Who's at fault - student or lecturer?

somethingaboutshopping

Also, the materialistic attitude of those who think education is a consumer service makes me a little sad. If this really is the depth of your view on univeristy then I guess for you it hasn't worked one bit.

(I know this might sound very cheeky but it is only my little opinion).

xx

studentphil

melancholly wrote: »

as long as the students come and ask for extra help in office hours, the lecturer has to help. if a lecturer isn't available in their designated office hours, students should complain to their student representative who can bring it up in an official meeting. then the individual complaining isn't named.

there are systems in place to help students - but you have to work with the system rather than complaining outside of it.

i think poor teaching is a bad thing. however, there is a difference between a lecturer whose style doesn't work for a few individuals and a lecturer who should not be allowed to teach.

it just saddens me that the default reaction seems to be 'if i didn't get it, i wasn't taught properly'. i spent my first two years at university stuggling with the subjects i chose. other people walked out of the lectures understanding everything - i walked out without a clue! so i went to the library and worked - asked lecturers for what references i should look at to help me. i could have sat and whinged that i didn't get it, and that it wasn't my fault, but i was genuinely too embarassed to let on that i was doing worse than most of people on my course. it seems that if i was at uni now, i'd be in the minority!

Sadly lecturers don't have the time or any empathy to help people who are struggling and just look down on people who struggle and call them stupid. Therefore, people just get more and more unhappy and annoyed with the system. Most people do extra reading and much private study but this view that is expressed that if you are struggling that you are stupid does nothing to improve matters and just forgets some people do need for care and support than others.

studentphil

melancholly wrote: »

in the nicest possible way, you do seem to complain a lot, so perhaps they just don't listen to you?!
if an entire year rated a lecturer as bad, the university would act as it would really make them drop in the league tables. it might not be that they are acting for the 'right' reason - i.e. to keep teaching quality high - but they would still do something about it.

They don't listen to most people.

studentphil

somethingaboutshopping wrote: »

Also, the materialistic attitude of those who think education is a consumer service makes me a little sad. If this really is the depth of your view on univeristy then I guess for you it hasn't worked one bit.

(I know this might sound very cheeky but it is only my little opinion).

xx

I look at like this, you go to study at a university to be under the tutorage of lecturers and the university and they have a duty to care for their students and make sure they are okay and achieve.

melancholly

studentphil wrote: »

Sadly lecturers don't have the time or any empathy to help people who are struggling and just look down on people who struggle and call them stupid. Therefore, people just get more and more unhappy and annoyed with the system. Most people do extra reading and much private study but this view that is expressed that if you are struggling that you are stupid does nothing to improve matters and just forgets some people do need for care and support than others.

just FYI, the first RAE was 1986, and i managed to get through university, paying fees, without a demanding 'do everything for me attitude'. i wasn't lost or confused as a student, i just knew the different between personal and distributed responsibility!

i didn't ask for extra time from lecturers or for them to explain things to me - i asked for what i could read. and they gave it to me and it helped!

some people have to do badly at uni - everyone can't get a 2:1. if you cannot get enough information from your lectures to pass, then yes, why should the lecturers give up extra time - why for you over someone else who could use the time to get from 75% to 80% (who the lecturer would probably enjoy teaching more anyway!)? you can't give individual attention to only some students - that is what would be really unfair.

it isn't school, it's not about everyone getting the bare minimum passes - it's about stretching you. that is what makes university different from school.

studentphil

melancholly wrote: »

just FYI, the first RAE was 1986, and i managed to get through university, paying fees, without a demanding 'do everything for me attitude'. i wasn't lost or confused as a student, i just knew the different between personal and distributed responsibility!

i didn't ask for extra time from lecturers or for them to explain things to me - i asked for what i could read. and they gave it to me and it helped!

some people have to do badly at uni - everyone can't get a 2:1. if you cannot get enough information from your lectures to pass, then yes, why should the lecturers give up extra time - why for you over someone else who could use the time to get from 75% to 80% (who the lecturer would probably enjoy teaching more anyway!)? you can't give individual attention to only some students - that is what would be really unfair.

it isn't school, it's not about everyone getting the bare minimum passes - it's about stretching you. that is what makes university different from school.

Alright, no one is saying they should teach you everything and time is very limited to help students a vast amount. But I do think university is a very lonely place and very impersonal as no one has the time to get to know people and that means a lot of people end up very alienated and unhappy, which to me seems a very poor way to run a people centred business.

somethingaboutshopping

studentphil wrote: »

I look at like this, you go to study at a university to be under the tutorage of lecturers and the university and they have a duty to care for their students and make sure they are okay and achieve.

