plumbing is high on my list of career potions, minimal training (fuck 3 year graduate training programmes), tea breaks and you can have your wicked way with the (female) customers.
also -
prophet
assuming starting salary of £20k and £2k yearly increase (no cap - thats optomistic), it will take me 15 years to catch my friend on total earnings (assuming he has £1k annual increace) - thats fairly hefty "opportunity cost".
[hr]
that is all. i have left the building.
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Why i wish to quit my University Education: A Vehement Rant
47 posts
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Re:
by surfingsimon on Mon Apr 19, 2004 8:53 pm
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surfingsimon
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Re:
by EviLTwiN on Mon Apr 19, 2004 9:25 pm
the original poster has a point to some extent. but they blow it out of all proportion, and write in a way that will bore people after 5 lines.
yes there are things not quite right with university, and yes there is elitism, and so forth. but its just a fact of life that most things aren't the way we'd like them to be. to take it to the extreme as above just makes you sound unbalanced and extremist, and will ultimately do damage to your cause.
yes there are things not quite right with university, and yes there is elitism, and so forth. but its just a fact of life that most things aren't the way we'd like them to be. to take it to the extreme as above just makes you sound unbalanced and extremist, and will ultimately do damage to your cause.
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EviLTwiN
Re:
by exnihilo on Mon Apr 19, 2004 9:33 pm
I think this thread demonstrates a very valuable point - too many people at university who a) shouldn't be and/or b) don't want to be. Solution? Don't go.
However, on a less facetious point, if you honestly think that Arts (or any subject) is about regurgitating what the lecturer told you then you have a) missed the point of university education and b) are likely not to do very well at it.
The point of lectures, and libraries, and tutorials, and the internet and so forth is to enable you to amass data, THINK about said data and produce intelligent and hopefully somehat original thought. Tell me what I told you, and I'd fail you.
Oh, and on the salaries and cars issue, I have a friend who studied classics, left university and walked into a great job on £56K a year, is now a consultant and a millionaire, and still not 30. Now that may be down to his education, and it may not, but you can't deny it helped and you equally can't deny that fascinating snippets of anecdotal evidence like that are almost entirely without value.
In conclusion, to the original poster, and at the risk of being flamed for saying it: grow up.
[hr]The world is full of stupid people. I say we get rid of all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.
However, on a less facetious point, if you honestly think that Arts (or any subject) is about regurgitating what the lecturer told you then you have a) missed the point of university education and b) are likely not to do very well at it.
The point of lectures, and libraries, and tutorials, and the internet and so forth is to enable you to amass data, THINK about said data and produce intelligent and hopefully somehat original thought. Tell me what I told you, and I'd fail you.
Oh, and on the salaries and cars issue, I have a friend who studied classics, left university and walked into a great job on £56K a year, is now a consultant and a millionaire, and still not 30. Now that may be down to his education, and it may not, but you can't deny it helped and you equally can't deny that fascinating snippets of anecdotal evidence like that are almost entirely without value.
In conclusion, to the original poster, and at the risk of being flamed for saying it: grow up.
[hr]The world is full of stupid people. I say we get rid of all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.
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exnihilo
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Re:
by RaphX on Mon Apr 19, 2004 9:50 pm
It's not as black and white as Dinah's post suggests - but there is certainly a point. If someone is academically minded, then by all means they should go to university.
The social pressure aspect is right though - 'you have a certain level of intellect, kid, therefore you're going to university so you can do well for yourself'. A lot of people (not most, not the majority, just 'a lot') go through with it because they don't know better. It took me several years to know better (I dropped out of 2nd year in November 2003, having started in September 2000). For me, I tried something that wasn't for me, because I didn't know any better. Now I'm £8,000+ out of pocket for it all. People go much more into debt to get a Third, because going into university is the only concept handed down to them by their elders.
Take an engineering course, for example. People study in those, get a good engineering degree, get themselves an engineering job, and don't know the first thing about engineering. The "lowly" folks (not my opinion, just a word for this scenario) who go straight from high school into the profession aged 16 get a head start, because they're getting the training and practical experience. Of course, that's not black and white either, in terms of being able to do management, balance books or whatever other aspects there may be.
Maybe if people are bright, maybe it would make more sense encourage them to make use of that right away, rather than pushing them into something that will make them stale and discouraged, lessen their future job prospets (maybe), put them into a whole bunch of debt, and make them live like paupers for four years.
