I did a degree as a mature student finished it 4 years ago, treated the thing like a job and found it pretty simple to be honest just had to be disciplined. Got a 2:1 which I was chuffed with.
Funny about the masters comments, the one masters course I had anything to do with was just utter bobbins, quite shockingly so.
They do a masters version of our course - contains less that the undergrad course does and teaches none of it in any more depth.
our children are smarter than us, just as we are smarter than our parents.
Or maybe they're just better at passing IQ tests which are very much disputed as a measure of true intelligence or smartness as you call it.
There is a huge difference between Degrees which are required to do a certain job (such as law/Engineering/proper sciences/medicine) and degrees which are a standard of education (mosts arts/humanities/etc)
The level of effort required to get a 2:2 in a 'soft' subject is tiny compared with the effort you have to put in to get a 1st in a 'tough' subject.
...I got a first in an Engineering/design Technology BSc 6 years ago, and worked my arse off!
The level of effort required to get a 2:2in a 'soft' subjectis tiny compared with the effort you have to put in to get a 1stin a 'tough' subject.
^^^yep, that aswell ;o)
According to my niece and nephew who are currently at secondary schools, there are plenty of spoon feeding at GCSE & A level ... practically marks are given away for free when internal markings are involved. I think I overheard them saying 30% were internally mark. Crikey ... no wonder everyone gets A for all subjects.
I propose the grading to:
A
A*
A**
A***
That will learn you ...
Oh ya few of me mates are teaching at the Uni level and were instructed to use wide range of marks you would not see in the past (20 or 30 years ago) for written essays i.e. as high as 80% ... they couldn't say no or they will not get their contract renew.
The rule of thumb is to downgrade by one degree classification or minus 10% to roughly gets the true marks.
One of me mate did not get his PT contract renewed because he told the student off for coming up with mickey mouse solution. That student did not like it and made a formal complain ... yes, they are customers now.
CaptJon - MemberThe level of effort required to get a 2:2
in a 'soft' subjectis tiny compared with the effort you have to put in to get a 1stin a 'tough' subject.
If you apply the same standard you will not be in employment long unless you have plenty of funding according to me mates.
according to me mates
But a bloke down the pub told me the opposite!
Whoyagonnabelieve?
One of me mate did not get his PT contract renewed because he told the student off for coming up with mickey mouse solution
If indeed he did 'tell a student off' then it's quite right his contract was not renewed.
Spin - MemberBut a bloke down the pub told me the opposite!
Whoyagonnabelieve?
The guy at the pub is probably right when he is drunk.
I guess me mates are moonlighting as some sort of experts teaching at Unis ...
Spin - MemberIf indeed he did 'tell a student off' then it's quite right his contract was not renewed.
According to him he kind of gave them the solution or guided them to the solution but one of them insisted on getting the whole solution but he refused, so told the student off for not trying or something like that ... not swearing or indicating the student was shite or something.
chewkw - i dont believe you have any intelligent mates - you can't even use the word "me" correctly. My my my.
Surrounded By Zulus - Memberchewkw - i dont believe you have any intelligent mates - you can't even use the word "me" correctly. My my my.
Oh ya ... they are intelligent alright ... PhD and all that in engineering, retired accountant, mathematicians, practising bureaucrat with council ... haven't a clue what they were on when with them.
When I used the term "my mate" to my Yanky friend he would stand a few feet away from me but when I used "me mate" he was alright ... bloody cowboy.
Yes. Especially in some of the newer subjects. Interviewing candidates for artist positions at a games company recently, I've seen portfolios from people who received 1st / 2:1 degrees with shockingly bad work. Makes a mockery of the whole process and devalues everybody else's degrees.
chewkw - Member
If you apply the same standard you will not be in employment long unless you have plenty of funding according to me mates.
Explain.
edit - the bit about applying the same standard...
CaptJon - MemberExplain.
edit - the bit about applying the same standard...
Apparently they are still marking with the same rigour similar to 20 odd years ago but just that the marks allocated are becoming more generous. If they are not generous at marking very few would even get 2.1 apparently. So they have to bump up and use full range of marks for a written essay ...
According to me mates, there are far more 1st and 2.1 now while 2.2 is relegated to something similar to a 3rd. Not that the students are more intelligent (a few are but majority not) in the so called information age with their iPads but merely due to institution trying to publicise their achievement with students graduating with high grades. Well you know what is going to happen next ... other institutions will do the same as they don't want to loose out, so in future the so called degree classification is practically pointless.
A lot of students know the exact requriements needed to scrape by - the majority of people on my course (Engineering @ a Russel Group Uni), even in their final year, get by by learning the past papers. Then ask them a simple question and they have no idea where to start. Give them an open ended design excercise and they complain that the exact requirements of every evaluation are not clearly outlined so they can fish for marks.
They complain about coursework that isn't directly related to the exam (a really good design exercise was scrapped recently because the students believed it focussed 'too much' on coding, not the physical laws behind it. It used Matlab and required a for loop. Seriously.) The uni caved because they know they'll lose out on the 'student satisfaction' part of the National Student Survey (The survey itself, incidently, is someone in a call centre phoning you toward the end of your final year and asking you vague questions where you state how much you agree.)
