I've found this topic really interesting to read, as I only graduated a few months ago (now doing a MSc at same uni). Therefore I remember my undergraduate years very well although I am having a very different experience now. I guess I was a good student, I know I could be a bit dependant at times but that was purely because I was a total perfectionist and panicked about assignments to the point where I couldn't eat or sleep properly (didn't tell them that but I think they knew I was a worrier!) - did well though and got a first so hopefully I was one of the better ones and not talked about too much! Thankfully I'm a bit more chilled out this year.
I remember how irritated I got by the rude students though, they used to moan about tutors all the time and whinge about not getting work back really quickly even though it was never more than 5 weeks, which was stated in the handbook. One of my close friends who I'm still in touch with was quite demanding, not in a rude way it was just how she was - she was also really competitive with marks and always wanted to know what I got before she knew her own mark. One day in the 2nd year we all got essays back and mine wasn't in the collection box - I wasn't that bothered and was going to just wait a few more days but she insisted on grabbing my arm and marching to our tutors office and asking where it was - seriously I was mortified, she was like an outraged parent!! I would never do anything like that, I just let them get on with it and only ask anything if I had a problem, even asking for references for my MSc applications felt a bit demanding!
I really get annoyed by rudeness in seminars though, especially when someone doesn't understand something (usually something relatively simple) and instead of going away and reading about it/approaching the tutor after the seminar they hold everything up, then interrupt the explanation with another stupid question. Or mature students who constantly pick holes in whatever the tutor is saying just to make themselves look clever...the list goes on! At postgrad level I expected other students to be a bit more commited but there are still a few that show obvious boredom, its so rude and irritating but nothing is said to them, so they just carry on.
As for the consumer side of it - that is not going to do universities any favours. I remember some students working out how much we paid for each session on average (we only had about 8 hours a week), obviously it was quite a lot but working it out like that was a totally meaningless exercise as university is so much more than a series of lectures and seminars, if its worth doing the cost aspect of it shouldn't come in at all. Having students that consider themselves to be consumers will just decrease the real value of a university education even more, and give some students even more reason to have the misguided sense of entitlement that we have been complaining about.

And from the other side of the world, yes, students are pretty demanding here too, but I haven't come across too many rude ones. Students do expect value for money, and it's hard not to blame them really - a basic arts degree can leave them $40,000 in debt (not sure what that is in pounds...). But they don't have the basics, and get supplied with everything, all the readers, and yeh, never have to go to the library. Last semester my postgrad class had to write a lit review as an assignment, and even though we explained how to do it over and over, most of them just didn't get it.

And as one of the earlier posters said, yep, undergrads absolutely do want old style lectures in tutes! They don't want to have to think, and talk to each other, but would just like a repeat of the lecture. Some of them were quite miffed that I wouldn't repeat or recap the lecture in detail. I'd try to get other students doing it, but they wouldn't. So much for independent learning...

...aren't we a grumbly old lot!;-)

Hi all, this has been an interesting thread discussion. Yeah, I agree about students wanting value for money, I understand their frustrations about that completley, which is why I put so much into the sessions. Howevr, I do think there is a culture whichhas been emerging for a few years whereby some students think that as 'consumers' they can just turn up and 'buy' a degree. ie we do it for them, ie they never have to visit a library, think of an essay topic or actually do any work. I mean I'm a self funded PhD and I expect value for money, but I also work like hell myself because I am paying for it; it just doesn't make sense to me that they'd spend so much money on something and then just squander it.

======= Date Modified 05 Nov 2009 10:34:02 =======
I'm not sure the students I have been working with are demanding as such, however I have noticed a definite shift in laziness and rudeness amongst them.  I've done 3 years of lab demonstrating on a biology module, and the first year was great. There were of course some students who were messing around but most just got stuck in and did the work.  Last year I had a student who just didnt understand the concept of preparing slides and had concocted some sort of multi-slide-sandwich, with about 4 slides all piled up and was wondering why he couldnt see the leaf he was looking at....this year, about half the class repeatedly refuse to bring in appropriate lab equipment (I'm talking blank paper and a pencil here for drawings..), continually ask for help on the most mundane things because they wont listen to the lecturers introduction at the beginning of the class and refuse to think for themselves, and always ask for the answers!! I had one particularly memorable student this year who asked for help on something, when I got there she had been using samples that someone else had prepped and as a result of not doing her own work, hadnt a clue what was going on.  I told her (again) what she had to do and said that I would help her if she needed it but I wasn't giving her the answer, and then she got all indignant, saying 'well, is this going to take long, I have stuff to do you know...' in the middle of the 3 hour practical slot! I couldnt believe it!  About 10 minutes after, she went to the lecturer and feigned sickness so she could leave early!!

