Lazy Ucd Students

lizzyvera

Reluctance to fail?!
I heard one of my lecturers say
"I didn't fail half of phys chem- half of phys chem failed me!".
I'd say about 1/4 in my year failed or dropped out but the ones who fail tend to be the ones who don't come in anyway so you'd hardly notice.

We need schols or some similar reward system for good students.

Ernie Ball

Sangre wrote: »

Most people do the minimum required whatever the situation. Its hardly a trait exclusive to UCD students.

Quick logic refresher course:

To say:

'UCD students are lazy layabouts'

in no way commits me to the truth of the proposition:

'Only UCD students are lazy layabouts.'

Well, it might be just me but I try and avoid basing my whole argument on conjecture, hearsay and roundabout ad hominem attacks.

So do I. There is no conjecture and no hearsay. I haven't made any ad hominem arguments here either.

Instead, there is the evidence of my own eyes and ears. In fact, what I say is starkly evident to absolutely anyone who has more than a little experience of UCD students. Want some hard evidence? Ask a lecturer about the average UCD student.

And for those of you who think this is a 'generalisation' and therefore somehow 'bad' or 'specious' (if you knew that word): of course it's a generalisation. That is not a criticism. This is because the claim is: In general, i.e., on average UCD students are lazy, rote learners and poorly equipped for the work that goes on at real universities. There is no way to make such a claim without it being a generalisation, just as there is no way to make the claim that 'cigarettes cause lung cancer' without it being a generalisation.

There is no hard evidence in this. That doesn't mean there is no evidence. One proxy for hard evidence might be statistics on absenteeism. I can assure you they are sky-high at UCD. Also, the reports of visiting Erasmus students are a useful index. You might also ask yourself why many programmes at UCD have attendance requirements. That is a rarity in universities, which distinguish themselves from secondary schools in not requiring such policing of their students.

But since you insist on evidence, here.

Yeah, yeah: spare me you're pathetic groupthink: "that's just one guy's opinion!" It's not. It's the almost universal opinion of lecturers. Go ahead and ask them.

conor2007

ucd is what you make of it
lecturers students grades for the most part is what they make

if 50 percent or more fail or do bad - it is their fault not the students

50% cant be that bad

Sangre

Actually over 90% of lecturers think UCD students are dedicated and hard working. Just ask them.

Cathy

Ernie Ball wrote: »

spare me you're pathetic groupthink

Being someone who is so critical of others' spelling and grammar, I suppose you'll be happy to have it pointed out that here, you should have used "your", not "you're".

MizzLolly

snickerpuss wrote: »

To be honest if you want to go to college you can go to college. Working hard has everything to do with it. I'm from Coolock, I go to UCD, there was nothing stopping me. All I had to do was get the points by studying myself.

Same here, well I'm not from Coolock but from a similar situation, college attendence from my old school is desperately low. The whole area has gone to hell, very little ambition to be honest. I'm in UCD and I do have complaints about it but I know how lucky I am to be here. I do the work I am supposed to do. I don't get straight A's but I do my best. I work aswell so it interferes with some classes but I do realise how lucky I am and I do work hard..

DirkVoodoo

Your are so full of bull crap its not funny.

For someone keen on "not generalising" you have so far:

- condemned UCD students as lazy.
- perpetuated some "Ross O Carroll Kelly" stereotype of "mommy and daddy paying for little Oisin".
- assumed that people from certain backgrounds have no chance of going to UCD.

I spent 4 great, hard years in UCD. I live in Dublin, I went to a "fee paying" school and couldn't have pointed out Leitrim on a map to save my life (or numerous other counties for that matter). My closest friends from college came from different parts of Ireland, from different social backgrounds, but it didn't really matter. I'm not going to go on, there are some people in the front row about to hurl.

Yes, there may be a certain bias in UCD towards the Dublin crowd, but it may be that the girls with fake tan or the guys with bleached hair standing outside commerce are just a little easier to spot and use to generalise than the 15,000 odd other students and postgrads around.

Grow up, please!

P.S. I like how your style of language has changed here to some of your previous posts, perhaps the air is just thin on top of that tall pedestal.

DirkVoodoo

Sorry, just read that link you gave...

your entire argument for the rampant laziness in ALL UCD is a statistic about failure in 2nd and 3rd year politics!!!

ecoli

MizzLolly wrote: »

Same here, well I'm not from Coolock but from a similar situation, college attendence from my old school is desperately low. The whole area has gone to hell, very little ambition to be honest. I'm in UCD and I do have complaints about it but I know how lucky I am to be here. I do the work I am supposed to do. I don't get straight A's but I do my best. I work aswell so it interferes with some classes but I do realise how lucky I am and I do work hard..

i came from a so called "disadvantaged area" which has a very low record of college attentance(less than 5%) am now in Ucd workin hard and while there are some modifactions i would make i find the people refreshingly more motivated here than my school where people actually have aspirations and are willing to realise them so i really think if your are to perpetuate this farsical rant you need either proper proof or atleast to come up with a new aspect to this argument

Ernie Ball

Cathy wrote: »

Being someone who is so critical of others' spelling and grammar, I suppose you'll be happy to have it pointed out that here, you should have used "your", not "you're".

