Well hello, stranger
What is waiting for the academic world on the other side of the hill? Will it all go tumbeling down or is there a change for it to soar?
I have been inspired by @fermentedphil to share my frustration within the academic world. If you're new here, I'm still very young but found myself in academics, busy with my PhD in Urban Planning and I'm a lecturer for honour students. One would think "Ah postgraduate students, easy". It's not. If anything it's more frustrating knowing these students already got a degree and are now struggling with basic academics.
I've been a lecturer for three years now, and I absolutely enjoy it. Sometimes I'm amazed at my students and the way they can connect all these things, the class debates, their ideas, etc. While other times I want to ask them why they ignore everything we discussed, why they didn't care to look at the assignment brief, and why they waited till the last minute to ask for assistance.
I've recently assessed the first assignment of the module. In class, everything seemed to be going well. I gave them my notes from the first few units, class slides, reading material, videos, a very detailed assignment brief, referencing guide and even my personal word template to help the structure their assignment... I was positive! They all asked questions and interacted during class. No one came to my office confused, no one emailed me all lost on the assignment brief, and things were looking great!
Until the day of submission... From a class of 36, only 7 students submitted on the due date. The other 29 submit between 2-8 days late. Another issue was the plagiarism/ similarity. In our department plagiarism/ similarity needs to be below 15%. I have a handful of students that kept to this rule. And most of the plagiarism is either previous assignments from students or websites. At this point, I was still okay. It's the first assignment for the year, things happen, students panic, and they are still trying to figure out this new system 🤷🏼♀️. I wish I prepared myself better for the next part.
I divide assignments into groups of 5, that way I don't get overwhelmed, coffee breaks help me recollect and I'm more focused. The first 5 went terribly. Second group = semi terrible. The third group = you know, surprisingly well. The fourth and fifth groups = again terrible...
At this point I was thinking to myself "Did I miss something?".
I went back to check the assignment brief. Nope, I definitely did not misunderstand my own assignment. Class slides, notes, videos? Nope, everything is there. The readings? I might have given the wrong readings? Nope... I gave them everything.
Most of the assignments have no structure and no typing skills, what I mean is the assignment is typed in font size 8 with a curly font, the fonts don't match all the way through and some parts are blue or orange... It felt like a school art project. And the spelling is nowhere to be found, don't get me wrong my spelling is bad, but I use Grammarly for everything. With writing one should always aim for neat structured work with spelling better than that of a grade four. It felt like they didn't even try.
I did ask the students via our communication group if anything was unclear about the assignment. I told them if someone had personal issues they could contact me. No one had an issue with the assignment. Some said they forgot about it and did it last minute (which explains a lot), some didn't go through the brief and tried to remember what I discussed in class, and some were brave enough to say they thought I would understand and not subtract marks for high plagiarism or late submission...
I think the average for this assignment is 52%, keep in mind this was supposed to be an easy assignment to help ease them into the year. It frustrates me to see these students spend so much money on studies and not giving the effort to pass. If this is how the year starts how will it end?
I'm happy about the 8 that did well, so there is a bit of hope. I'm planning on having a writing class sometime next block week, that way they can't say we didn't teach them how to write. The sad part is I already had a writing class with them, but they clearly didn't think it was important.
I have this idea that they didn't realize the time that goes into an assignment, or they just felt it wasn't important. I mean what is 15% of your year mark? 😵 Hopefully they will get a shock once they receive their marks and see that this isn't a game. It's a degree and no one is just gonna hand it to you if you don't put in the effort to get it.
See I didn't get where I am because of others. It was hard work and it's still hard work. I just want them to realise not everything in life will be given to you. You can't always blame others, or expect people to give you something if you don't deserve it. Maybe I'll have a little moment with them and remind them that they are responsible for getting that piece of paper at the end of the year. Or maybe point out that in the end, they will have to spend an entire year doing the bare minimum, just to come back next year to do it again.
Let's stay positive. Maybe things will get better.
Sometime a hurdle in the road is just the push you need to keep going and put in more effort. So let's look at the bright side. It takes time to learn how to soar.
Thank you for stopping by and listing to me complain about life! Stay save and happy.