The social pressure aspect is right though - 'you have a certain level of intellect, kid, therefore you're going to university so you can do well for yourself'. A lot of people (not most, not the majority, just 'a lot') go through with it because they don't know better. It took me several years to know better (I dropped out of 2nd year in November 2003, having started in September 2000). For me, I tried something that wasn't for me, because I didn't know any better. Now I'm £8,000+ out of pocket for it all. People go much more into debt to get a Third, because going into university is the only concept handed down to them by their elders.
Take an engineering course, for example. People study in those, get a good engineering degree, get themselves an engineering job, and don't know the first thing about engineering. The "lowly" folks (not my opinion, just a word for this scenario) who go straight from high school into the profession aged 16 get a head start, because they're getting the training and practical experience. Of course, that's not black and white either, in terms of being able to do management, balance books or whatever other aspects there may be.
Maybe if people are bright, maybe it would make more sense encourage them to make use of that right away, rather than pushing them into something that will make them stale and discouraged, lessen their future job prospets (maybe), put them into a whole bunch of debt, and make them live like paupers for four years.
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RaphX
Re:
by Jonny_G on Mon Apr 19, 2004 10:33 pm
I agree with you almost completely exnihilo. When i first read the original post i considered writing a point by point criticism of what was written, partly because I agreed with very little and partly as some of it was factually wrong but I decided it would be a waste of my time. I wanted to add this though.
I study International Relations and although what I have learned about IR is only useful in a small number of jobs, one of which i hope to gain, my four years of study have meant so much more. They have taught me how to think, how to construct reasoned and powerful arguments from data, how to engage in debate, how to listen and how to open my mind to a plethora of possiblities. These are all highly marketable qualities in the job market, in many jobs, apart from the fact that i feel better about myself as a person. I believe that not more half of the people who graduate with a degree in IR will feel like this but that is because they do not love the subject as much as I along with a number in the class do, nor have they applied themselves to the work properly or extensively enough. There are too many people at this university who shouldn't be here in my opinion, it sounds elitist but universities are intelectually elitist institutions by definition. If money is all you care about, you're in the wrong place.
My advice to the poster is not grow up but simply, leave and start another course if you hate this so much or get a job and stop wasting your time.
I study International Relations and although what I have learned about IR is only useful in a small number of jobs, one of which i hope to gain, my four years of study have meant so much more. They have taught me how to think, how to construct reasoned and powerful arguments from data, how to engage in debate, how to listen and how to open my mind to a plethora of possiblities. These are all highly marketable qualities in the job market, in many jobs, apart from the fact that i feel better about myself as a person. I believe that not more half of the people who graduate with a degree in IR will feel like this but that is because they do not love the subject as much as I along with a number in the class do, nor have they applied themselves to the work properly or extensively enough. There are too many people at this university who shouldn't be here in my opinion, it sounds elitist but universities are intelectually elitist institutions by definition. If money is all you care about, you're in the wrong place.
My advice to the poster is not grow up but simply, leave and start another course if you hate this so much or get a job and stop wasting your time.
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Jonny_G
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Re:
by Dee on Mon Apr 19, 2004 11:27 pm
[s]CarolynSD wrote on 23:47, 19th Apr 2004:
I also know some very bright people not in university "reading algorithms over breakfast", but who move on to another book the next day, losing the whole train of thought--university is also about discipline and focus-something not easily acquired outside of it...
My childhood dreams of being the "hero" in an Ayn Rand novel so cruelly crushed.
[hr]
Crank up the Beethoven, it's time to kick some butt.
I also know some very bright people not in university "reading algorithms over breakfast", but who move on to another book the next day, losing the whole train of thought--university is also about discipline and focus-something not easily acquired outside of it...
My childhood dreams of being the "hero" in an Ayn Rand novel so cruelly crushed.
[hr]
Crank up the Beethoven, it's time to kick some butt.
I probably don't like you, but don't take it personally. Nobody likes you.
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Dee
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Re:
by Manic23 on Mon Apr 19, 2004 11:43 pm
[s]DinahX wrote on 14:45, 19th Apr 2004:
And if you think that piece of paper you receive at the end of your interment automatically confers some kind of golden halo of wisdom about your head, you are plainly as deluded as the rest of society. It is a piece of paper; a worthless trophy that proclaims ‘I am a parrot who can regurgitate the information that I am told is correct and worthy of my attention.’ [i]
I do not believe it is merely a piece of paper which confirms I am a parrot- its all very well to regurgitate what you have learned, but it'll get you fuck all in an essay or exam if you tell the marker only what they already know. To get a degree you require an input of your own theory, and if I make it as far as graduation I'll be proud to earn that bit of paper, because then I'll know I've done more than just spit out facts and figures.
