Now Ye're Talking - To A University Lecturer

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Do you think there's an element of elitism among academics? As a student, I often get the sense that there's a great deal of mutual back-patting and communal congratulating among lecturers. One particular manifestation of this is around conferral/graduation periods, when those awful robes and hats come out.

Well, the graduation robes and what have you are usually a bit of a pain in the ar$e actually, because you have to do those grad ceremonies on a rotation. Nobody wants to be there, except to congratulate former students. They are a curse otherwise, it amounts to sitting there pretending to listen to a speech, often multiple times in a day. In the more general sense, though, yes, there is a bit of elitism. But these are people who are elite in their field, so it's inevitable.

The other side of that is that people in this industry are in direct competition with one another all the time. I think in terms of professional interaction at a research level things can be very pally-wally at conferences and so on. And in some ways my particular discipline lacks a certain willingness to challenge one another's ideas because it can be a little too polite for that. Which weakens the subject, IMO. But for all the impression you might have of back-slapping, beneath the politeness I think there is a remarkable level of competitive envy. As a doctoral student there was one other guy there who was ridiculously high-flying. He did brilliantly and has a great career. People were deeply envious of his ability, including me. And he was also deeply incapable of being magnanimous. You could attend a paper by someone, and he would just ask the most self-indulgent, cutting, horrible question. Which is easy to do, actually, it's very simple to ask a question that makes you look like an expert and the presenter look like a spanner. That kind of petty envy and oneupmanship never quite disappears, and in some ways, as pathetic as it can come across, I think it's necessary to the quality of the subject. Sooner or later you need to learn to have some perspective. But no, the impression of being a back-slapping contest is a little misleading. People would stab you in the back as they're shaking your hand.

thelad95

Do you often get asked stupid questions by mature students? I only started college a few months ago but I find some mature students continually try and suck up to lecturers by asking daft or pointless questions. It's pretty tiresome when class is constantly interrupted.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

You've already mentioned how contributions to academic journals can be written in obfuscating prose. Do you think articles are argumentative enough? I study English literature and I believe the research and criticism is important, but a lot of articles I read are languid and feel quite reserved about making a strong point. Do you think theory and criticism should be more polemical?

Most definitely. It's difficult to argue with the most persuasive, key interventions, which are also the ones that are the most quoted. So sometimes essays can feel like nodding dogs. But there is also the counter-view that literary criticism is relentlessly polemical, and there is a distinct lack of original scholarship, instead of argumentative essays that are not especially original, but rather just making some socio-political point. I sound like a broken record, but, it's hard to generalise. Essays are good or bad, but arguing for its own sake creates a vacuous discourse, like a high brow version of After Hours.

Schools in universities are notorious for adhering to certain modes of thinking. I know it's a bad example and I'll understand if you can't entertain it, but with feminist theory so advanced and popular now, what do you think would happen if a lecturer did not ally with feminist arguments? Would that person find themselves out of a job pretty quickly?

To answer the specific question, no. You can't lose a job because you are not a feminist. I know what you mean, feminist theory, along with various other theoretical schools, have a certain currency. Personally I'm of the opinion that feminism in particular is a very positive presence in literary discourse, and it's changed the way we think about literature in very important and good ways that simply can't be undone, and if someone wants to dismiss the changes made in our understanding of, say, the British literary canon, because of feminism, they better have a damn good reason for it. And also literature was, for decades, the most deeply conservative discipline in academia. But that's all personal. Now, this kind of attitude can be very self-affirming and you can find that a consensus forms, within which there is an expectation that people will conform, or that debate has to work within the confines of certain premises about feminism or colonialism that are hard to break out of. But there are conservative literary critics out there, plenty of them. It's dangerous how the left can close out those voices, but it isn't nearly as dangerous as the Telegraph like to portray it in their culture section.

I do get frustrated with tutors and lecturers who are inclined to shut down arguments that are hostile to things like feminism. But I also get frustrated when the ring pull won't work on a can of corn. So I'm learning to relax.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

The Black Oil wrote: »

Teacher bashing is a common sport for elements of the mainstream media and in online debates. Do you find this applies to third level, or that the public has an overly negative view of what you do?

Yeah, I remember a couple of years back George Hook was moaning about lecturers only working six hours a week. He seemed to be under the impression that lecturers just go in, yammer for an hour and swan off home. It was the kind of thing that appeals to Daily Mail readers who think that everyone is either a scrounger, an immigrant, or a daily mail reader. It got a lot of traction and people spent a long time explaining and apologising for lecturers. Personally I found it beneath response, given that it was instigated by someone who is incapable of competent commentary even in his supposed area of expertise, let alone things he manifestly didn't know anything about.

