Lazy Ucd Students

Cannibal Ox

Ernie wrote:

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.

Took waaaay to long to get to that

I think you see university as an end in itself, and I think a lot of students see it as a means to an end. Maybe I'm wrong, but its the impression I'm getting from your posts. If thats the case, then I can understand why you think that most of UCD students don't understand what university is about, because they don't understand it in the same way you do. People get what they want from university, and if that involves rote learning, being absent from lectures and a degree that gets them a good job with a decent salary, whats the problem?

Ernie Ball

Cannibal Ox wrote: »

Took waaaay to long to get to that

I think you see university as an end in itself, and I think a lot of students see it as a means to an end. Maybe I'm wrong, but its the impression I'm getting from your posts. If thats the case, then I can understand why you think that most of UCD students don't understand what university is about, because they don't understand it in the same way you do. People get what they want from university, and if that involves rote learning, being absent from lectures and a degree that gets them a good job with a decent salary, whats the problem?

The problem is that if that is the function of a university, we may as well save ourselves the trouble and expense and replace it with a printing press for the precious parchments and abandon the idea that there is any place in contemporary society for pure learning for its own sake.

One point of clarification: this is not simply my understanding of what a university is or should be. It is the the understanding, as expressed by those who founded the idea of the modern university from Humboldt to Newman (who is spinning in his grave).

The test for UCD students would be a question like the following:

You have a choice. You can have either:

1) A guaranteed first but the condition is that you will have done no work and learned nothing.

or

2) The degree that you can reasonably hope to achieve, but you'll actually have to achieve it.

Which do you choose?

I put it to you that the majority of UCD students would take option (1).

DirkVoodoo

Please, come to engineering and I will guide you around some of the PhDs and MengSc students here and show you some intellectualism. The research done here is very important and of international recognition.

There are also a large number of foreign students who make up this research pool, and I don't hear them complaining as much as you about the laziness of UCD students. Most gripes have to do with the administrative side of UCD, which is a joke as we all know.

I'm sick of reading your posts that have little credible evidence but are dressed up in delightful language to make them seem more believable. Who are you really to make such accusations?

I support the trolling belief, go do something more worthwhile.

stereoroid

Oh, I can just smell the Generalization - can I have some too?

I have a slightly different view, as a mature (?) student: I chose to come here, so study a programme that I wanted to study. It means I'm more motivated to do well, and I can see why UCD are encouraging more of us. (It does make this first semester frustrating, however, with two courses that contribute little or nothing to my chosen programme.)

I wasn't able to go to university straight from school, for financial reasons: we were poor, in a country (South Africa) that offered no state support for tertiary education whatsoever. However, if I had gone then, I suspect I would have chosen the wrong field - something like pure physics - because I was too young to know what I wanted.

I think (subjective) that a lot of students are in that situation: pressured in to getting good Leaving Certificate marks, getting a good place at university, but now you're here... what now? You can witter on about work ethic all you like, but if you aren't naturally motivated to study a subject, willpower and work ethic will only take you so far. You've got to want it!

You might call this an argument for a "gap year", but since you're expected to apply to CAO more than half a year in advance, I don't think that's enough either. How about taking two years to bum around, work a low-paid job, and think about what you want to do now that school is really over?

remus808

Ernie Ball wrote: »

The test for UCD students would be a question like the following:

You have a choice. You can have either:

1) A guaranteed first but the condition is that you will have done no work and learned nothing.

or

2) The degree that you can reasonably hope to achieve, but you'll actually have to achieve it.

Which do you choose?

I put it to you that the majority of UCD students would take option (1).

I think your issue is less to do with the laziness/apathy of Uni students, than it is with people coming to college for the wrong reasons. Your idealist view of a scholary student is quaint and all, but I think you'll find most people come to college as a means to an end, as opposed to real individual learning. Completely estimating here, but I'd say on a cross-section of students, only a small minority would have come to UCD for the reasoning you suggest. The rest of us realise it is a practical way to end up with a decent job in our chosen fields that would not otherwise be possible/easy to attain. I'm not completely suggesting that learning isn't a goal too, of course it is, but IMO it's not the primary focus of today's CAO applicants. Personally I have a huge interest in Programming and that's why I'm studying CompSci, but the rest of my modules I find tedious, Psychology and the likes. Ok I could broaden my 'Horizons(tm)' by engaging in some romantic notion of exploring a library full of possibility.. or I could learn the stuff off, get a decent mark and come one step closer to my degree, which will allow me to work in the area which interests me. Shock, Horror.

I haven't communicated everything precisely clearly, so don't go picking apart the nuances of my post.. i'm afraid i'm a little fatigued after a long day of rote learning for subjects I hate and have no interest in.