[/b][i]
A degree in film studies is no more a Mickey Mouse degree than the study of English Literature – and that is a complete and utter waste of time if ever there was one! So you can read a book? Hooray! I’m sure that puts you a pedestal above the humble road sweep who reads dickens or & algebraic equations over breakfast, and of course your analysis of the fictional word, of that empathic noun at the end of a sentence really enables you to benefit the world at large, of course.
I don't think it's a simple as that, and I wish it was. The purpose of English Literature is to gain a better understanding of culture, both present and past, and learn how to appreciate how some other people interpret the world. Reading a book is one thing, understanding it is another.
Having said that, I do feel bad for you in being so embittered to university life. I too get really frustrated at times (especially now-this fucking essay is doing my nut in)with essays and shite, but I know in the long run it'll be worth it, and despite all the hard work, I do love being a student. Having taken a gap year working for the civil service, I can assure you the real world is 100X worse.
And if you think that piece of paper you receive at the end of your interment automatically confers some kind of golden halo of wisdom about your head, you are plainly as deluded as the rest of society. It is a piece of paper; a worthless trophy that proclaims ‘I am a parrot who can regurgitate the information that I am told is correct and worthy of my attention.’ [i]
I do not believe it is merely a piece of paper which confirms I am a parrot- its all very well to regurgitate what you have learned, but it'll get you fuck all in an essay or exam if you tell the marker only what they already know. To get a degree you require an input of your own theory, and if I make it as far as graduation I'll be proud to earn that bit of paper, because then I'll know I've done more than just spit out facts and figures.
[/b][i]
A degree in film studies is no more a Mickey Mouse degree than the study of English Literature – and that is a complete and utter waste of time if ever there was one! So you can read a book? Hooray! I’m sure that puts you a pedestal above the humble road sweep who reads dickens or & algebraic equations over breakfast, and of course your analysis of the fictional word, of that empathic noun at the end of a sentence really enables you to benefit the world at large, of course.
I don't think it's a simple as that, and I wish it was. The purpose of English Literature is to gain a better understanding of culture, both present and past, and learn how to appreciate how some other people interpret the world. Reading a book is one thing, understanding it is another.
Having said that, I do feel bad for you in being so embittered to university life. I too get really frustrated at times (especially now-this fucking essay is doing my nut in)with essays and shite, but I know in the long run it'll be worth it, and despite all the hard work, I do love being a student. Having taken a gap year working for the civil service, I can assure you the real world is 100X worse.
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Manic23
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Re:
by exnihilo on Tue Apr 20, 2004 5:13 am
Manic23, something's gone horribly, horribly wrong; we just agreed on something!
[hr]The world is full of stupid people. I say we get rid of all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.
[hr]The world is full of stupid people. I say we get rid of all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.
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exnihilo
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Re:
by tintin on Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:24 am
I had a thought about your posting last night, and here it is. It's more of an addendum to my first post on this thread, to do with the fact that we get the chance to have tutorials from the people involved in writing the books etc we might just have read.
Anyway, I was at a research seminar yesterday in Mod Langs and while the particular area was not one with which I was familiar, I had heard a little bit about it (mainly from two of my flatmates). As I sat there, I thought to myself what a real privilege it is to sit here and listen to these learned people discussing their ideas; these ideas probably won't be published for 5 years, so in effect you are getting a "sneak preview".
What it comes down to is the fact that if you weren't at a University such as this, you wouldn't get the chance to discuss ideas like this, both with your flatmates and also in seminars such as the one I went to. University is about discussion of ideas, with people who really want to be here, who are, I hope, your intellectual equals or even superiors.
We all get down at times, and I'm no stranger to that. But look out of the window this morning and tell me - where would you rather be? What a fantastic place the old parts of St. Andrews are in the sunshine! If we hadn't come to University here, we'd never have had the sheer privilege of that alone.
Anyway, I was at a research seminar yesterday in Mod Langs and while the particular area was not one with which I was familiar, I had heard a little bit about it (mainly from two of my flatmates). As I sat there, I thought to myself what a real privilege it is to sit here and listen to these learned people discussing their ideas; these ideas probably won't be published for 5 years, so in effect you are getting a "sneak preview".
What it comes down to is the fact that if you weren't at a University such as this, you wouldn't get the chance to discuss ideas like this, both with your flatmates and also in seminars such as the one I went to. University is about discussion of ideas, with people who really want to be here, who are, I hope, your intellectual equals or even superiors.