Typos can befall anyone. Semi-literate prose, however, is the scourge only of the semi-literate.

Ernie Ball

Look, you people seem to have some trouble with arguments about what is generally the case. Or at least you do when you think they apply to you (why you feel targeted, is another matter...). It is not a refutation of the established fact that UCD takes the vast majority of its students from well-to-do schools to say: 'I'm not from a well-to-do school and I go to UCD.' Nor is the argument about the average UCD student refuted by saying that you do not fit the description (though the fact that you think such specious refutations are good ones does arouse suspicions about the latter claim).

As for the idea that I've based this entire claim on one article: you don't read very well, do you? I went and found that article for the benighted twits who were braying for 'evidence! evidence!' as if: 1) there is any doubt about this matter; 2) moral issues (e.g., whether something is good or bad, idiotic or a stroke of genius; whether UCD students are model students or lazy slobs) requires reams of evidence to be decided; 3) there are lots of studies out there about UCD because it's such an important place and the whole world cares about whether a bunch of spoiled underachievers take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

The facts are all here and we don't even have to ask any lecturers. The salient fact in that article from the Observer is that absenteeism is a huge problem. This is a fact that is not up for debate either: absenteeism at UCD is a joke. You yourselves know this: lectures are rarely more than half full. Ditto tutorials. If we did a survey of people on this board and what percentage of their classes they attended, and if they were being truthful, you'd find the number to be appalling. And the members of this board are probably better than average. Students read the barest minimum to get by and they do most of that reading immediately preceding exams. That practice alone is enough to indict the average UCD student: it's a sure sign that they haven't understood the point of university work and that they are too lazy to figure it out. The fact that they also do this at other Irish universities means nothing: this is not a problem unique to UCD, it is a problem with Ireland's third-level student culture. But it is not what university students do in other countries, which is why Erasmus students as a rule are both impressed by the quality of the facilities (by European standards) and appalled by the behaviour of the students who are underworked and have trouble even with the little that is expected of them. In the US, UCD would be considered a 'party school'. Pity that over here it's supposed to be the flagship of the national university.

In short, it is obvious to anyone who has experience of universities outside of Ireland. This includes most lecturers, which is why I suggested you ask them. The only ones to whom it is not obvious are those whose experience of universities begins and ends at UCD and, even then, only when they are being disingenuous.

Does this mean that it happens in every School and in every subject? Maybe not. But on the whole, UCD students haven't a clue what real learning involves.

breadmonkey

Ernie Ball wrote: »

There is no hard evidence in this. That doesn't mean there is no evidence.

Nice one. You can stop now.

gubbie

There are so many lazy people in engineering its not funny. Granted each year it does seem to increase, but people look at me as a big odd ball because I go to nearly all my classes

Ernie Ball

breadmonkey wrote: »

Nice one. You can stop now.

Your point? What exactly do you think would constitute 'hard evidence' of moral failings like laziness or an inability to go beyond simple rote learning? But, of course, in your simplistic view, if there isn't such 'hard evidence', then it can't possibly exist.

Was it a good thing or a bad thing what the nazis did? Well, I've looked at all the evidence and the facts themselves don't tell me what moral judgement to make (can't derive an 'ought' from an 'is'). In your view, this means that no moral judgements can be made at all. The name for this view is 'nihilism'. But I wouldn't expect you to know that.

imp

I don't think there's any need to keep insulting those who disagree with you.

Ernie Ball

imp wrote: »

I don't think there's any need to keep insulting those who disagree with you.

That's a two-way street, you may have noticed.

griffdaddy

Ernie Ball wrote: »

Look, you people seem to have some trouble with arguments about what is generally the case. Or at least you do when you think they apply to you (why you feel targeted, is another matter...). It is not a refutation of the established fact that UCD takes the vast majority of its students from well-to-do schools to say: 'I'm not from a well-to-do school and I go to UCD.' Nor is the argument about the average UCD student refuted by saying that you do not fit the description (though the fact that you think such specious refutations are good ones does arouse suspicions about the latter claim).