But how on earth can they make sure you "are okay and achieve"?

Who would decide when a refund is due and when its not?

The duty of care of a university is to make sure you are safe, warm, not reading by candle light etc, how on earth can it have a duty to make sure you acheive? And before you say it, same goes for a hospital, duty that you are safe, warm, it is not the duty of a doctor to stop you nipping outside for a quick cigarette.

The more I hear from people who essentially belong to the priveleged of the Western world, the more affluenza I come across (learnt that word all by myself while reading about compulsive buyer behaviour).

I don't know, maybe I am just lucky...

studentphil

somethingaboutshopping wrote: »

But how on earth can they make sure you "are okay and achieve"?

Who would decide when a refund is due and when its not?

The duty of care of a university is to make sure you are safe, warm, not reading by candle light etc, how on earth can it have a duty to make sure you acheive? And before you say it, same goes for a hospital, duty that you are safe, warm, it is not the duty of a doctor to stop you nipping outside for a quick cigarette.

The more I hear from people who essentially belong to the priveleged of the Western world, the more affluenza I come across (learnt that word all by myself while reading about compulsive buyer behaviour).

I don't know, maybe I am just lucky...

I was nearly driven to suicidal feelings during my studies(often thought how nice it would be to go out one day and just never come back) and even though I really hated it and I told people I was very unhappy no one took an interest because I was not failing the course.

Really that is all I would like to see universities do, namely, take an interest in their students and don't leave it until someone fails before you notice they need help.

I accept my bad emotional state was due to I didn't like the subject and I found I didn't fit in at university and i didn't like myself, but I think it would be better if university was more personal and you didn't have to fail before anyone would take your worries seriously.

melancholly

studentphil wrote: »

I was nearly driven to suicidal feelings during my studies(often thought how nice it would be to go out one day and just never come back) and even though I really hated it and I told people I was very unhappy no one took an interest because I was not failing the course.

Really that is all I would like to see universities do, namely, take an interest in their students and don't leave it until someone fails before you notice they need help.

I accept my bad emotional state was due to I didn't like the subject and I found I didn't fit in at university and i didn't like myself, but I think it would be better if university was more personal and you didn't have to fail before anyone would take your worries seriously.

and as you were told on here over and over again, it is not the responsibility of a lecturer for any given module to provide that support. you needed to speak to your disability support or student services or the university counselling service.

lecturers are not trained to be responsible for students dealing with personal problems like that - they are not qualified to do it, and besides, there are while teams of people who are there to do just that.

any lecturer who sees a whole group of students for 2 hours or so a week simply cannot be held accountable for this kind of thing.

you chose not to go down the correct avenues that were available to you. don't make out that universities don't care about any students because you didn't do what about 50 people on here recommended that you did.

bestpud

Studentphil - I was suicidal during my first year of uni. I became very depressed and, at one point, was hyperventilating at the mere thought of going in! Some of this was personal and some of it was the stress of fitting in assignments, reading and the demands of my family.

However, instead of spilling my woes onto an internet forum, I got off my bum and got help. Lots of us have issues but help does not arrive on a silver platter I'm afraid - we are adults after al and the uni cannot run our lives for us! I never saw it as the uni's job to hold my hand and get me through. I did find that when I was honest about how I was coping (or not!) that my personal tutor was excellent - he didn't do my work for me but he did listen and assure me he was there and there are systems in place if I needed more time with assignments. I also saw the uni counsellor - another service there for the taking but which won't land in your lap!

Recently, a tutor informed me a recent assignment was borderline and would have been a grade higher if it had a bit more theory. He apologised as he felt he had been a bit scant when covering theory in the lectures.

Personally, I was happy he said that because it was good to know what would have made it better, but I do not blame him at all for the lower grade. I believe, as a second year student, I should have known more theory was needed and indeed would have realised, had I not been having personal difficulties at the time (not as severe as in my first year but I had family difficulties at the end of my second year and struggled to get assignmnets done again.)

Basically, what I am saying is, lots of us have reason to sit and mope/complain/feel hard done by etc and lots of us struggle with the work, but that does not mean we should try and blame others. Help is there for those who access it with the aim of improving their situation.

Uni is not suited to everyone. Not so long ago, many such people would not have made it in, but with increasing access there will be more and more who are just not able to cope with the academic level required. There will also be many more who could do it, but don't want to make the effort! It's just sad that people feel they have to blame someone else rather than sit back and look properly at their own actions, and maybe just accept that they personally are not suited to this type of study!