Ernie Ball

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Please, come to engineering and I will guide you around some of the PhDs and MengSc students here and show you some intellectualism. The research done here is very important and of international recognition.

Sorry that I didn't explicitly make clear that I wasn't talking about postgrads. Some of them are, of course, as bad as the undergrads but as a group they are generally more clued in.

There are also a large number of foreign students who make up this research pool, and I don't hear them complaining as much as you about the laziness of UCD students. Most gripes have to do with the administrative side of UCD, which is a joke as we all know.

The administrative side is the mirror image of the student side. The students think that all that matters are grades (and doing the minimum to get them) and the administration thinks that all that matters are 'world rankings' (and doing the minimum to rise in them). Both have a short-sighted purely quantitative (and cumulative) idea of what knowledge is.

I'm sick of reading your posts that have little credible evidence but are dressed up in delightful language to make them seem more believable.

So don't read them.

stardust_dublin

you're so repetitive. stop saying the same things over and over again, it just gets boring. you dont have a valid argument, you've lost, just give up now and save your dignity.

DirkVoodoo

I think dignity was checked at the door when he created this ludicrous post.

Its reassuring to see that the majority here, from different backgrounds and circumstances, seem to share a common view that this guy is being hypercritical of UCD students.

I would stop reading them, but I get so infuriated by this type of carry on.

Ernie Ball

stardust_dublin wrote: »

you're so repetitive. stop saying the same things over and over again, it just gets boring. you dont have a valid argument, you've lost, just give up now and save your dignity.

It's all so 'boring' isn't it? Just like your lectures: the lecturer keeps yammering on saying the same things over and over again.

Never mind that every one of my posts here has been in response to someone else's.

But you're right. I've lost. UCD is a great university, the proud heir of Newman's ideal. The students are as hardworking as students anywhere and anyone who says anything different must be a fool.

Come back to me in 30 years when you realise who has cheated whom.

Ernie Ball

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I think dignity was checked at the door when he created this ludicrous post.

To be clear (and at the risk of indulging in the repetition you so loathe): I didn't start this thread. It was split off from another thread by a mod.

Cannibal Ox

Bernie wrote:

Which do you choose?

Neither
I think results and degree marks are an imperfect way to test what you've learned.

So much emphasis and pressure is placed on students to achieve good results in exams that they do what ever they can to pass them. What is the easiest way to pass an exam? Study past exam papers, find patterns, pick several topics, cram them and learn pre-prepared essays. If your questions come up, you should pass and get a decent grade. Results are part of a system, a system thats there to be exploited. It isn't a test of your knowledge, its a test of how well you can exploit a system, and how diligent you are in exploiting it. So if you focus on marks as a reflection of what students learn, I think you won't learn anything.

Exploiting a system doesn't mean I haven't learned anything. In fact, I'd argue its taught me one of the most valuable lessons I could ever learn, how to use an unfair, unbalanced system to my advantage. If students only learned to recite facts and cram in university, then our accountants wouldn't be able to add or subtract, our business men and women unable to run a corner shop, our scientists unable to distinguish between weapons grade plutonium and jelly, and our politicans unable to grasp the electoral system. We'd all be robots, spouting random facts at other robots. Instead of focusing on results and what students do *during* university as evidence of what they've learned, you should be looking at what they've achieved after leaving university as evidence of whether they've learned anything. On the evidence of how Irish society has progressed over the past twenty or so years, I'd say Irish students have learned plenty.

I think you've an admirable view of a university as a place of knowledge and learning, but I don't think its realistic and as a result, I think your argument is based on what you'd like university to be like, rather then what university is like in reality. My solution to that? Get rich, esthablish your own university and run it the way you want. Branding all of us as lazy and spoilt isn't a solution.

Shaque attack

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!

do you really believe this? Honestly? Because it kind of sounds a bit like somebody who has a problem with the fact that there exists, and from what i can gather will always exist (utilitarian fantasies aside), a working class, a middle class, and an upper class. you seem to be suprised/annoyed at the fact that its the richer people who are in the majority of university attendees and while rich people do benefit from free fees and all that so do middle class and working class people, some of whom are entitled to a grant to attend uni.
i'm not really arsed going fully into it because i get muddled up in what i'm trying to say but do you not think that its pretty socialist to abolish fees in order to give those who couldn't afford to the chance to go to college? your reasoning on this confuses me greatly... that "from each according to his abilities; to each according to his need bit" is hilarious, fantasy world or what! Thought thats what the commies/marxists professed, not saying you're a red or anything... don't want this turning into one of those McCarthy type witch hunts

i reckon karmabass is spot on. I'd say you'd like most undergrads around the country to do their courses and all the rest in some other institution just not called university so that you and you're fellow thinkers and students of pure learning can preserve the ideal that university was created to uphold.