As for the idea that I've based this entire claim on one article: you don't read very well, do you? I went and found that article for the benighted twits who were braying for 'evidence! evidence!' as if: 1) there is any doubt about this matter; 2) moral issues (e.g., whether something is good or bad, idiotic or a stroke of genius; whether UCD students are model students or lazy slobs) requires reams of evidence to be decided; 3) there are lots of studies out there about UCD because it's such an important place and the whole world cares about whether a bunch of spoiled underachievers take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

The facts are all here and we don't even have to ask any lecturers. The salient fact in that article from the Observer is that absenteeism is a huge problem. This is a fact that is not up for debate either: absenteeism at UCD is a joke. You yourselves know this: lectures are rarely more than half full. Ditto tutorials. If we did a survey of people on this board and what percentage of their classes they attended, and if they were being truthful, you'd find the number to be appalling. And the members of this board are probably better than average. Students read the barest minimum to get by and they do most of that reading immediately preceding exams. That practice alone is enough to indict the average UCD student: it's a sure sign that they haven't understood the point of university work and that they are too lazy to figure it out. The fact that they also do this at other Irish universities means nothing: this is not a problem unique to UCD, it is a problem with Ireland's third-level student culture. But it is not what university students do in other countries, which is why Erasmus students as a rule are both impressed by the quality of the facilities (by European standards) and appalled by the behaviour of the students who are underworked and have trouble even with the little that is expected of them. In the US, UCD would be considered a 'party school'. Pity that over here it's supposed to be the flagship of the national university.

In short, it is obvious to anyone who has experience of universities outside of Ireland. This includes most lecturers, which is why I suggested you ask them. The only ones to whom it is not obvious are those whose experience of universities begins and ends at UCD and, even then, only when they are being disingenuous.

Does this mean that it happens in every School and in every subject? Maybe not. But on the whole, UCD students haven't a clue what real learning involves.

First of all, UCD doesn't 'take' it's students from anywhere, that would imply some kind of active pursuit on the part of the college. Stop twisting syntax around to make out as if UCD is an organisation which hand-picks the most middle-class kids and then gives them a degree or something. Also, i had a big reply to your taxation of the poor paying for the middle-class students, but the thread was locked and i didn't know it would be reopened so i erased it. Basically your view of tax is entirely capitalistic and self-orientated, misses the whole point of taxation and what you attempted to measure is pretty much unmeasurable. Taxing is not A Lá Carte, it's a collective fund for collective expenditure, and your tactic of trying to say that the working-class being taxed specifically pays for the middle-class to go to college is inciteous and stupid, and sounds like something a national front speaker would say.
Second of all, Students cutting corners? STOP THE PRESSES! And you think it's just Irish universities? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and I have experience in 2 other European universities, i'm on Erasmus right now, and the Irish are far from the only ones partying at university. Maybe you have some kind of misconception of what socialising is or something, or maybe you just get extra bitter when you show up for things and other people don't, but to say absenteeism and excessive partying is unique to Irish Universities is ridiculous, and belies the plot of pretty much any film from the last 50 years which features 'Louis, Louis' by The Kingsmen.

breadmonkey

Dear Ernie,

You are basing everything you say on your own limited experience in some form of Arts degree (from what I gather). Please realise that there are many different disciplines that may actually differ greatly from yours. I urge you to stop portraying yourself as such a deluded fool and admit that your arguments are basless.

The_Minister

Right lads, this topic is getting FAR too heated. Stop acting the bollox or bans will be handed out.
Play the ball etc.

Raphael

Right.

Now, the reason I split this off from the other thread was that while that topic was looking a bit iffy, I didn't want to just kill a newly starting debate that people clearly felt strongly about. However if this kind of bitchery, insulting, and the like keeps up then I'll happily reverse that decision.

That's a two-way street, you may have noticed.

No, it's a playground, you lost have just decided to drive through it. Now stop, before you squish a baby.

(Read as, next abusive post gets whacked and thread gets locked. Consider yourself warned)

Ernie Ball

breadmonkey wrote: »

Dear Ernie,

You are basing everything you say on your own limited experience in some form of Arts degree (from what I gather). Please realise that there are many different disciplines that may actually differ greatly from yours. I urge you to stop portraying yourself as such a deluded fool and admit that your arguments are basless.

If they are, you'll have to show me why they are. What sort of institution do you think UCD is and what are the qualities of its students, compared to other universities worldwide?

What I say about absenteeism and end-of-semester cramming is the case in every College I know of. To deny it is to deny the obvious. One need only look at several threads in this very forum like this one and this one to have a fair bit of anecdotal evidence.

What evidence do you have that UCD students are, on average, anything other than what I say they are?

breadmonkey

Ernie Ball wrote: »

What evidence do you have that UCD students are, on average, anything other than what I say they are?

So now you think that we should assume your argument is true and it's up to us to disprove it??!! Dear God.....

Please someone lock this thread.