I have no idea how it was 10 years ago.
A few points from a lecturer (within the media subject area):
Is a degree easier to obtain then it used to be? I don't see it myself, but then I don't have a full grasp of how it used to be. Anyhow, I assess a fair amount of degree level work and disagree with the idea that lecturers are required to have bell-like spread of marks. The average though is towards the high 2.2 and low 2.1 range. Firsts are only given in exceptional cases and are not given away lightly.
It's interesting to hear the continued bias against the Humanities and the continued tirade levied at media studies. Visiting international media studies colleagues are always surprised at the general hostility to the subject within the UK, particularly as we are so good at it. As anyone familiar with the subject taught well will know, the myths that surround it regarding depth and/or rigour are highly misguided.
At my university we run an interdisciplinary programme that involves students from sciences, engineering, arts and humanities coming together to work on design problems. I wondered how my humanities-based students would fare, but it was fascinating to watch them approach problems in very different ways from the scientists and engineers who adopted process-based approaches and found it difficult to "think outside of the box" (apologies for the phrase, but it fits well). It actually turned out a theatre studies student provided the winning idea and design.
chewkw - MemberApparently they are still marking with the same rigour similar to 20 odd years ago but just that the marks allocated are becoming more generous. If they are not generous at marking very few would even get 2.1 apparently. So they have to bump up and use full range of marks for a written essay ...
According to me mates, there are far more 1st and 2.1 now while 2.2 is relegated to something similar to a 3rd. Not that the students are more intelligent (a few are but majority not) in the so called information age with their iPads but merely due to institution trying to publicise their achievement with students graduating with high grades. Well you know what is going to happen next ... other institutions will do the same as they don't want to loose out, so in future the so called degree classification is practically pointless.
I still get what you previous point was... But with regard to the information age, even when i was at uni 2000-03 the journal databases weren't as good, and we didn't have as many electronic journals. We'd spent a fair amount of time in the library finding relevant papers - i imagine in the early 90s it was even longer. Now students can log on to the databases and filter the papers in the time it would take to realise the library had lost the volume i was looking for (or worse, one of my course mates was using in some hidden corner of the basement). That extra time is a bonus for current students.
scuzz - Member
The uni caved because they know they'll lose out on the 'student satisfaction' part of the National Student Survey (The survey itself, incidently, is someone in a call centre phoning you toward the end of your final year and asking you vague questions where you state how much you agree.)
Two points here. First, the NSS is done online. And it is an utterly stupid idea and for something set up to measure degrees, is so poorly designed it is embarrassing. Second, the dept in question which caved probably has deeper problems if they are changing assessments on the whim of students - but then what do you expect from a Russell Group uni...
saxabar - Member
Anyhow, I assess a fair amount of degree level work and disagree with the idea that lecturers are required to have bell-like spread of marks.
Particular as most courses use criteria schemes these days - i.e. if you meet the criteria for getting a first, you get a first. Most people don't realise that is the case for a-levels too.
The wider point, though, is that getting a first isn't just about hard work. It is about working effectively. As a colleague is fond of telling students who expect a higher mark because they 'have worked really hard' says,
Carrying a bucket of manure up 20 flights of stairs is hard work, but when you get to the top it is still a bucket of s***
edit - just checked a bunch of last year's module reviews and the mean mark appears to be 55-58%.
Now get off my lawn, damn kids...
You 'ad a lawn?! Luxury! Why back when I wer a lad, all we 'ad wer 3 square yards o' broken glass! And we wer grateful!
the system is propped up by overseas students who pay through the nose, and whose parents complain to the VC if they fail/get caught out cut 'n' pasting essays.
Carrying a bucket of manure up 20 flights of stairs is hard work, but when you get to the top it is still a bucket of s***
Cruel, but funny. I'm guessing a different subject area, but ours too is in the 55-58 range.
saxabar - MemberCruel, but funny. I'm guessing a different subject area, but ours too is in the 55-58 range.
Geography, although i'm just about to have a meeting with a colleague in Media about being co-supervisors on a PhD.
I graduated in 1994, with a 2:2 in Physics. That's what the vast majority of people got- a couple of firsts, and then a pretty small group of 2:1s.
But I agree that now 2:2 seems to be more like a third, and a recruitment consultant I spoke to a couple of years ago confirmed that 2:1 seemed to have become the norm rather than the exception.
It's hard to compare how hard things are now, but whatever the answer I do think it devalues it if everybody gets the higher marks, same as A levels. If everybody's getting loads of As then they need to be recalibrated in someway otherwise the very idea of an A is a bit meaningless isn't it?
If you follow that argument, MrSalmon, it isn't the marks which need to be recalibrated, it is the standards required to get the grades which need to change.
However, the implications of doing that difficult for politicians. Imagine being the first group of A-level students to go through the recalibrated system.
CaptJon - Member
If you follow that argument, MrSalmon, it isn't the marks which need to be recalibrated, it is the standards required to get the grades which need to change.However, the implications of doing that difficult for politicians. Imagine being the first group of A-level students to go through the recalibrated system.
I think that is not going to happen for sometime to come because students are going to pay £12K starting next year and recalibration means penalising them. So I guess no go for that suggestion and not for a long time.
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