Come back to me in 30 years when you realise who has cheated whom

the continued condescention is hilarious, especially since i was planning on being condescending after reading your earlier posts. but sure i wont change horses mid stream. you should really try more of the real world and i'll bet you'll see a change in you're opinion.
if you'd prefer to stay on the whole academic side of things theres a really good book i think you should read and that you'd enjoy and might help you see things in a different light, you might have heard about it i don't know. its called the glass bead game, a chap called herman hesse (sp?) wrote. i wont spoil it for you but you should give serious thought to its conclusion.

sorry for not addressing the whole lazyness of ucd students, just thought i'd contribute where i thought i might be of help. anyways my opinion has been expressed in different ways by other posters (ref stereoroid, kaptain redeye, sangre just three off the top of my head)

EDIT: add annabil ox to that, made an excellent and concise post while i was busy rambling

The_Minister

This thread is now so rediculous and anal that lolcats are called for.

Bring on the lolcats.

griffdaddy

when did you become a mod actually? i wanna mod something other than a spliff and a cup of coffee for once:o

Ernie Ball

Cannibal Ox wrote: »

Neither
I think results and degree marks are an imperfect way to test what you've learned.

Probably the only statement of yours I agree with. But I don't think you really believe it. I think you love grades. Let's do a thought experiment: Imagine tomorrow Hugh Brady abolishes grades. From now on, UCD will be a place of pure learning and not a credential factory. We'll still have degrees but they'll all be equal: everyone who does the work gets a degree.

The hue and cry from the students would be deafening: What?! You're taking away our grades!? That's the only thing we work for!

The problem is not grading per se, however. The problem is the students' mindset. What was meant to be a simple (and crude) means to assess progress has become an end in itself for the students. It is all they care about, which is why my challenge is a good one: I'll bet most students would rather have a first no matter how little they learned than to actually learn something and get a lesser degree.

Since we're all recommending books to each other, you might want to check out Karl Marx's Capital, Chapter 1, Section 4 on commodity fetishism, which discusses the way in which, in a capitalist economy, commodities, which are simple vessels for exchange value (in this case, grades which can be exchanged for 'good jobs'), replace and evacuate the use value of the social relationships (teaching and learning) that give rise to them.

Since I can't possibly expect you to read a whole chapter in a book (even on the internet), here's something more your speed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism

So much emphasis and pressure is placed on students to achieve good results in exams that they do what ever they can to pass them. What is the easiest way to pass an exam? Study past exam papers, find patterns, pick several topics, cram them and learn pre-prepared essays.

That is indeed the 'easiest' way to 'pass' an exam if you can't stand the 'pressure' put on you by fools. However, it is not the best way. The best way is to engage--really and fully--with the material. Not simply to absorb it as though it were a pile of porridge. To engage with it is to become conversant with it. It requires much wider reading and much more time.

'Oh, but we don't have time! They make us do so much!'

Nonsense. Workloads at UCD are lighter than at any university I've ever been to. They are lighter than at Trinity. They are lighter than at all but the worst sorts of American party schools. And the reason they are lighter is that the students insist on it. That doesn't make them right.

If your questions come up, you should pass and get a decent grade. Results are part of a system, a system thats there to be exploited. It isn't a test of your knowledge, its a test of how well you can exploit a system, and how diligent you are in exploiting it. So if you focus on marks as a reflection of what students learn, I think you won't learn anything.

Hey, another statement I agree with (the last one, not the rest of it). A 'system that's there to be exploited', eh? I'm honoured to be in the presence of such a splendid blonde beast for whom the entraves that constrain lesser men are as bits of twine. (Oops, I keep forgetting I'm dealing with UCD students. Here.).

Exploiting a system doesn't mean I haven't learned anything. In fact, I'd argue its taught me one of the most valuable lessons I could ever learn, how to use an unfair, unbalanced system to my advantage.

What's unfair about it? That it insists upon your good will and requires you to be able to think?

Do you really think we need a university to 'teach' this 'valuable lesson' that turns all of us into gombeens?

Of course, this thread began (in another now-deleted thread) where students were deploring just this sort of (alleged) behaviour in a lecturer. He was alleged to have been doing nothing more than 'exploiting' the 'system': showing up late (because he can), giving the minimum (ditto), etc. But you don't like it when others do it, do you?

If students only learned to recite facts and cram in university, then our accountants wouldn't be able to add or subtract, our business men and women unable to run a corner shop, our scientists unable to distinguish between weapons grade plutonium and jelly, and our politicans unable to grasp the electoral system.

Such blind ambition! Pity that every one of your examples is something that can be learned by rote.

We'd all be robots, spouting random facts at other robots.

Can you be sure you aren't?