I think more generally there's a certain amount of respect for lecturers and so on, that they do something other than teaching, but there's also a widespread suspicion that we are doing nothing and getting handsomely paid. I doubt we face the kind of hostility that teachers do, though, by any means. The thing that keeps me honest is the simple knowledge that I have about 70 people snapping at my heels for my job. If I spent my time the way George Hook thinks I do, I'd be signing on pretty soon. I don't care about the opinions of people in online debates. I've read enough of them to know the disparity between willingness to vocalise an opinion, and actual knowledge of the thing people are pontificating about. It goes in one ear and out the other.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

DublinArnie wrote: »

Sorry, didn't read through the whole AMA to know if you answered this.

Would money be a factor in becoming a lecturer? Also, would it be viable to take up research (if you were a lecturer in a science field etc) for extra money?

The first question, no. If you want to make money, and think lecturing is a good way of doing it, you're not smart enough to be a lecturer OR make money, and you won't do either.

The second question, I couldn't comment. There are science people on this thread who could probably offer an answer.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Rubecula wrote: »

The reason I asked the question is a complex one but allow me to explain, I was a mature student some years (decades) ago and the system has changed since those halcyon days. I loved my time at Uni and if I could afford it I would find a way to be a student for life. (Or maybe if I were deemed intelligent enough, I would like to follow your road) I am now closer to retirement than I would like to admit to, but as I live near Holyhead I would have a choice of places to study (Back home in Liverpool naah been there done that and got the T shirt - literally) Bangor just half an hour from home, or Ireland (Dublin, the place of my family history) I would prefer Ireland, but should it prove too difficult or expensive I may settle for Bangor.

In terms of following my road, it's not a measure of intelligence. Plenty of people smarter than me tried it and made a balls of it. There's so much involved in it, and luck is not the smallest of them. An ability to deal well socially with people can't be underestimated. As boring as my answers might sound, I'm tremendous craic for an academic, and that kind of thing matters.

Which has nothing to do with what you're asking, so to address it: in terms of expense I genuinely don't know. The fees vary depending on your citizenship, and all sorts of stuff. Being a mature student makes a difference and I'm not sure what that difference consists of. In terms of difficulty, I honestly doubt there's any difference at all, really. Make a list of the places you are thinking of going, find out the fee structures. Figure out yourself what kind of sacrifices would be involved for you, in terms of travel, family, etc. And talk to professors in all of the departments you're considering. Be honest with yourself and those professors about what you want from the degree, it's very common in my experience for mature students especially to start a course and then find themselves very disappointed with what they're doing. They often seem to misunderstand what it was they were getting into, so talk to people extensively.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

You might be glad to hear from a psychology lecturer that I have often told students that there is more psychology in the study of literature than there is in psychology. As regards how and why characters behave the way they do. Which is why students start off studying psychology - but we don't provide this

Yeah, I get the feeling the feeling psychology is the most misunderstood discipline in the academy.

Rubecula

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

In terms of following my road, it's not a measure of intelligence. Plenty of people smarter than me tried it and made a balls of it. There's so much involved in it, and luck is not the smallest of them. An ability to deal well socially with people can't be underestimated. As boring as my answers might sound, I'm tremendous craic for an academic, and that kind of thing matters.

Which has nothing to do with what you're asking, so to address it: in terms of expense I genuinely don't know. The fees vary depending on your citizenship, and all sorts of stuff. Being a mature student makes a difference and I'm not sure what that difference consists of. In terms of difficulty, I honestly doubt there's any difference at all, really. Make a list of the places you are thinking of going, find out the fee structures. Figure out yourself what kind of sacrifices would be involved for you, in terms of travel, family, etc. And talk to professors in all of the departments you're considering. Be honest with yourself and those professors about what you want from the degree, it's very common in my experience for mature students especially to start a course and then find themselves very disappointed with what they're doing. They often seem to misunderstand what it was they were getting into, so talk to people extensively.

superb answer, which tally's exactly with my own thoughts and ideas. Thank you kind person.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

I think it's been pretty obvious for the last number of years (certainly during the tiger years) that students who don't know what to do, end up taking Arts. Whether that's to do with Arts being seen as an 'easy' degree, only taking 3 years, or otherwise - I don't know. From what you've said, would a lot of these students would gravitate towards English with the expectation that it will be an easy course?

Arts has been a fallback for people who don't know what they want to do for much, much longer than that, IMO. Most of my friends in college were doing it for that reason. Honestly it's as good a reason to do it as any, it's time well spent if that is your situation. I think it is regarded as easy. Rightly, as it happens. I genuinely think it is pretty easy to pass an Arts degree, long as you're doing a spot of work. A lot of Arts graduates get defensive about it, but honestly, it's not brain surgery. To do well, is a different story. These are interesting subjects, and you get out of them what you put in, in every sense of the word.