We all get down at times, and I'm no stranger to that. But look out of the window this morning and tell me - where would you rather be? What a fantastic place the old parts of St. Andrews are in the sunshine! If we hadn't come to University here, we'd never have had the sheer privilege of that alone.
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tintin
Re:
by curious on Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:17 am
[s]EviLTwiN wrote on 22:25, 19th Apr 2004:
the original poster has a point to some extent. but they blow it out of all proportion, and write in a way that will bore people after 5 lines.
yes there are things not quite right with university, and yes there is elitism, and so forth.
Elitism yes, and you provide a perfect example with your post. The person labelled their post as a "rant" not some cause to be debated and campaigned for that must provide good reading and intellectual stimulation for all. Since when do we grade people on how well they let off steam on an internet message board?! Good grief, but it really takes the biscuit.
And chin up to the original poster
the original poster has a point to some extent. but they blow it out of all proportion, and write in a way that will bore people after 5 lines.
yes there are things not quite right with university, and yes there is elitism, and so forth.
Elitism yes, and you provide a perfect example with your post. The person labelled their post as a "rant" not some cause to be debated and campaigned for that must provide good reading and intellectual stimulation for all. Since when do we grade people on how well they let off steam on an internet message board?! Good grief, but it really takes the biscuit.
And chin up to the original poster
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curious
Re:
by Manic23 on Tue Apr 20, 2004 11:04 am
[s]exnihilo wrote on 06:13, 20th Apr 2004:
Manic23, something's gone horribly, horribly wrong; we just agreed on something!
[hr][i]The world is full of stupid people. I say we get rid of all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.
[/i]
what's the world coming to...
Manic23, something's gone horribly, horribly wrong; we just agreed on something!
[hr][i]The world is full of stupid people. I say we get rid of all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.
[/i]
what's the world coming to...
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Manic23
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Re:
by Pender Native on Tue Apr 20, 2004 11:33 am
[s]surfingsimon wrote on 21:26, 19th Apr 2004:
[s]DinahX wrote on 14:45, 19th Apr 2004:[i]
i wish to quit my university education
One of my friends is just 19, he left school without any A-levels and went straight into work. He now earns £500 a week, drives a £6000 Mitsubishi Shogun and gets his petrol provided free (to him, worth £100 a week). Ok, he works long hours but no more than any investment banker.
Why the fuck did i chose to go to Uni? i'm 20 with £10k debt and earning £0 a week? Reply to that.....
[hr]
that is all. i have left the building.
[/i]
That's assuming that money is all that matters to you. I had relatives on my back for the entire year before starting my degree, trying to persuade me to do something like law where I'd get a good salary because 'what job could I possibly get with an anthropology degree?' Which I think is missing the point of university slightly.
[s]DinahX wrote on 14:45, 19th Apr 2004:[i]
i wish to quit my university education
One of my friends is just 19, he left school without any A-levels and went straight into work. He now earns £500 a week, drives a £6000 Mitsubishi Shogun and gets his petrol provided free (to him, worth £100 a week). Ok, he works long hours but no more than any investment banker.
Why the fuck did i chose to go to Uni? i'm 20 with £10k debt and earning £0 a week? Reply to that.....
[hr]
that is all. i have left the building.
[/i]
That's assuming that money is all that matters to you. I had relatives on my back for the entire year before starting my degree, trying to persuade me to do something like law where I'd get a good salary because 'what job could I possibly get with an anthropology degree?' Which I think is missing the point of university slightly.
"I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust, too."
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust, too."
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Pender Native
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- Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2002 5:46 pm
Re:
by Campbell on Tue Apr 20, 2004 11:40 am
i definitely see the point the original poster is making and i think a lot of people come to uni due to
a) fear of doing anything else
b) everyone else is doing it
c) don't know really what they want to end up doing
basically, student life is a chance more to have a fun time generally free of the bounds of the 'real life' that will face you afterwards, and to figure out what you wnat to do.
for all those of you that came here solely out of a passion for your subject and nothing else, i apologise. to agree with manic i will be very chuffed the day - if it comes - i walk out of here with that certificate. it isn't easy to achieve, and as many people have pointed out, spitting back facts gets you bugger all.
essentially, if you don't want to be here, then leave.
a) fear of doing anything else
b) everyone else is doing it
c) don't know really what they want to end up doing
basically, student life is a chance more to have a fun time generally free of the bounds of the 'real life' that will face you afterwards, and to figure out what you wnat to do.
for all those of you that came here solely out of a passion for your subject and nothing else, i apologise. to agree with manic i will be very chuffed the day - if it comes - i walk out of here with that certificate. it isn't easy to achieve, and as many people have pointed out, spitting back facts gets you bugger all.
essentially, if you don't want to be here, then leave.
