Very interesting point here! When I've taught, my experience with marking has varied widely. Sometimes, when I had a particularly talented bunch of students, it was a way to engage in dialogue with them, and it was rather enjoyable. Most of the time, even with open-ended assignments, students tend to produce remarkably similar work. And it does become tedious. In many ways, I have found marking in the humanities more rewarding than, say, marking in science or maths, but I am uncertain why that is: maybe it's something about the discipline, maybe it is something about me, maybe it is about what students are being asked to do.
I wonder what degrees are for... I did four as an undergraduate and ended up doing less "impressive" things than many of my peers. I do not regret the decision to take lots of classes. The university seemed to me to be the last chance to interact with really smart people who had devoted years of their lives to trying to understand a narrow set of topics. How could one pass on that opportunity?
Yet, most of my peers seemed to attend university, only to obtain a piece of paper that would enable them to progress to the next stage. A stage that, in many cases, included much more repetitive work, much more structure, and a lot less opportunity to think deeply and share ideas with a wide set of interesting people.
Having said that, I do think that finishing a University degree does mean a person has specific soft skills. Or at least it should mean that. It seems increasingly difficult for students not to pass. In the past, at a graduate school in the US, we were instructed to grade easily because the department needed undergraduate students to continue choosing courses in the department, thereby ensuring continued funding. What a lesson to teach the professionals you are supposed to be educating, and what a way to erode standards. I hear the situation is not as dire in the UK.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Christian! I suspect that when people picture the academic life, they do not tend to picture marking. They are making a grave error. It's a biiig part of everyday tedium for many of us. For sure, I agree that it can, on occasion, be interesting, surprising, or even exciting, when you have a bunch of really talented students. Yet, as you mention, the more years that go by, the more standards have tended to regress towards the mean. They are becoming a little bland. Given, say, a batch of twenty essays on a given topic, I can more or less guarantee that twelve to fifteen will be virtually indistinguishable.
You are absolutely right about the soft skills that university ought to teach. Sadly, with the rise of online degrees, the ongoing commercialisation of the whole process has reached its logical conclusion and there is almost none of the extra-curricular stuff going on that there ought to be. When I took my degree, John Cleese had just ended his term as our university's rector (or whatever the title is). He left us a message in our welcome packs: 'I hope some of you get a good degree without letting it interfere in any way with your education'. It's an excellent mantra to carry with you throughout your studies.
Very interesting point here! When I've taught, my experience with marking has varied widely. Sometimes, when I had a particularly talented bunch of students, it was a way to engage in dialogue with them, and it was rather enjoyable. Most of the time, even with open-ended assignments, students tend to produce remarkably similar work. And it does become tedious. In many ways, I have found marking in the humanities more rewarding than, say, marking in science or maths, but I am uncertain why that is: maybe it's something about the discipline, maybe it is something about me, maybe it is about what students are being asked to do.
I wonder what degrees are for... I did four as an undergraduate and ended up doing less "impressive" things than many of my peers. I do not regret the decision to take lots of classes. The university seemed to me to be the last chance to interact with really smart people who had devoted years of their lives to trying to understand a narrow set of topics. How could one pass on that opportunity?
Yet, most of my peers seemed to attend university, only to obtain a piece of paper that would enable them to progress to the next stage. A stage that, in many cases, included much more repetitive work, much more structure, and a lot less opportunity to think deeply and share ideas with a wide set of interesting people.
Having said that, I do think that finishing a University degree does mean a person has specific soft skills. Or at least it should mean that. It seems increasingly difficult for students not to pass. In the past, at a graduate school in the US, we were instructed to grade easily because the department needed undergraduate students to continue choosing courses in the department, thereby ensuring continued funding. What a lesson to teach the professionals you are supposed to be educating, and what a way to erode standards. I hear the situation is not as dire in the UK.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Christian! I suspect that when people picture the academic life, they do not tend to picture marking. They are making a grave error. It's a biiig part of everyday tedium for many of us. For sure, I agree that it can, on occasion, be interesting, surprising, or even exciting, when you have a bunch of really talented students. Yet, as you mention, the more years that go by, the more standards have tended to regress towards the mean. They are becoming a little bland. Given, say, a batch of twenty essays on a given topic, I can more or less guarantee that twelve to fifteen will be virtually indistinguishable.
You are absolutely right about the soft skills that university ought to teach. Sadly, with the rise of online degrees, the ongoing commercialisation of the whole process has reached its logical conclusion and there is almost none of the extra-curricular stuff going on that there ought to be. When I took my degree, John Cleese had just ended his term as our university's rector (or whatever the title is). He left us a message in our welcome packs: 'I hope some of you get a good degree without letting it interfere in any way with your education'. It's an excellent mantra to carry with you throughout your studies.
Nice! Strange that for some reasons posts on similar topics appear sometimes
https://www.experimental-history.com/p/face-it-youre-a-crazy-person?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=656797&post_id=166676460&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2bk4r1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Thank you! Excellent recommendation.