BUT, but, but, English isn't THAT easy. There are plenty of people on this thread who have come up against the brick wall of English academic writing, things like critical theory are very different ways of thinking about the world that require plenty of mental gymnastics to begin to get your head around, and if you're serious about doing English, you have to be committed to spending many hours a day reading in silence and isolation. The drop out rate, or the feeling of alienation from the subject, comes from a lack of appreciation of these things. Plenty of dossers go through English and plenty of them probably get through OK. It's easy to do badly in. If you want to be good at it, I think it's a different story.

It's clear that the LC (and IMO even degree level exam-focused learning) does form a tendency to just regurgitate material and rote-learn. Would you say that the LC English course is in any way adequate for preparing students to study 3rd level English? It's a common complaint within STEM, particularly maths, that students entering 3rd level lack basic fundamental skills and knowledge to study that subject.

Yeah, I think students come into English (and these are presumably people who had a flair for it, let alone people who were bad at it), who are terrible at writing, can't construct a sentence, can't write an essay introduction, can't understand what a paragraph is. These to me are basic issues. It's one of the reasons I have a problem when we're told we are being too harsh in our marking. People get grades that entitle them to become secondary teachers, who I genuinely despair about sometimes. It's a little scary how low we set the bar for ourselves in terms of how we go about teaching our children.

So peopl come into college incapable of things that we really should be able to take for granted. And I do wonder what they are doing in school. But it's a very easy thing to be cynical about. I have many friends who are secondary teachers and the raw material they're dealing with is also very difficult. They're doing the best they can and they do a job I never would be able for myself. I simply don't know what they should be doing with the LC to make the students coming out better. I would certainly be spending much, much more time on basic issues of writing, argument, and essay construction. Because they currently come out without a clue. They can often quote TS Eliot in very convenient ways for answering very basic questions on poetry though. Which is useless stuff without the basics. I can teach them the poetry stuff in much more interesting ways than the secondary teachers are likely to do, but if they can't write competently about it and I have to spend my couple of hours a week with them explaining what a paragraph is, I think that's a terrible use of our time together.

Do you feel that undergraduate study is rightly or wrongly centred around exam-based learning (as opposed to continuous assessment)?

I think there's too much assessment by far. I dunno if continuous assessment is the answer, because that seems to be quite fashionable right now, but it's mainly resulted in the students being constantly under exam conditions, rather than ever being able to spend time just getting familiar with the material. They are always in exam prep mode, and no matter what you do, students aren't idiots, if you examine them constantly, they will constantly view texts as tools for getting along in exams, rather than things to be studied for their own sake. I'm not sure what should be done, but relentlessly putting students through exams, turns them into examination machines, and turns the texts into the raw material of those machines.

Does English research require a lot of funding? And what are the success rates for grant applications in general within humanities subjects? I know in Science, the grant success rate is about 15%.

I would say the success rate is comparable. The actual funding requirements are generally lower because we don't use as much equipment as STEM subjects. You might need to travel to get to an archive, a manuscript collection, or work with particular people, but in and of itself, English is a relatively cheap subject to study.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Fluorescence wrote: »

Recently I've been reading about third level institutions in eastern Europe, particularly Czech Republic and Slovakia. For most of their courses, there is little to no essay writing or written exams. Rather you study the material, are given a choice of 3 topics on the day and then have an oral exam with your examiner to explain everything you know about that topic. It is common practise in second level as well.

How would you feel about that kind of assessment here? Is it too foreign to our educational culture to work? Are our courses simply too large?

I taught in Eastern Europe but not in those countries, and my students weren't lit students anyway, but they did have written exams. The set up sounds interesting. I would be sceptical about it for literature here, for the simple reason that we are in the business of learning how to make a persuasive written argument. It seems to me that if we were to examine orally, we would also have to train people to answer questions in that way, so it would just be a different type of training, to which the subject itself would be relegated. That to me would not be especially helpful since the one thing I would want, as an employer, from an English grad, is that they be able to write.

In terms of resources, as you hinted yourself, it might be difficult to work given the numbers we have. If it was worthwhile I think they should find a way though. I can see it being useful but ultimately I'm very traditional, I would like my students to be doing essays. My preference would be to stop doing exams though. They don't lend themselves to prolonged contemplation of a text, slow formulation of an argument and carefully laying out your ideas. That's what an essay does and it's what English grads should be able to do.

But that's just my idea.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

wnolan1992 wrote: »

What is your opinion on group projects?

Is there actually value to be had, or are they just assigned so that the lecturer doesn't have to correct individual assignments from each student and/or as part of some sick vendetta in order to heap stress on students who lecturers see as being layabouts and drunkards?