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Campbell
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Re:
by AnnaJ on Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:13 pm
[s]DinahX wrote on 14:45, 19th Apr 2004:
University is first and foremost an institution become tailored for the ungifted and the lazy.
I find your attitude toward students both arrogant & patronising. How can you say that all students are ungifted & lazy? Yes some students are clever enough to not have to work as hard as those of us who are less clever - but that is the way of the world; not everyone is as clever as everyone else, there is no need to be bitter and condescneding about it.
If you need to pay £20,000 to be taught what you could just as easily read for free in a library or an academic journal then clearly you are either these, brainwashed, or like me unto this point of no return – thoroughly beaten into submission by ‘knowledgeable’ elders and social pressure.
If you resent the money why did you come to University in the first place? Of course what is taught in lectures is available in any library but what is not available is the insight, experience and encouragement of many of the lecturers at your immediate disposal. If you have been beaten into submission I suggest that this is more a probelm with you than with the institution or the lecturers.
And if you think that piece of paper you receive at the end of your interment automatically confers some kind of golden halo of wisdom about your head, you are plainly as deluded as the rest of society.
The piece of paper itself is pretty meaningless but it signifies far more than just a qulaification in the cited subject, which you obviously are unable to see. For example, a Maths degree does not just say you can do a few sums, it teaches you, amongst other things, analytical skills that are valued by many employers. These I don't believe you can learn from books borrowed from a library.
It is a piece of paper; a worthless trophy that proclaims ‘I am a parrot who can regurgitate the information that I am told is correct and worthy of my attention.’ Do note: you are being selectively taught. And by what godly right do lecturers have the gift to discern what one should and should not know might I ask? This is pure academic elitism!
As has been said by other responders, if you have purely regurgitated what has been taught to you in lectures no wonder you are dissatisfied - you must have got poor marks! I don't believe I am alone in saying that my lecturers have never said to just learn lecture material. They have always stressed the importance of thinking around what I have been taught in class and forming my own ideas. The reason lecturers have the right to decide what to teach us is because of their experience and knowledge way beyond what we as students know. I highly value what they have to say and teach us. Perhaps this means that I am 'brainwashed' but frankly I am gaining knowledge that I do not feel I could obtain elsewhere. And how do you suggest that they teach us everything there is to know about a particular subject?! Do you have any idea how impossible that would be? Stop and think for a moment about what you are suggesting.
A degree in film studies is no more a Mickey Mouse degree than the study of English Literature – and that is a complete and utter waste of time if ever there was one! So you can read a book? Hooray! I’m sure that puts you a pedestal above the humble road sweep who reads dickens or & algebraic equations over breakfast, and of course your analysis of the fictional word, of that empathic noun at the end of a sentence really enables you to benefit the world at large, of course.
Not everyone who does a degree will benefit the world at large! There are, if you think about it for more than a millisecond, millions of us who will not benefit many more than just ourselves or some company. However I do not think that this means we should not have done a degree in the first place! Your attitude suggests that those at University ALL look down on roadsweepers and the like. I find this both arrogant and extremely insulting. To even suggest this is a reflection on you as a person.
University is designed, like most educational establishments, to channel and suppress originality into social subservience and perpetuate conformity of the masses.
This is just crap, there's nothing else to say!
Money and brainpower is recycle into a breeding program of corporate dragons whose overgrown rears roost upon a pile of hollow riches and worker clones who slave away the next fifty years of their lives in a positive feedback mechanism of stress and consumption.
Your comments suggest that all graduates progress into the corporate world. How wrong you are. I don't have statistics or percentages but I know of many poeple who are not proceeding in this direction. Indeed there are some of us who want to proceed into a career helping others. Of course there are those who are out for self-gain, but do not insult the rest of us who are not.
Graduates are primed to become locked into this shallow struggle of self-sufficiency sustained by a species mythology based on the triumph of so called civilisation over animal nature,
You have a choice here!
but civilisation is itself nothing more than rules and laws, and if you want to reduce that, to a code by which human nature sustains humanity, yes human nature, nothing more grand in this scheme as it stands.
I really do not understand what you are saying here.
