The Daily Telegraph reports that politics students at Bristol are being ‘over-taught’ so their workload needs drastically reducing. So the number of lectures the students must attend is being slashed by a whopping 66%.
From three lectures per week to one.
The poor lovies should be able to cope with that. But if they’re still trembling with fear then there’s more good news on the way: first year exams are going to be phased out too.
And - if that were not enough - Bristol University has promised that a higher proportion of students will be awarded a first class degree. Now, correct me if I’m wrong but the only way you can promise more first class degrees is by messing with the exam marks or the pass mark. Either way, the idea stinks.
When you consider that the entry requirements to this degree will be relaxed if a person has “suffered from educational disadvantages” it seems to be that obtaining a politics degree at Bristol Uni is a cinch. Could I study for one during my lunchtimes perhaps?
I am really going to rub someone’s nose in it the next time people make assumptions about my American education and level of ignorance. I never finished my degree first time around (working on it in my spare time now), but a typically fully loaded student in the states has to attend between 6 and 9 lectures in a week, in three different subjects.
I don’t see the point in going to uni if you’re going to learn one subject, and one subject alone. That’s not education, it’s training, and not necessarily for a proper job, either…
Comment by James — June 30, 2005 @ 6:57 am
BTW, love your new blog.
Comment by James — June 30, 2005 @ 7:13 am
James,
Sooner or later the English are going to have to get used to the fact that America now does better many of the things we used to be famous for.
Whereas in the US talent is allowed to shine -and it’s applauded when it does so - here, it seems talent is regarded as elitism and our schools seek to lower the standard for all so as to avoid confronting it.
I wonder how bad it will get here before we decide enough’s enough.
Gary
PS Thanks for the kind words too - means a lot when the blog is less than week old!
Comment by Administrator — June 30, 2005 @ 10:47 am
It’ll have to get pretty damn bad before anything happens here, I’d imagine. I remember reading something Lewis wrote on almost identical lines back in the late 50s (I think it was the late 50s, there’s no way it could have been the late 60s)
Comment by Dumb Brit — June 30, 2005 @ 1:25 pm
This is nothing new, 20 years ago (still seething) Eng. Lit. students were attending 2 lectures and 1 tutorial a week, whereas I, as a Physics student, was meant to attend 15 lectures and 2 afternoons of practical. The really annoying thing was that I read more literature than they did in my spare time (or when I was missing lectures on crystalline structures).
Art students seem to have some inbuilt contempt for scientists (not for social scientist for some reason) and my conclusion is that they are simply very afraid of something that they have no wish to understand (just as I have contempt for crystal alternative therapy as I have no wish to try to bend my mind to the forces of Gaia).
Comment by Peregrine — June 30, 2005 @ 11:11 pm
totally hunni xxxx now we have these stupid scamps coming to ruin the rep of bristol!! its so unfair as i personally as a now ex-first year student of bristol feel they just dont belong here im afraid but thats the truth!!!
go wills hall!
Comment by Bristol Dahlin (in style and nature) — August 23, 2005 @ 11:39 am