EDIT: Have I made it too obvious that I've had multiple bad experiences in group projects? :P

As an undergrad I only ever had to do one collaborative project, with a friend of mine, and because she was a mate I basically did it myself. So I didn't have to do group stuff and in some ways in this subject it seems counter to my understanding of the subject, which I instinctively think of as a solo pursuit. People who know more than me about educational theory claim it's very helpful in various ways but I am very inept at implementing that stuff so I can't comment on its efficacy, which could be very good for a good enough teacher who knows about that stuff.

I can assure you it wasn't designed to reduce the workload on lecturers, lecturers hate dealing with "innovative" teaching and assessments, it always involves more work, along with plenty of fun emails from students whining about the project and the people they have to work with.

It is one time where I find myself thinking...please god stop whining, everyone has problems in their jobs, and working with people in their jobs, just get over it and get the **** on with it.

Luckily I haven't ever ended up teaching one of those courses (the famous one was the UCD Enquiry Based Learning course that got national headlines for what they were doing). As to heaping stress on layabouts and drunkards, I would have thought the group work gets them off the hook, because the good students will do their work for them?

But yeah, group projects...I'm glad I don't have to do them. I wouldn't even collaborate with another academic, except on organising a conference. Let alone being forced to work with some random student who is more interested in getting into some girl's pants than doing the stupid assignment. You have my sympathy.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

osarusan wrote: »

In a subject like English literature, how is the focus of courses decided, and who selects works to be studied for each course?

With that in mind, what's the piece of literature you've given lectures about that you thought was least deserving of a place in a university course?

This is difficult to answer, because it varies a lot depending on the department, so I'll give a couple of instances.

If you are doing a core module, often you'll be one of several lecturers, and the module will have a fairly well established remit (Victorian literature or Modernism or whatever). So while you might be able to pick a text it'll be pretty constrained.

Then, some places you could do a core module but it's later in the degree so there's more leeway to design the course, but it'll still be pretty restrained in various ways.

THEN, there are specialist seminar courses. These can be quite rigid things like "Contemporary American Literature" but within it you have a lot of scope to select texts (it being a wide field and you being the only teacher with a small class). Or it could be quite broad, but thematically coherent ("Gothic literature in the Third World", which isn't a real course, but it could be).

THEN AGAIN, you could be doing a branch course, which is where you have a core module that everyone does, but then students also do related seminars in a specialist area within the field of the core module, with small classes and usually working with someone who has designed the course to reflect their research. These are my favourite courses, and I'm getting to design really cool stuff right now for this stuff.

This stuff is all subject to approval by the department, but as long as you can justify it, whether within the themes of the course or on its own terms as possessing merit, you are trusted.

To your latter question, I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean, what was the worst book I've ever lectured on? I mean, there's plenty of books on courses that I don't think are particularly fantastic but are very important historically, or that others think are great (Shakespeare's comedies are, at best, a mixed bag as far as I'm concerned). Then there are books (IMHO) of limited literary merit that are important socially now (Harry Potter springs to mind) that I believe should be studied for various reasons.

Also, talking about a text isn't necessarily an endorsement of it. The worst thing I've ever had to give a lecture on was the Twilight saga. I was only talking about the movies, not the books. Those films are awful, but they are an important example of how women's opportunities for the construction of an identity or a life can be constricted by gender expectations, and the creation of woman as threat, death, and danger. I wasn't lecturing on the film as some kind of wonderful example of film-making, but as an example of how Hollywood buys into gender stereotypes. So, bad things can deserve a place too...

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

thelad95 wrote: »

Do you often get asked stupid questions by mature students? I only started college a few months ago but I find some mature students continually try and suck up to lecturers by asking daft or pointless questions. It's pretty tiresome when class is constantly interrupted.

This is going to sound terribly condescending, so buckle up.

When I was an undergrad I found mature students terribly annoying and boring and interruptive. They can be very self-imortant and inclined to resort to their life experience in discussion, rather than sticking to the damn text at hand.

But, they are also by far the most consistently interesting students. They are usually there because they have chosen to be, rather than because their parents expected them to go to college. And all that life experience does mean they have real insights into the texts that some teenager who thinks they know everything simply does not.

From a teacher's point of view, mature students can sometimes be very difficult because they are very demanding of the teacher's time, and inclined to take up time in class, occasionally with quite distracting irrelevant stuff. But far more often, they are a lifeline, because the overwhelming majority of young students just sit there with a vacant, bored look on their faces, waiting to be told what to think. The mature students will fill that vacuum, and you can see lots of young students rolling their eyes, while contributing nothing of value themselves.

That's all very generalising, of course, but my experience is that mature students enrich the class far more often than they drag it down. The best young students can be sort of shouted down occasionally by the very confident, distracting mature students, but far more often the young students are disengaged. OR, they simply think of themselves as intrinsically more interesting, wonderful people than the boring old sods who sit near the front of lectures. This opinion is seldom actually earned, in my experience.