And the government hopes to raise university intake levels by 50% further reducing those practicing essential skills to humanity due to this banner of intellectual snobbery.
You seem to be suggesting that going to University automatically excludes you from practising 'essential skills to humanity'. What of Dr's, psychologists and teachers to mention but a few? Are these not essential skills required by humanity?
This repressive regime is becoming a training place for the mass of the youth.
You say that University is elitist and yet you seem to disagree with the Government making it more accessible to everyone - 'the mass of the youth' as you so eloquently put it!
The chances of inspiring minds that will perpetuate fellowship, intellectual and spiritual evolution burn like the hopes and dreams of the enlightenment God, and those who dare to go against the grain feel the bitter cold of a doorway on a city sidewalk…or dare to challenge and defy, dare to succeed, dare to show a better vision of the future maybe?
You sound like someone with a bitter grudge to bear rather than someone with a valid point to make. You are talking utter bullshit.
So, if you are brave and if you want to make a stand for change, then don’t go to university! Prove you are intelligent enough not to need to!
So whay did you come to University then? I'm getting so tired of your complaining, ignorant attitude toward University.
Whatever happened to apprenticeships?
I think you'll find they still exist. Do your research.
To contentment and not greed?
So what, everyone who comes to Uni does so to increase their earning ability? You patronising bitch. Don't judge everyone by your own standards.
Why not introduce an entry exam to careers so that people with real talent and individual spontaneity of the kind that wilts beneath the oppressive routine of academia can flourish and pollinate the entire world
And where did you learn to speak like this?!?
instead of admitting the rich, the obsessively narrow minded, and the drunken partygoers who managed to put in a hung over appearance at their tutorials once in a blue moon while cramming the night before the exam – because lets face it, you only need to read a book, and who marks these exams anyway…? Are you following my train of thought?
No, frankly I'm not. Although you seem to be saying that all students are either, and I quote, 'rich, obsessively narrow-minded or drunken partygoers'? So which category do you fall into? I'm guessing rich. There are many careers that require qualifications other than a degree, indeed those for which a degree is useless. The trades for one. Anyone who wants to be a plumber, electrician, carpenter etc is far better off going to college and doing the appropriate qualification there. Some professions even prefer you to have no previous experience of the job. A friend of mine wants to get into the travel industry and has been told by a well known travel agent that they would prefer him not to go to college and thus start working for them with pre-conceived ideas. They would prefer to train him from scratch. In fact to get him to conform to their ways. But is this not as bad as the University system you are slating?
Why not base entry to university on original opinion, interview, performance and genuine enthusiasm for the subject?
Perhaps because this is not an indication of your learning ability. However unfair it may seem, not everyone in the world is as clever as everyone else. There are those who are smarter and more able to learn than others. Live with it!
University is the training ground for an implanted model of academic elitism, restricting access to the prize of riches to the few, forever embracing that principle of human selfishness.
And yet you object to the Government making University more accessible?!?
Just because you know the language, makes such knowledge no less a targeted game of words than the slogan on a cereal packet; don’t think yourself a king just because you wear a crown, you can just as easily have your head chopped off.
What?!?
Oh I know this is not the be all and end all of the situation. Even the most of esteemed self taught genius (which I am not)
No really?
need recognition or face the guns of a thousand less intellectually inclined minds to shoot them down on the basis of one tiny fact…a certificate, an award, a piece of paper.
I am sure this little rant will be received with the utmost criticism, but here it is, as I state it, a little question mark in the otherwise oblivious ocean of humanity.
You are right to suspect that your rant will be received with criticism. Your attitude is arrogant, patronising and insulting. I suggest that perhaps you should stand your ground and quit. Don't use the excuse that you only have so much time left, or your parents won't let you leave. If you have such strong opinions and such a large chip - or should I say log - on your shoulder you should stand by your beliefs and leave. Let someone who will appreciate and value the education they can receive here, have your place. Good luck!
Sorry, to those of my thinking, that this is so long. I was so enraged by this posting that I felt I had to reply to every point to get it out of my system!
©ô.StC
University is first and foremost an institution become tailored for the ungifted and the lazy.
I find your attitude toward students both arrogant & patronising. How can you say that all students are ungifted & lazy? Yes some students are clever enough to not have to work as hard as those of us who are less clever - but that is the way of the world; not everyone is as clever as everyone else, there is no need to be bitter and condescneding about it.
