Poor University Education

atypical

Reading most of the posts above I'm feeling quite spoon fed. The lecture material is sufficient enough to get a 1st without extra reading. When we're given assessments we are told with precision exactly what is expected from us, normally with details that can be over a page long, and lecturers will always clarify anything if asked (as long as it doesn't provide an unfair advantage).

Last year I was timetabled for 27 'contact' hours a week and assessed online tests/lab reports/essays/group projects/worksheets were always being set. I can see why those from other disciplines feel they get less value. But don't mistake that as meaning that I had an easy ride, it certainly wasn't easy!

Perhaps this will change as last year was my first year but I think it's just the nature of science courses compared to the humanities perhaps?

The_One_Who

There is no right or wrong answer in essay questions. You answer a question as you see fit, and construct and explain why you are formulating that argument. For one of my courses we are completely left to our own devices, we are in effect writing our own article on whatever we want to write about within the context of the course.

University is not for hand-holding or guidance about how to go about answering a question.

bestpud

atypical wrote: »

Reading most of the posts above I'm feeling quite spoon fed. The lecture material is sufficient enough to get a 1st without extra reading. When we're given assessments we are told with precision exactly what is expected from us, normally with details that can be over a page long, and lecturers will always clarify anything if asked (as long as it doesn't provide an unfair advantage).

Last year I was timetabled for 27 'contact' hours a week and assessed online tests/lab reports/essays/group projects/worksheets were always being set. I can see why those from other disciplines feel they get less value. But don't mistake that as meaning that I had an easy ride, it certainly wasn't easy!

Perhaps this will change as last year was my first year but I think it's just the nature of science courses compared to the humanities perhaps?

That has got to be an exaggeration surely?? :eek::eek::eek:

A first with no extra reading???

That can't be right?

Indie_Kid

furry_tractor wrote: »

The first year was a waste of time as it was nearly exactly what i did in A level (4 years earlier).

I did an access course last year and some of the stuff I covered in that, I'll cover in my first year. I'm not complaining - it allows to me to actually understand more than what I did first time around. (didn't understand some of the stuff I was taught last year at all)

Lectures are bare bones at best and i have to say i have pretty much had to teach myself a lot of the course.

Same here; but yet again, I'm not complaining. Like it has already been said - you are expected to do independant study I've had to teach myself some of the course so far too.

I'm only timetabled for 12 hours per week - I see no problem with this and got told by the programme leader that this is normal. We're expected to do 8-10 hours per week study per module - if the course was more hours per week, there'd be no way I'd be able to do the amount of studying required.

we were literally told the title and sent on our way to research the area (which again had not been done before so no-one knew how to do that either as it was our own research, not reading books that had to be done)

I received my first assignment a few weeks ago and had the same thing. It said in the handbook what is expected of us and I believe this week's lecture will be spent explaining what exactly we have to do.

atypical

bestpud wrote: »

That has got to be an exaggeration surely?? :eek::eek::eek:

A first with no extra reading???

That can't be right?

It wasn't for first year. The exams left little room for a person to add any extra knowledge in any case. Perhaps with 20 mark questions which are generally open ended you could be it wasn't necessary to achieve full marks, but the majority are short answer questions. With multiple choice tests it's impossible.

The aim is to check a person understands the concepts and the concepts are explained in lecture. If a person doesn't understand the way a lecturer has explained a concept they could supplement it with extra reading but books aren't generally of much use if you don't understand the fundamentals of the concept. It's much more useful to get someone who does understand it to explain it to you.

To take a crude example: if I want to teach myself a part of history for my own knowledge I can Wikipedia it e.g. Battle of the Bulge. With a concept such as NMR reading about it isn't sufficient to understand it. I think this is reflected in the fact that the sciences also have lab work.

Volcano

atypical wrote: »

The lecture material is sufficient enough to get a 1st without extra reading.

As mentioned, 1st year can be a doddle with much of it aimed around A level standard.

Perhaps this will change as last year was my first year

Oh hell, it certainly will........

bestpud

atypical wrote: »

It wasn't for first year. The exams left little room for a person to add any extra knowledge in any case. Perhaps with 20 mark questions which are generally open ended you could be it wasn't necessary to achieve full marks, but the majority are short answer questions. With multiple choice tests it's impossible.

The aim is to check a person understands the concepts and the concepts are explained in lecture. If a person doesn't understand the way a lecturer has explained a concept they could supplement it with extra reading but books aren't generally of much use if you don't understand the fundamentals of the concept. It's much more useful to get someone who does understand it to explain it to you.

To take a crude example: if I want to teach myself a part of history for my own knowledge I can Wikipedia it e.g. Battle of the Bulge. With a concept such as NMR reading about it isn't sufficient to understand it. I think this is reflected in the fact that the sciences also have lab work.

Ah right!

I thought you were suggesting you could graduate with a first!

atypical

My main point was that if the OP is doing a science then the amount of support s/he is getting doesn't seem acceptable.

It is expected that those doing sciences will do less further reading than those from humanities as more will be provided in lectures. Hence the increased contact hours and lab work.

Volcano wrote: »

Oh hell, it certainly will........

It hasn't so far, granted we're only roughly a month in.

Oldernotwiser

atypical wrote: »

Reading most of the posts above I'm feeling quite spoon fed. The lecture material is sufficient enough to get a 1st without extra reading. When we're given assessments we are told with precision exactly what is expected from us, normally with details that can be over a page long, and lecturers will always clarify anything if asked (as long as it doesn't provide an unfair advantage).

Now most of this would seem to me to be cause for complaint (apart from the last point) and to justify a comment about poor teaching!

Claire_Bear

It depends which course the OP is studying. I did English Lit at uni and we had a very small amount of contact time. Our lectures were to give us an idea of the historical context of the texts, and we were expected to put a lot of personal time into researching critical opinion. Our essay questions were very vague with a lot of room for exploring the texts and placing our own personal spin on them, after all, with lit, there is no absolute right or wrongs, you could literally write about anything as long as you had evidence to back up your claims. To say that no-one understands the question seems a bit odd to me, as most questions (in my experience) are very open-ended and open for interpretation. Although of course this will be different with different courses. However, if I ever needed it, I know there'd be someone I could talk to if I needed help, or wanted to complain. I had a personal tutor, school reps, course reps, welfare officers, lesson tutors, plus probably more if I looked. Can you not book a face-to-face appointment with your tutor? Ours had appointment sheets on their office doors where you put your name on an available slot, or you could just pop in to see them if they're free one day. Welfare officers are normally seperate from the university so if you're scared that it would cause any problems (not that I see that it would), you could go and talk to them about your concerns and your name wouldn't get back to your tutor or whatever.

Sorry, just realised I've been rambling on a bit there!