But yeah, the mature students can be difficult, and you have a suspicion with some that they're doing it to kill time while their rich spouse is at work. But most of the time, give them a chance and they'll surprise you. They are overwhelmingly from backgrounds where they had no chance to get an education like that as kids, and they really grab it with both hands. They can be very rewarding.

But also very demanding and inclined to assume that you're just being lazy or dismissive of them, because they have inferiority complexes a lot of the time. They're also more likely to be disillusioned by academic English.

So as you can gather by that back and forth I just had with myself, I'm torn about it all.

eternal

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

This is going to sound terribly condescending, so buckle up.

When I was an undergrad I found mature students terribly annoying and boring and interruptive. They can be very self-imortant and inclined to resort to their life experience in discussion, rather than sticking to the damn text at hand.

But, they are also by far the most consistently interesting students. They are usually there because they have chosen to be, rather than because their parents expected them to go to college. And all that life experience does mean they have real insights into the texts that some teenager who thinks they know everything simply does not.

From a teacher's point of view, mature students can sometimes be very difficult because they are very demanding of the teacher's time, and inclined to take up time in class, occasionally with quite distracting irrelevant stuff. But far more often, they are a lifeline, because the overwhelming majority of young students just sit there with a vacant, bored look on their faces, waiting to be told what to think. The mature students will fill that vacuum, and you can see lots of young students rolling their eyes, while contributing nothing of value themselves.

That's all very generalising, of course, but my experience is that mature students enrich the class far more often than they drag it down. The best young students can be sort of shouted down occasionally by the very confident, distracting mature students, but far more often the young students are disengaged. OR, they simply think of themselves as intrinsically more interesting, wonderful people than the boring old sods who sit near the front of lectures. This opinion is seldom actually earned, in my experience.

But yeah, the mature students can be difficult, and you have a suspicion with some that they're doing it to kill time while their rich spouse is at work. But most of the time, give them a chance and they'll surprise you. They are overwhelmingly from backgrounds where they had no chance to get an education like that as kids, and they really grab it with both hands. They can be very rewarding.

But also very demanding and inclined to assume that you're just being lazy or dismissive of them, because they have inferiority complexes a lot of the time. They're also more likely to be disillusioned by academic English.

So as you can gather by that back and forth I just had with myself, I'm torn about it all.

I was a mature student and have to say there is no evidence of a rich spouse! If only.

Fluorescence

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

I taught in Eastern Europe but not in those countries, and my students weren't lit students anyway, but they did have written exams. The set up sounds interesting. I would be sceptical about it for literature here, for the simple reason that we are in the business of learning how to make a persuasive written argument. It seems to me that if we were to examine orally, we would also have to train people to answer questions in that way, so it would just be a different type of training, to which the subject itself would be relegated. That to me would not be especially helpful since the one thing I would want, as an employer, from an English grad, is that they be able to write.

In terms of resources, as you hinted yourself, it might be difficult to work given the numbers we have. If it was worthwhile I think they should find a way though. I can see it being useful but ultimately I'm very traditional, I would like my students to be doing essays. My preference would be to stop doing exams though. They don't lend themselves to prolonged contemplation of a text, slow formulation of an argument and carefully laying out your ideas. That's what an essay does and it's what English grads should be able to do.

But that's just my idea.

I should have specified that this method of assessment is being used in science and veterinary disciplines in these countries. I don't know if it is used in the humanities.

Your answer makes a lot of sense though. Writing is an essential skill for an English grad!

thelad95

In your opinion, is the current model of university outdated? For example, why do students physically have to turn up to class at a certain time in a certain university in a certain county? Could lectures not be broadcast live online from your office? Do you see the current model of college changing soon?

Similarly, are you familiar with MOOCS? And if so what do you think of it?

This isn't strictly in your field but what is your opinion of the current LC English course and the fact that English is a compulsory subject? Personally, I feel English should definitely be compulsory but I see the potential to split English into two separate subjects. One compulsory subject focusing on basic reading, writing, comprehension and conversation skills and one subject focusing on academic English, studying poetry, Shakespeare and novels. Would you agree this could be a viable possibility or do you think academic English should remain part of the compulsory English subject?

osarusan

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

To your latter question, I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean, what was the worst book I've ever lectured on? I mean, there's plenty of books on courses that I don't think are particularly fantastic but are very important historically, or that others think are great (Shakespeare's comedies are, at best, a mixed bag as far as I'm concerned). Then there are books (IMHO) of limited literary merit that are important socially now (Harry Potter springs to mind) that I believe should be studied for various reasons.