Ernie Ball

griffdaddy wrote: »

Basically your view of tax is entirely capitalistic and self-orientated, misses the whole point of taxation and what you attempted to measure is pretty much unmeasurable. Taxing is not A Lá Carte, it's a collective fund for collective expenditure, and your tactic of trying to say that the working-class being taxed specifically pays for the middle-class to go to college is inciteous and stupid, and sounds like something a national front speaker would say.

Not at all. What is supremely capitalistic is using the taxation system, which is meant to be for the benefit of all (from each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs) as a huge siphon to funnel money to the rich. That's what free fees amount to. It's socialism in reverse!

Second of all, Students cutting corners? STOP THE PRESSES! And you think it's just Irish universities? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and I have experience in 2 other European universities, i'm on Erasmus right now, and the Irish are far from the only ones partying at university. Maybe you have some kind of misconception of what socialising is or something, or maybe you just get extra bitter when you show up for things and other people don't, but to say absenteeism and excessive partying is unique to Irish Universities is ridiculous, and belies the plot of pretty much any film from the last 50 years which features 'Louis, Louis' by The Kingsmen.

Partying hard isn't what I object to. No problem partying hard if you're working hard. It's a right of passage.

The problem is the second part of the formula: working hard. UCD students, in general, do far more partying than they do working. For example, ever notice that Ents events are on weekdays? Almost never on weekends. Where else but in Ireland is that the case? So you party during the week and you party (at home, wherever) on the weekends too. What does that leave?

griffdaddy

Ernie Ball wrote: »

If they are, you'll have to show me why they are. What sort of institution do you think UCD is and what are the qualities of its students, compared to other universities worldwide?

What I say about absenteeism and end-of-semester cramming is the case in every College I know of. To deny it is to deny the obvious. One need only look at several threads in this very forum like this one and this one to have a fair bit of anecdotal evidence.

What evidence do you have that UCD students are, on average, anything other than what I say they are?

But what evidence do you have that UCD students in general are any worse than their foreign counterparts?
I do think you have a point about absenteeism being a bit of a problem though, i just think you went about making the point the wrong way, and that you're attributing blame wrongly to the middle-classes. Absenteeism is becoming a problem at every wrung of the social ladder, not just universities, it's also a big problem in secondary schools and even at a governmental level. Surely finding a correlation between that and our national drinking problem would be a more worthwhile exercise than claiming that generally, UCD students are lazy, particularly seeing as most graduates of (non-arts) subjects in UCD have gone on to achieve a fair amount in general. Rather than just looking at facts about the situation straight in front of us, let's use some of our lateral thinking and reasoning

Ernie Ball

breadmonkey wrote: »

So now you think that we should assume your argument is true and it's up to us to disprove it??!! Dear God.....

Please someone lock this thread.

That's what reasoned debate involves. Someone makes a claim and does their best to back it up. I've done that. The onus on someone who disagrees is to say why, not simply insist that it can't be so.

breadmonkey

Ernie Ball wrote: »

That's what reasoned debate involves. Someone makes a claim and does their best to back it up. I've done that. The onus on someone who disagrees is to say why, not simply insist that it can't be so.

Here's why: YOU HAVE NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE.

This is borderline trolling imo.

Ernie Ball

griffdaddy wrote: »

But what evidence do you have that UCD students in general are any worse than their foreign counterparts?

I studied abroad and was worked much harder there and noticed a culture of intellectualism and a work ethic that are both almost completely absent at UCD.

Surely finding a correlation between that and our national drinking problem would be a more worthwhile exercise than claiming that generally, UCD students are lazy, particularly seeing as most graduates of (non-arts) subjects in UCD have gone on to achieve a fair amount in general. Rather than just looking at facts about the situation straight in front of us, let's use some of our lateral thinking and reasoning

Just to be clear: I didn't give this thread its title. That was done by a mod when he/she split it off from the original thread. My original point was that the lecturer who said (as quoted in a now-deleted thread on "Lecturer Problems") that UCD students had no idea what a university is was spot on in saying so.

Ernie Ball

breadmonkey wrote: »

Here's why: YOU HAVE NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE.

This is borderline trolling imo.

Shouting it doesn't make it so.

Do you deny that absenteeism is a huge problem at UCD?

stardust_dublin

Hey Ernie, I've noticed you talk from a very sociological point of view. You're not a sociology lecturer by any chance, are you?

griffdaddy

Ernie Ball wrote: »

I studied abroad and was worked much harder there and noticed a culture of intellectualism and a work ethic that are both almost completely absent at UCD.

(Not an accusation but an actual question) Did you come into contact with more MA and PHD students? Because here in Amsterdam i seem to be working and studying with them a lot and they're generally intellectual if they've pursued an academic career that far, and although there is seemingly a strong sense of intellectual prowess in the air, i always assumed it was either feigned or because generally students who study abroad are fairly high achievers.