I’m marking papers from a Canadian history course. It’s at the 2nd year level, but the quality of some of them seems to be what one would expect from grade IX or so.
I keep saying people this incompetent don’t belong in university; they’re dumbing down the content and critical thinking skills which can be taught. The value of an undergraduate education is getting increasingly diminished, and nobody is going to benefit from it in the long run.
I think the problem stems from people seeing a university degree as a qualification for a job rather than an endeavor for its own sake. Moreover, people seem to think everyone has a RIGHT to a post-secondary education at a university. Too many people in Canada try to go to university, and it hurts everyone. The traditional trades are starving for people, and the education & practical training provided by colleges and trade schools is seen as worthless by elitist asses who think the ability to buy a Four Year degree and get a white collar job somehow makes them a better person.
Let’s face it: classroom settings just aren’t for everyone, and if you can’t read and write effectively you have no business being in university (and let’s not use that excuse “I’m in the sciences….writing isn’t important!” It is. If you can’t understand the rules which govern the English language, how’re you going to understand the laws of physics or the theories of evolution? How will you communicate the results of your experiments…I could go on.)
Unfortunately, the realities of Canadian politics make these ill-suited students necessary for the continuance of university. Our society is so anti-intellectual selfishly egalitarian and individualistic that governments take pride in cutting back funding to universities. They argue that it’s not “fair” to spend money only on the select few who study at that level, instead using the funds to “benefit all Canadians.” This, of course, ignores the fact that there is a direct correlation between the overall standard of living in a country and the quality of university education which is provided.
As a result of these cutbacks, especially in the mid 1990’s, universities have had to seek alternative funding. Most of this, of course, comes from students. Tuition levels have skyrocketed, to the point when some of the most promising students I know have had to drop out for a year or two at a time just to make enough money to continue their studies. Universities have also expanded the number of students they let in far beyond a rate which reflects population growth. Therefore, students who really don’t belong here have been accepted for admission as long as they bring their yummy tuition fees with them. As one would expect, the proportional increase has meant we’re getting an overall lower quality – we can’t be as picky anymore because we need those tuition dollars!
The net result of all this is that incompetent students come to university and pay their thousands of dollars of tuition fees to sit in the relatively cheap-to-run first and second year courses (lectures with 100+ students and few lab/seminar classes, for example). They tend to be “weeded” out by the time they get to 3rd or 4th year, when the courses are more specialized and therefore most costly to run, but the overall quality of the introductory courses is diminished by the presence of people not suited for an academic setting (thus hurting the people who have real potential). So the university has a year or two of tuition fees, but the student has nothing to show for it and has to figure out what he is going to do with his life now that he’s realized the university which accepted him a few years ago did so under false pretences.
*breathes*
Sorry folks, I needed to vent.
Once I'm done, I'll share some of the "nuggets of wisdom" I've collected from the worst of these assignments.
I keep saying people this incompetent don’t belong in university; they’re dumbing down the content and critical thinking skills which can be taught. The value of an undergraduate education is getting increasingly diminished, and nobody is going to benefit from it in the long run.
I think the problem stems from people seeing a university degree as a qualification for a job rather than an endeavor for its own sake. Moreover, people seem to think everyone has a RIGHT to a post-secondary education at a university. Too many people in Canada try to go to university, and it hurts everyone. The traditional trades are starving for people, and the education & practical training provided by colleges and trade schools is seen as worthless by elitist asses who think the ability to buy a Four Year degree and get a white collar job somehow makes them a better person.
Let’s face it: classroom settings just aren’t for everyone, and if you can’t read and write effectively you have no business being in university (and let’s not use that excuse “I’m in the sciences….writing isn’t important!” It is. If you can’t understand the rules which govern the English language, how’re you going to understand the laws of physics or the theories of evolution? How will you communicate the results of your experiments…I could go on.)
Unfortunately, the realities of Canadian politics make these ill-suited students necessary for the continuance of university. Our society is so anti-intellectual selfishly egalitarian and individualistic that governments take pride in cutting back funding to universities. They argue that it’s not “fair” to spend money only on the select few who study at that level, instead using the funds to “benefit all Canadians.” This, of course, ignores the fact that there is a direct correlation between the overall standard of living in a country and the quality of university education which is provided.
As a result of these cutbacks, especially in the mid 1990’s, universities have had to seek alternative funding. Most of this, of course, comes from students. Tuition levels have skyrocketed, to the point when some of the most promising students I know have had to drop out for a year or two at a time just to make enough money to continue their studies. Universities have also expanded the number of students they let in far beyond a rate which reflects population growth. Therefore, students who really don’t belong here have been accepted for admission as long as they bring their yummy tuition fees with them. As one would expect, the proportional increase has meant we’re getting an overall lower quality – we can’t be as picky anymore because we need those tuition dollars!
The net result of all this is that incompetent students come to university and pay their thousands of dollars of tuition fees to sit in the relatively cheap-to-run first and second year courses (lectures with 100+ students and few lab/seminar classes, for example). They tend to be “weeded” out by the time they get to 3rd or 4th year, when the courses are more specialized and therefore most costly to run, but the overall quality of the introductory courses is diminished by the presence of people not suited for an academic setting (thus hurting the people who have real potential). So the university has a year or two of tuition fees, but the student has nothing to show for it and has to figure out what he is going to do with his life now that he’s realized the university which accepted him a few years ago did so under false pretences.
*breathes*
Sorry folks, I needed to vent.
Once I'm done, I'll share some of the "nuggets of wisdom" I've collected from the worst of these assignments.