Also, talking about a text isn't necessarily an endorsement of it. The worst thing I've ever had to give a lecture on was the Twilight saga. I was only talking about the movies, not the books. Those films are awful, but they are an important example of how women's opportunities for the construction of an identity or a life can be constricted by gender expectations, and the creation of woman as threat, death, and danger. I wasn't lecturing on the film as some kind of wonderful example of film-making, but as an example of how Hollywood buys into gender stereotypes. So, bad things can deserve a place too...

Yes, thank you, this is what I meant.

I studied English literature also, and the lecturers sometimes mentioned the balance of covering great works versus familiarising students with the history and evolution of literature.

I remember one lecturer in particular, having unkind things to say about Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (which was in another lecturer's course).

So I was wondering how these general themes and specific works are selected, and how harmonious the whole process is.

Galwayguy35

From your experience would people from poorer backrounds go on to become lecturers or would it normally be people from middle class or wealthy backrounds?

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Hi folks, thanks once again for all the questions, I'll try to get them all answered this evening.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

eternal wrote: »

I was a mature student and have to say there is no evidence of a rich spouse! If only.

Oh, yeah, like I say, the overwhelming majority of mature students are not in a position of privilege. And even those who are, I was probably a bit more dismissive than I should have been about.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Fluorescence wrote: »

I should have specified that this method of assessment is being used in science and veterinary disciplines in these countries. I don't know if it is used in the humanities.

Your answer makes a lot of sense though. Writing is an essential skill for an English grad!

Well, I don't know if it is more or less effective for those disciplines, it sounds like an interesting approach though.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

In your opinion, is the current model of university outdated? For example, why do students physically have to turn up to class at a certain time in a certain university in a certain county? Could lectures not be broadcast live online from your office? Do you see the current model of college changing soon?

Well, the current model is changing, pretty much always. The shift towards things like online lectures has been ongoing for a long time, signalled by the rise of stuff like Moodle that we've already been talking about. If we wanted, we could go back much further and argue that the Open University has been doing a relatively low tech version of this kind of thing for many decades. I am of the opinion that face-to-face contact is necessary for a lecture to be really good (no different than playing music live or whatever), but more importantly, I think it's necessary to have some level of personal interaction between students and teachers in some kind of tutorial format. Some colleges have experimented with getting rid of these things and replacing them with online discussion and it's been a disaster. Whether that's an inherent problem of human nature, or whether we have just not learned properly to use the technology that's there, is a question I can't answer.

I often wonder about the idea of an electronic campus. Would that mean that students would just still live in their home town with their parents until they get their degree? This isn't an academic issue, but I would have cracked up if someone told me when I was 18 that I wouldn't get to go to college, surrounded by other young people having fun and generally being a student. Another 3 years at home and I would have been certifiable.

Similarly, are you familiar with MOOCS? And if so what do you think of it?

I'm kind of familiar with the things MIT have done and it seems simply brilliant. I'm a huge fan. Would love to do an intro course in astrophysics or something like that through it. I haven't the head for the subject at all, but the idea of being able to access lectures and courses by world-leading figures in their fields is very exciting. We are completely misusing the internet, spending our time arguing with lunatics about whether global warming is real and calling each other racists. Things like MOOCS have the potential to radically increase the sum total of human knowledge, opening up the world's most exciting ideas to a literally unlimited audience. But cat videos and people calling each other a fag on reddit are good too.

This isn't strictly in your field but what is your opinion of the current LC English course and the fact that English is a compulsory subject? Personally, I feel English should definitely be compulsory but I see the potential to split English into two separate subjects. One compulsory subject focusing on basic reading, writing, comprehension and conversation skills and one subject focusing on academic English, studying poetry, Shakespeare and novels. Would you agree this could be a viable possibility or do you think academic English should remain part of the compulsory English subject?

I was in the final year of the old Leaving Cert course with Soundings and all that, I'm only cursorily familiar with the current LC. I know I have been banging the drum here about increasing the time spent on writing skills etc, but (possibly for selfish reasons) I also would never want to see a situation where exposure to cultural production was marginalised, which that set up would probably do. There is plenty more scope for widening the remit of English to encompass more film and television etc. But the ability to engage with, and interrogate, challenge, and appreciate literature and other culture is vitally important, IMO, to the country. A pure composition course would have to exist in a kind of vacuum in which the topics of argument become increasingly utilitarian. I see the value of what you're saying but as I said early in the thread, I worry about the reduction of all education to its use value for the economy. This is a much wider issue than just English, of course, and this will sound very lefty... Essentially I would fear that our children are being educated strictly along the lines demanded by those in positions of economic power, and the ability or willingness to challenge the assumptions of that power are as important to the vitality of the country as being responsive to the needs of industry. Marginalising the literature part of English would, I think, be an important step towards declaring schools as factories for the production of workers.

Of course that's all a load of romantic gibberish. At least that's what IBEC would say.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

osarusan wrote: »

Yes, thank you, this is what I meant.