If you need to pay £20,000 to be taught what you could just as easily read for free in a library or an academic journal then clearly you are either these, brainwashed, or like me unto this point of no return – thoroughly beaten into submission by ‘knowledgeable’ elders and social pressure.
If you resent the money why did you come to University in the first place? Of course what is taught in lectures is available in any library but what is not available is the insight, experience and encouragement of many of the lecturers at your immediate disposal. If you have been beaten into submission I suggest that this is more a probelm with you than with the institution or the lecturers.
And if you think that piece of paper you receive at the end of your interment automatically confers some kind of golden halo of wisdom about your head, you are plainly as deluded as the rest of society.
The piece of paper itself is pretty meaningless but it signifies far more than just a qulaification in the cited subject, which you obviously are unable to see. For example, a Maths degree does not just say you can do a few sums, it teaches you, amongst other things, analytical skills that are valued by many employers. These I don't believe you can learn from books borrowed from a library.
It is a piece of paper; a worthless trophy that proclaims ‘I am a parrot who can regurgitate the information that I am told is correct and worthy of my attention.’ Do note: you are being selectively taught. And by what godly right do lecturers have the gift to discern what one should and should not know might I ask? This is pure academic elitism!
As has been said by other responders, if you have purely regurgitated what has been taught to you in lectures no wonder you are dissatisfied - you must have got poor marks! I don't believe I am alone in saying that my lecturers have never said to just learn lecture material. They have always stressed the importance of thinking around what I have been taught in class and forming my own ideas. The reason lecturers have the right to decide what to teach us is because of their experience and knowledge way beyond what we as students know. I highly value what they have to say and teach us. Perhaps this means that I am 'brainwashed' but frankly I am gaining knowledge that I do not feel I could obtain elsewhere. And how do you suggest that they teach us everything there is to know about a particular subject?! Do you have any idea how impossible that would be? Stop and think for a moment about what you are suggesting.
A degree in film studies is no more a Mickey Mouse degree than the study of English Literature – and that is a complete and utter waste of time if ever there was one! So you can read a book? Hooray! I’m sure that puts you a pedestal above the humble road sweep who reads dickens or & algebraic equations over breakfast, and of course your analysis of the fictional word, of that empathic noun at the end of a sentence really enables you to benefit the world at large, of course.
Not everyone who does a degree will benefit the world at large! There are, if you think about it for more than a millisecond, millions of us who will not benefit many more than just ourselves or some company. However I do not think that this means we should not have done a degree in the first place! Your attitude suggests that those at University ALL look down on roadsweepers and the like. I find this both arrogant and extremely insulting. To even suggest this is a reflection on you as a person.
University is designed, like most educational establishments, to channel and suppress originality into social subservience and perpetuate conformity of the masses.
This is just crap, there's nothing else to say!
Money and brainpower is recycle into a breeding program of corporate dragons whose overgrown rears roost upon a pile of hollow riches and worker clones who slave away the next fifty years of their lives in a positive feedback mechanism of stress and consumption.
Your comments suggest that all graduates progress into the corporate world. How wrong you are. I don't have statistics or percentages but I know of many poeple who are not proceeding in this direction. Indeed there are some of us who want to proceed into a career helping others. Of course there are those who are out for self-gain, but do not insult the rest of us who are not.
Graduates are primed to become locked into this shallow struggle of self-sufficiency sustained by a species mythology based on the triumph of so called civilisation over animal nature,
You have a choice here!
but civilisation is itself nothing more than rules and laws, and if you want to reduce that, to a code by which human nature sustains humanity, yes human nature, nothing more grand in this scheme as it stands.
I really do not understand what you are saying here.
And the government hopes to raise university intake levels by 50% further reducing those practicing essential skills to humanity due to this banner of intellectual snobbery.
You seem to be suggesting that going to University automatically excludes you from practising 'essential skills to humanity'. What of Dr's, psychologists and teachers to mention but a few? Are these not essential skills required by humanity?
This repressive regime is becoming a training place for the mass of the youth.
You say that University is elitist and yet you seem to disagree with the Government making it more accessible to everyone - 'the mass of the youth' as you so eloquently put it!
The chances of inspiring minds that will perpetuate fellowship, intellectual and spiritual evolution burn like the hopes and dreams of the enlightenment God, and those who dare to go against the grain feel the bitter cold of a doorway on a city sidewalk…or dare to challenge and defy, dare to succeed, dare to show a better vision of the future maybe?
You sound like someone with a bitter grudge to bear rather than someone with a valid point to make. You are talking utter bullshit.
