The Embodiment of Unhelpfulness and Injustices of Great Stupidity

[same_difference]

I handed in my answers to a maths problem sheet this morning, on the end of which was a note which in summary said 'I don't understand, I'm merely copying the methods in the examples and guessing blindly when I can't. Please help, or recommend some sources of help or at least tell me what I'm doing wrong.' This is the answer I got back:

Ok. Please, continue to work, read Lecture Notes, and solutions provided, and solve problems by yourself. We will have enough revision to remember and recall everything.[Signature deleted]

Right. That helps. Keep doing what I'm doing and just learn it all in the revision period. Thanks a lot.

And the injustice:

P is doing group work in her computer science second year. If any group does not work well together, or shows any signs of having not worked well together, they will lose marks. This means that if theoretically someone doesn't do any work for the group, they will lose marks for not working well together unless everyone else does the work for that person and then states at the end that it was that persons work. They couldn't even ask for advice on how to get the person to work, let alone make a complaint about it without getting marked down. In effect it benefits anyone who does no work, as they are guaranteed to get given the credit for other people's work at the end (unless the whole group doesn't care or put any work into the coursework).

People in the lecture tried to explain this to the lecturer, he didn't understand. Does anyone know any way or anyone who I could talk to that could rectify the problem? Just in case there was any way I could help, though I'm not actually allowed to.

Disclaimer: This in no way suggests that anyone in P's group isn't working, or that they're group is working in anyway except as a perfect team. I have no evidence the previous line is anything other than the absolute truth.

Comments

[prosepina.livejournal.com]

As for your first point. Its frustrating I appreciate, but we are the factory farmed degree fodder, churned out for whatever the fad industry of our decade will be, and all the lecturer's are paid for at the the end of the day, is training the recruits. Long gone are the days when a degree was a privilige and could be lived as one, and the failing support from teaching staff reflects this sorry state. You are supposed to love your degree really, love the opportunity it affords, the insights it brings you, the way it changes your patterns of thinking, and for the first time in your lifelong career as student, draws you apart from your siblings and peers and gives you the tools to do something for you.

Your lecturer probably isn't lying to you about the revision thing, but when the time comes, be his new best friend, sit on the man's doorstep until you know it all backwards. At first he will be bemused and slightly bored, a few weeks in he'll start to get sick of the sight of you, but when you finally crack it, you might actually remind him why he went into teaching in the first place.