Instead of focusing on results and what students do *during* university as evidence of what they've learned, you should be looking at what they've achieved after leaving university as evidence of whether they've learned anything. On the evidence of how Irish society has progressed over the past twenty or so years, I'd say Irish students have learned plenty.

You're easily impressed. I look at contemporary Irish society and see a spiritually and intellectually impoverished nation. Ireland has produced several great writers but few great thinkers. Irish achievements in the natural and human sciences are nothing to be admired. The only thing that has happened in the last 20 years is that corporate tax rates were lowered, which started a boom (at the expense of other European nations) and allowed people to buy and sell houses to one another. If that's supposed to be an achievement...

I think you've an admirable view of a university as a place of knowledge and learning, but I don't think its realistic and as a result, I think your argument is based on what you'd like university to be like, rather then what university is like in reality.

In other words: we're too lazy for the work a university requires therefore the very definition of an institution that has served humanity well for over a millennium must now be changed to accommodate the new reality of homo ignavus. The arrogance....

Ernie Ball

Shaque attack wrote: »

do you really believe this? Honestly? Because it kind of sounds a bit like somebody who has a problem with the fact that there exists, and from what i can gather will always exist (utilitarian fantasies aside), a working class, a middle class, and an upper class.

I only have a problem with the use of the tax system to perpetuate it.

you seem to be suprised/annoyed at the fact that its the richer people who are in the majority of university attendees and while rich people do benefit from free fees and all that so do middle class and working class people, some of whom are entitled to a grant to attend uni.

I don't think you understood what I said (to be fair, some of the argument was in a thread that has been deleted). What annoys me is that the abolition of fees has effectively turned the part of the tax system dealing with third-level education into a subsidy paid from the relatively poor (average taxpayers) to the relatively rich (parents of university students). This is highly regressive.

i'm not really arsed going fully into it because i get muddled up in what i'm trying to say but do you not think that its pretty socialist to abolish fees in order to give those who couldn't afford to the chance to go to college?

In theory, yes. In practice, no. It ignores the fact that fees were not the only barrier to entry into university. Where one is schooled is an even bigger barrier.

your reasoning on this confuses me greatly... that "from each according to his abilities; to each according to his need bit" is hilarious, fantasy world or what!

You may find it 'hilarious' and 'fantasy' but it happens to be the philosophical basis of our progressive tax system.

Thought thats what the commies/marxists professed, not saying you're a red or anything... don't want this turning into one of those McCarthy type witch hunts

The phrase is widely attributed to Marx, but it does provide a good description of the philosophy underlying progressive taxation.

i reckon karmabass is spot on. I'd say you'd like most undergrads around the country to do their courses and all the rest in some other institution just not called university so that you and you're fellow thinkers and students of pure learning can preserve the ideal that university was created to uphold.

Actually, what I'd like would be a sea-change in student culture so that how much you know is more important than how much you can drink. Barring that, yes, I think universities should not be glorified trade schools and credential factories.

you should really try more of the real world and i'll bet you'll see a change in you're opinion.

What makes you think I haven't seen more of the 'real world' than you have?

But what's the idea here? That the 'real world' is hellish and dog-eat-dog and that therefore the university should be too?

if you'd prefer to stay on the whole academic side of things theres a really good book i think you should read and that you'd enjoy and might help you see things in a different light, you might have heard about it i don't know. its called the glass bead game, a chap called herman hesse (sp?) wrote. i wont spoil it for you but you should give serious thought to its conclusion.

Ho hum. The 'Ivory Tower'. How trite.

Ernie Ball

Cannibal Ox wrote: »

If students only learned to recite facts and cram in university, then our accountants wouldn't be able to add or subtract, our business men and women unable to run a corner shop, our scientists unable to distinguish between weapons grade plutonium and jelly, and our politicans unable to grasp the electoral system.

...our oncologists unable to diagnose breast cancer...
...our politicians unable to keep track of the cash in the suitcases...

breadmonkey

breadmonkey wrote: »

That's quite a broad statement and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you have absolutely nothing to back this up with apart from your own limited experiences and anecdotal (read "worthless") evidence?

After 4 pages of nonsense I'd just like to quote my original post in this thread which still stands.

Ernie Ball

breadmonkey wrote: »

After 4 pages of nonsense I'd just like to quote my original post in this thread which still stands.

And I'll come back with my original reply:

What would count as suitable 'evidence' for you?

Jonny Arson

lol @ thread

abelard

The_Minister wrote: »

This thread is now so rediculous and anal that lolcats are called for.

Bring on the lolcats.

YES!

DIE THREAD, DIE!

Vorsprung

In before lock!

Raphael

Ernie Ball banned for being a patronising and offensive twit.

Thread locked for propogating patronising and offensive twittery.

Lolcat added by request of co-mod.