I studied English literature also, and the lecturers sometimes mentioned the balance of covering great works versus familiarising students with the history and evolution of literature.

I remember one lecturer in particular, having unkind things to say about Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (which was in another lecturer's course).

So I was wondering how these general themes and specific works are selected, and how harmonious the whole process is.

Well, in the broadest sense, a surprising amount of time is spent among English scholars debating the canon of great literature, what deserves that title and what doesn't. Many of the debates focus on how what we consider great writing is often shaped by the cultural politics of the era. So, for example, the overwhelming majority of 18th century novels were written by women, and it was regarded as a lower form of writing than epic poetry. Then it gradually became more respectable and high brow, and cultural historians (especially Ian Watt in The Rise of the Novel) seemed consciously or unconsciously to re-write the history of the novel so that it's greatest early exponents were all men (including Richardson, author of Pamela, and Fielding and Laurence Sterne). Feminist theorists then spent much of the 70s and 80s reclaiming the history of the novel and seeking to reinstate women as the important pioneers of the novel form.

More generally there is also a shift towards recognising writers from the cultural margins, so that the vision of great literature which sees London, Paris and New York as the centres of culture is challenged by recognising great writers from places like Latin America etc.

Now, along with research, publishing, book sales etc, one of the battlegrounds in these canon debates, is curriculum formation. Debates over what literature students should be studying are always ongoing, and the curriculum often shifts to reflect those debates, even within a given department. There really are arguments about what should go into courses and why. While ultimately, the module coordinator will have final say on what is going to be studied, the big core modules seldom stay settled for long. New lecturers come into courses and bring their own preferences and expertise, and the thing will continually evolve. How the general themes are decided upon is a pretty vexed question. For the most part they are kind of already in place, and changes are made in an evolutionary way rather than reinventing the whole degree structure, so it's more a question of pointing to gaps in the curriculum or inadequacies.

Most departments will have a progress map for their courses, though. By and large, in first year you study introductory courses that lay out the broad tenets of literary periodisation, to give you a feel for the span of literary history, along with courses that teach you the basics of how to be a literary scholar (essay writing and so on are often incorporated into core modules, some colleges will have quite technical courses on poetic analysis etc). In second year you will have an opportunity to focus in a little more on particular periods that interest you, as well as doing more advanced technical training (critical theory is normally a second year course, for example). In the third year most of your work will be on much more specialised courses in seminar formats, which is where people start doing things like "post-war poetry in Britain" or whatever. So, while those courses can sound quite random, there is a logic of gradual specialisation there, so that you couldn't do a course like that without first having studied the broad history of British writing, and then understanding things like the rise of modernism, and the postmodern, through which a specialist course has much more context and makes more sense. First years, in other words, aren't just being given random mad courses based on someone's doctoral research, rather those specialisations come later, once they have lots of base work done.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

From your experience would people from poorer backrounds go on to become lecturers or would it normally be people from middle class or wealthy backrounds?

Sadly it's still mostly people from middle class or wealthy backgrounds. They are the ones who have gone to better schools, or have richer parents who can afford the luxury of years in postgrad and not worrying about making ends meet. Often the race for jobs is dictated by one's financial ability to hold out doing adjunct work for very little money (I know of people who have done this for years, it's beyond me how they actually survive unless their parents are simply giving them money), which some people are simply not in a position to do for all sorts of reasons. It's as unequal as any other facet of life. There are funding opportunities, and the best people have chances to make it the same as anyone else, but don't let anyone tell you it's a meritocracy and that everyone who has made it did so purely due to their own talent and hard work.

But as I say, I know people from working class backgrounds who do this for a living too. They just aren't the majority (also English literature is obviously more popular among relatively wealthy people, but like so many things, that isn't some universal truth)

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Do you see yourself lecturing until retirement, or changing jobs between now and then?

I'll keep doing it if I'm allowed. If not, I'll roll with whatever happens.

Would many people become lecturers for a few years before deciding to change to doing something else or would most stick with it long term?

Again, most people I know would have ambitions to keep doing it permanently but the opportunities are scarce and many people have to find new paths.

Do you have any advice for any of us students on this thread?

Loads of it. I've given some already on the thread, so the first tip I'll give is read the text very carefully before asking questions in class.

If you're a lit student, another tip that just came to mind: read the damn text before reading any articles, and NEVER read Sparknotes. It's amazing how many people will read critical material rather than the text first, and are then incapable of breaking out of the viewpoints they have first encountered. Come at the text on your own first, and your ways of thinking about the text and all that you read around it will be much more considered, much more responsive rather than repetitive. Better answers, basically, come from people who think for themselves first, and then see what others think.

And Sparknotes is for people incapable of thought.

