University ups and downs

melancholly

realistically, no postgrad/lecturer/professor is going to know everything about every topic in the course off the top of their head! and i'm not helping demonstrate where i did my undergrad degree so i don't know what is covered in the lectures. the most commonly used piece of advice/response to questions is 'read the handout' because so so many students just don't bother.

i'm also quite old school in my approach because i think you should 'read for your degree' - the lectures/practicals etc are nice and helpful, but it's the individual self-motivated work that's needed.

i genuinely believe, phil, that if you invested half the amount of time you spend on here into proactively trying to access support or changing things then you would be doing so much better. ultimately, university is not school, it's the real world - if you're not particularly well suited to a job, they won't offer it to you and hold your hand while you do it, they'll give it to someone else. if the teaching methods at uni don't suit you, do buy a textbook, start meetings with friends/other students to support eachother (i would have failed my second year without having been involved in that), look on the web for lecture notes on the same topic from other unis etc etc etc. having an 'i'm a victim' mentality is not going to encourage anyone to help you! i know this sounds harsh, but there doesn't seem to be a single aspect of university that you're happy with..... well that's just what it's like! Please please try to make the best of the situation rather than finding a million other people to blame.... it's not a healthy way to deal with it all!

DrFluffy

studentphil wrote:

So you just get cheap underqualified staff then. That is a bit rubbish to say how much fees are.

Fees are a drop in the ocean compared to the actual cost of the education you receive...

studentphil

I am sorry but the books are so unreadable that is impossible to read for a degree and you do need teaching. I think I have been offered very little support at uni and so I think they have let me down to some degree.

studentphil

DrFluffy wrote:

Fees are a drop in the ocean compared to the actual cost of the education you receive...

Yes, well, I dont think teaching of 200:1 is very effective so still at the drop in the ocean fees the value of what you get is low.

aurora_borealis_2

I know!

Why not go and read a book?

pinkfluffybabe

You are the whingiest person in the whole wide world.

Go and take some responsibility for your own learning and stop blaming everyone else for your lack of knowledge.

Bear in mind that some postgraduate tutors are also there to learn themselves, particularly those who will move onto lecturing after their PhD. By supporting the undergraduates, they are getting the chance to do that.

studentphil

aurora_borealis wrote:

I know!

Why not go and read a book?

I have sat for hours nearly reduced to tears trying to understand articles, so less of the mocking comments please!

studentphil

pinkfluffybabe wrote:

You are the whingiest person in the whole wide world.

Go and take some responsibility for your own learning and stop blaming everyone else for your lack of knowledge.

Bear in mind that some postgraduate tutors are also there to learn themselves, particularly those who will move onto lecturing after their PhD. By supporting the undergraduates, they are getting the chance to do that.

I do take responsibilty and I have sat hours slaving over articles. And the fact uni has not done more to offer me more support and help does make them to blame a bit.

pinkfluffybabe

studentphil wrote:

I do take responsibilty and I have sat hours slaving over articles. And the fact uni has not done more to offer me more support and help does make them to blame a bit.

If you need support, ask for it, and then when it is made available, utilise it.

Heth_2

I'm a postgrad and for the last term, and for the one about to start, have been 'tutoring' the masters students maths course. The lectures are apparently pretty bad, but they are given by the maths department. Personally I put alot of effort into the teaching, of course I don't know everything, but I'm always happy to look up what I don't know and tell them in an email or the following week. Although I get paid about 25 pounds an hour for this, I've spent an extra hour with the students every week as one hour isn't enough, and usually spend several hours of my time looking through the work beforehand. I think postgraduates can do as good a job as lectures in some cases, as well as being closer to the students age which can often help, and also they remember the learning process they went through whereas for an old lecturer it might have been years since they were undergraduates. It is also good experience for the postgrads, afterall some of them will probably continue in academia, and how else are they going to get teaching experience? I had tutorials with a postgrad when I was doing my undergrad and she was an excellent tutor, and as helpfull as one of the older more experienced academic would have been. Plus she had only done the course herself a few years before so could relate to my problems much better than an older lecturer who had been teaching for decades.