So, if you are brave and if you want to make a stand for change, then don’t go to university! Prove you are intelligent enough not to need to!
So whay did you come to University then? I'm getting so tired of your complaining, ignorant attitude toward University.
Whatever happened to apprenticeships?
I think you'll find they still exist. Do your research.
To contentment and not greed?
So what, everyone who comes to Uni does so to increase their earning ability? You patronising bitch. Don't judge everyone by your own standards.
Why not introduce an entry exam to careers so that people with real talent and individual spontaneity of the kind that wilts beneath the oppressive routine of academia can flourish and pollinate the entire world
And where did you learn to speak like this?!?
instead of admitting the rich, the obsessively narrow minded, and the drunken partygoers who managed to put in a hung over appearance at their tutorials once in a blue moon while cramming the night before the exam – because lets face it, you only need to read a book, and who marks these exams anyway…? Are you following my train of thought?
No, frankly I'm not. Although you seem to be saying that all students are either, and I quote, 'rich, obsessively narrow-minded or drunken partygoers'? So which category do you fall into? I'm guessing rich. There are many careers that require qualifications other than a degree, indeed those for which a degree is useless. The trades for one. Anyone who wants to be a plumber, electrician, carpenter etc is far better off going to college and doing the appropriate qualification there. Some professions even prefer you to have no previous experience of the job. A friend of mine wants to get into the travel industry and has been told by a well known travel agent that they would prefer him not to go to college and thus start working for them with pre-conceived ideas. They would prefer to train him from scratch. In fact to get him to conform to their ways. But is this not as bad as the University system you are slating?
Why not base entry to university on original opinion, interview, performance and genuine enthusiasm for the subject?
Perhaps because this is not an indication of your learning ability. However unfair it may seem, not everyone in the world is as clever as everyone else. There are those who are smarter and more able to learn than others. Live with it!
University is the training ground for an implanted model of academic elitism, restricting access to the prize of riches to the few, forever embracing that principle of human selfishness.
And yet you object to the Government making University more accessible?!?
Just because you know the language, makes such knowledge no less a targeted game of words than the slogan on a cereal packet; don’t think yourself a king just because you wear a crown, you can just as easily have your head chopped off.
What?!?
Oh I know this is not the be all and end all of the situation. Even the most of esteemed self taught genius (which I am not)
No really?
need recognition or face the guns of a thousand less intellectually inclined minds to shoot them down on the basis of one tiny fact…a certificate, an award, a piece of paper.
I am sure this little rant will be received with the utmost criticism, but here it is, as I state it, a little question mark in the otherwise oblivious ocean of humanity.
You are right to suspect that your rant will be received with criticism. Your attitude is arrogant, patronising and insulting. I suggest that perhaps you should stand your ground and quit. Don't use the excuse that you only have so much time left, or your parents won't let you leave. If you have such strong opinions and such a large chip - or should I say log - on your shoulder you should stand by your beliefs and leave. Let someone who will appreciate and value the education they can receive here, have your place. Good luck!
Sorry, to those of my thinking, that this is so long. I was so enraged by this posting that I felt I had to reply to every point to get it out of my system!
©ô.StC
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AnnaJ
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:48 pm
Re:
by Neferet on Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:31 pm
I'm not sure that was entirely necessary. The original post is clearly labelled as a rant - we all get fed up sometimes and we all need to vent occasionally. I know what it's like to have things not going smoothly on the academic front and to feel frustrated - especially if you feel you are "trapped" doing the wrong degree or even the wrong course of education.
Also it is at this time of year that the pressure is on us even more making those who feel uncomfortable in their studies feel even worse. University is different for everyone, it is impossible to put yourself in another's shoes.
I'm sure the original poster will sort themselves out or see that it isn't as bad as it appears at the moment by either finding something they enjoy more at uni or elsewhere. But I do not think there is any need for personal insults. if you disagree then fine but that doesn't change the way that someone "ranting" will think, and it doesn't make their opinion any less valid.
Also it is at this time of year that the pressure is on us even more making those who feel uncomfortable in their studies feel even worse. University is different for everyone, it is impossible to put yourself in another's shoes.
I'm sure the original poster will sort themselves out or see that it isn't as bad as it appears at the moment by either finding something they enjoy more at uni or elsewhere. But I do not think there is any need for personal insults. if you disagree then fine but that doesn't change the way that someone "ranting" will think, and it doesn't make their opinion any less valid.
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Neferet
- Posts: 187
- Joined: Sat May 17, 2003 2:07 pm
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