Also, don't be shy in tutorials. You will be a better student and have better classes if you engage in discussion and debate. Sitting in silence is a good way of learning nothing in that format and it's what most people do.

When you were in college did you prefer C.A over exams or vice versa? Do you notice a big difference between your own students C.A and exams (e.g perhaps most students may do very well in C.A and quite poorly in exams?)

As I said before, I prefer essays to exams for numerous reasons. There is a difference in quality between exams and essays, yes, but it's something that's allowed for when we are correcting. I also think there's too much continuous assessment. I would ideally want students doing one major essay per course per semester, with possibly a smaller project half way through the course.

Would you find that lectures in particular disciplines have a certain stereotype associated with them personality wise, e.g would many of the lecturers in the humanities discipline be consider new agey perhaps, or stuffy, science lecturers particularly geeky etc. Obviously this is meant as a generalisation and of course individuals vary on a case be case basis.

Sure you know yourself, the image of the old man in a corduroy jacket and leather patches smoking a pipe...There is the other stereotype of radical leftists full of trendy ideas with silly haircuts. There was an episode of the Simpsons recently (therefore not a good one) where Marge went to college and fell in love with a very handsome radical theorist. That stereotype is probably not as well established but it's probably closer to accurate (except for the handsome part, most English lecturers are not attractive, if they were they wouldn't have been so into reading as kids)

If you could change 1 thing about Universities in Ireland what would it be and why?

I would reverse the casualisation of the academic workforce, in particular the extension of occasional lecturing contracts, which are intended for PhD students, right into people's post-PhD years. This is severely damaging for so many reasons. For one thing, it destroys the morale of young researchers and teachers. For another, it reduces the quality of their teaching while also creating difficulty in completing research (adjuncts to a lot of new courses that need to be prepared for from scratch, ironically the lack of research time condemns them indefinitely to further adjunct roles or worse still, no role at all, not to mention how much time they need to spend preparing job applications instead of completing the articles those jobs demand). It also reduces the quality of the teaching (underpaid, overworked teachers are not as good as properly paid staff). It also threatens tenure, which is vital to academic freedom, which is in turn vital to the health of public discourse. Casual academic work is saving the colleges some money, but it is endangering the future of the university as an important centre of research, public intervention, teaching and learning. If it threatens those things, it threatens everything that universities are supposed to be about. It's a cancer.

Ive heard that many people struggle finacially whilst completing their Ph.D which I believe can take up to 7 years, how do most peole cope financially whilst completing Ph.Ds, would you find most are supported by their parents?

Some are funded, some work part time, some work full time, some have rich parents. I taught and did professional research, and was very very poor.

Were you a particularly smart/nerdy child/teen always destined for great academic success?

I was fairly nerdy, in some ways, but while I had some teachers who really believed in me and pushed me as best they could, I don't think I was a particularly stand-out student, and certainly not across the subjects. I think the Leaving Cert didn't suit me at all in English, so while I had teachers reading out my creative essays in class, I probably underperformed in the exam because they basically teach you formulas on how to pass the damn thing. I noticed boards has whole threads where people try to predict what the poetry questions will be each year. I find that to be horrifying.

But yeah even in first year in college I wasn't great. I found my feet in second year and the lecturers started taking a bit of notice. By third year I'd say I was as good as anyone, and my grades were through the stratosphere at that stage. But it was as much a question of confidence, recognition of what English lit is about and how it works (I think this is something undergrads almost never really get to grips with, and that's our fault), as any kind of natural ability. I could always write a decent sentence though.

“Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.” -John Green. Any thoughts on this particular quote/observation?

I have nothing to add to it, except that John Green is quite correct. You should be suspicious of anyone who thinks otherwise.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

OK, I think I'll leave the AMA at that. It really has been a pleasure, I know I've answered at boring length at times but it was nice to let loose about these things. Hope you enjoyed it.

If anyone has any particular questions about studying English, doing a postgrad, etc etc, send me a PM, I'll check this account a couple of more times during this week and respond when I can. After that my teaching load will skyrocket so I probably won't check it too much after that (but I will check it).

Thanks again, ye were great to talk to.

Earthhorse

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

It really has been a pleasure, I know I've answered at boring length at times but it was nice to let loose about these things. Hope you enjoyed it.

Your answers were definitely long but they were thoroughly interesting. Best AMA on boards to date. Fair play.

G_R

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

OK, I think I'll leave the AMA at that. It really has been a pleasure, I know I've answered at boring length at times but it was nice to let loose about these things. Hope you enjoyed it.

If anyone has any particular questions about studying English, doing a postgrad, etc etc, send me a PM, I'll check this account a couple of more times during this week and respond when I can. After that my teaching load will skyrocket so I probably won't check it too much after that (but I will check it).

Thanks again, ye were great to talk to.

Thanks for taking the time to do this - it was really interesting to read!