he will be extremely lucky to get through a whole year without an unavoidable absence getting him another warning.

I have told him that he needs to go to the uni welfare people as well because I think he is a bit depressed which has caused him to lose all his motivation. He is talking about dropping out and coming back to it in a years time but I have said that he will still need to find that motivation and get himself to lectures and seminars and work hard. He has very average marks so far this year and feels he has already messed things up

Well, someone has to get 'average marks', otherwise there'd be no average! But if he's lacking in motivation, there could be an underlying illness (such as chronic depression). Or it could be just lack of motivation. In which case, I always advise students simply to turn up. Even if they say nothing in a seminar, they are there. And when they're there, one hopes they actually have the common sense to become more actively involved in their own learning. Because no-one else is going to do it for them ...

If the motivation really is deep seated, then it's better a student withdraws: stops the waste of resources: academic time & energy, and taxpayer's money funding the loans.

PS Thanks, chemenger -- I am sometimes guilty of caring more about my students' education than they do

Oh and if it is actual illness (such as depression) then yes yes, he really does need to see his tutor and student services. There's generally good help & understanding available for those who need it.

I suspect move with the times means something akin to 'pander to my offspring more because they've taken a loan out not actually paid anything at this point and feel they're owed a first'.

I taught a group of engaged and motivated students this week for the first time since I took up this post. It was an absolute joy. Then, this morning, I was back to 1/3 of a class of students with no motivation who are doing far less than the bare minimum asked of them. And an afternoon of very students crying over bad marks (or, as many of them were, angrily blaming us for their fail). It is of course easier to blame us lecturers than it is to acknowledge that you've done no work for 1.5 years and haven't yet realised that you need to both read research and write about it in your essays.

I'm sure the story they give their parents about their poor marks is very, very different to the reality.

She probably just means that it is all becoming a bit more market driven.

Most parents nag children to work hard. I've told my lot that they have to pass the first year with good marks or it is off to work they go.

A bit more market driven is a euphemism for 'I've (not yet) paid for this, so I'm owed a first' though.

Well I certainly don't think that. You have to work extremely hard to get a first & from what I remember only the hyper dedicated minority achieved it.

You might not believe it, but an alarming number of people do. It's very demoralising to work with large groups of people who genuinely think they're owed at least a 2:1, regardless how little work they put in.

Yesterday I had to listen to tens of students complaining about how the fail/third/2:2 they got for their essay (which they out almost no work into) might prevent them getting their 2:1. The fact that they have to earn a 2:1 doesn't seem to occur to them.

I can see why you get so fed up in that case.

Do they tend to get similar marks from year to year? So if a student does well in year one, does that tend to carry on?

Tend to improve, and yes, if promising in year 1 that tends to set the tone, IME.

However they do need to be aware that even an upward curve will have blips, and not get thrown into despair if a general trend toward the 2:i has the odd 2:ii in it!

I wonder how much this varies from University to University.

I met up with DS last night for a coffee and he was talking about having been in the library till 1.00am that morning. One of his friends was there till 3.00am and another was able to go straight to breakfast. I suspect in DS' case in part this reflects a teenage time clock, and he assures me that there are plenty who work much harder than he does, and that he is finding lots of time to do things he wants to do like play football, see films and hang out with friends. He says the pace is fast, much faster than A level. For example they covered much of the Further Maths FP2 syllabus in just two lectures. He is now talking about staying in his room over Easter so he can work in the library to make sure he is on top of everything, just coming home to visit.

I wonder whether there is a bit of an arms race in some Universities to deliver the best qualified graduates and thus help their international rankings. DH went to his Economics tutor's retirement dinner a week back, where the tutor complained that lots of technical Masters content had now found its way into UG degrees, squeezing out teaching of the more social/humanities elements.

If so I assume the pressure is on other Universities to ensure that the gap between them and those institutions pursuing world rankings does not become too great.

Its odd for me that DS is taking the same degree at the same place. Some things are the same, but a lot is different. Reflecting, I think, an awareness that it is a tough competitive world out there.

Not necessarily. Sometimes a student will do shockingly in first year, realise that they seriously need to up their game and go on to do really well. I've known a student who was getting marks in the 30s and 40s in first year through total lack of effort and attendance who went on to come top of their class (with nearly 200 students on the programme).

Many students struggle in first year because they just aren't getting the concepts. But at some point something clicks in their understanding and their marks improve radically. Critical thinking can be a tough thing to get your head around, and many students initially struggle when there is no single correct answer for them to learn and regurgitate.

Other times a student will start off with good marks in first year and see these steadily decline because they're coasting along and not improving as the work gets harder in subsequent years. There are also students who maintain very similar marks throughout their degree (good or bad).