I don't teach yet, I was going to this year but have a RA position at the moment and it would extend my hours too much, having read this I'm almost glad I don't have to!

I passed a group of first years in the dept corridor today and was quite shocked to hear the way that they were slating the lecturers, and my supervisor - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - and whinging on - they expect us to read a whole chapter this week - how are we supposed to do that, don't they realise that we've got other courses to do - we're at uni, we're not here to spend our whole bl*8dy day reading... hmmmmm...... well if a chapter takes a whole day you're doing something wrong, you are here to read and learn, party by all means but don't moan about actually having to do some work once in a while!

I'm pretty sure we weren't rude and demanding when I was an u/g - personally I wouldn't have dared - for a start who's marking the essays ;-)

I so agree.... I have been doing teaching myself and the students nowadays have becme arrogant and rude. The groups I have been teaching, don't ask sometimes some of them are a real nightmare. Lack of discipline, these people has not done a decent days work in their lives and I get the feeling that deep down they have this 'fxxx you to everything'

We are in the same boat Eska

I think it's first years who are the real problem in this respect. Really, my second and third years are great (although I can think of one second year who gave me nightmares last year!); first years seem to need settling in, and they need to get used to the idea of working as an undergraduate, ie, not being spoon fed and using their brains independently.

Demanding is definitely the word for some undergrads- I only graduated from my BA a few months ago, but I remember overhearing a conversation between two undergrads (okay, I was eavesdropping!)

One of them was saying to the other how disgusted she was that her dissertation supervisor hadn't emailed her back with feedback regarding her whole dissertation, went she sent it to him two days ago. How her poor supervisor was meant to get through her diss in 2 days, alongside teaching and supporting other students, is beyond me!

I don't think it's just the lecturers that feel this though- there is nothing worse in a lecture than a persistent know-it-all who feels the need to constantly put the lecturer or their peers down, or a student who feels the need to dumb themselves down to get noticed. It drives me crazy!

Yea I agree that it's definately first years who are the biggest issue. After hearing them repeatedly refer to lecturers as 'the teacher' it's clear it takes a while to get the hang of the more peer-to-peer attitude of university life. I remember coming on myself in frst year and being at a talk given by the head of school, who informed us of the various ways in which uni was very different from school, to be being told that your lecturers were not there to spoon feed us through uni and that we were very much in control of our own learning, I was super excited! I really enjoyed being invited to communicate with lecturers on a much more mature level. I'm not sure if this still goes on in first year these days, but I'm pretty sure that first year student have no idea of the actual workload that uni staff and postgrads actually have!

You should watch this video - it's based on the work of Biggs about different types of learners and different types of teaching... very interesting!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5629273206953884671#

haha, I'm such a robert!

I think this is what our course has been over run by, they are so focused on 'level 3' type teaching, that people who prefer to sit and listen, and not do CONSTANT group tasks feel they are pushed out of the group because more dominant members take over.

AAAARRRGGGHHHH I've just had an email from one of the lilttle horrors: telling me how she always treats me with respect and is shocked at being discouraged to ask questions considering the fees she has to pay.... AAAARRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH All i said was that she should think about how far her comments woud help me to help her before she vocalised them (basically my PC way of saying stop behaving like a petulant 2 year old during my sessions); and that she should do the work in order to get the best grades. How the bl***** can they justify banging on about how much they pay when having a go at us for not allowing them to treat us like their UG whipping boys, and then not do the blooming work? She's gone into this big passage about how I am supressing her independent thought!!! and evaluation! She's artiulate alright, why won't she blooming use it?? why, why, why?

WHY?

Well, I have some writing to get on with; a deadline for Monday, and then on Tuesday I get to go up to my department.

======= Date Modified 07 Nov 2009 14:47:41 =======
In response to students who point out how much each seminar/lecture costs them (which will generally come from people in Arts/Humanities subjects because of low contact time) you can always criticise their methodology for discounting the use of facilities that University membership brings - the library, computer clusters, journal subscriptions, etc. You could also point out that they have failed to account for the significantly larger fees that international students pay and how much it costs them.*



Ah, critiqueing by claiming Western-centrism and attacking the methodology - it makes me feel like a proper academic.



*You could also say that the difference in fees for International Students and Home Students is, in some way, indicative of the amount that the Government pays for their University education and that they should stop moaning about the situation when, from this perspective, they're getting a good deal.

Thanks Sizor, But, you know, I agree with them about the fees, I think their situation is pretty dire, especially the ones who wouldn't want to go to uni if it wasn't necessary for getting any kind of reectablejob these days. It's just that I don't appreciate this particular little oik telling me I ought to let her treat me like a dish rag because she's paying for her education; especially when she doesn't do the work.

I agree with them also, but that doesn't mean they should get away with sloppy methodology!

I'm in favour of a graduate tax, mainly because it stops the "customerisation" of students.