I’d be curious to know if grades are being inflated uniformly across different institutions, or if there’s ‘hot spots’ of greater grades (I guess the latter would be easier to crack down on though)
some places like York have higher classes of degree (first class with distinction) and I guess that could end up becoming more standard, like the A* A-Level, but it wouldn’t fix the root cause of the issue :/
ultimately though I’m not sure it matters too much… pretty much just have to get a 2:1 from uni and that’s the checkbox ticked…
2016 I took a number of exams for my Computer Science MSc, the rules were normal:
* Tables spaced apart so you can’t see your class mates work
* No phones, cameras, ear phones, smart watches, certain jewlary, clear pencil cases or no pencil cases etc etc.
* Escort to go toilet
* 2 to 4 hours to complete exam.
Normal, right? All designed to prevent cheating of course.
I read the guidelines of the university now for online exams:
* Students get 24 hours to complete the questions.
* Nobody is watching you of course, as you’re at home
I could have another screen running with Google or a fucking code editor that I could run little snippets of code that came up in the exam to find out what certain functions were doing.
I failed a coding exam at uni in 2016 (because I wasn’t engaged in the course and I did not revise). If I had Google and a code editor at my disposal, no doubt I would have passed, even though I shouldn’t have.
Is it not logical that in a culture that treats academic achievement as an obssessive compulsion and cultural fixation towards future opportunity and success, more and more people, when given the opportunity, would dedicate their time and focus to it to do well? Especially in a world where having a comfortable life and earning enough to support yourself through hard work are no longer in any way guaranteed?
Or are we simply using the education system as another method of control and exclusion to justify throwing away and not supporting people who don’t make the cut, and thus have to perpetually increase the standard required for excellent ever upwards?
Making them worth half as much.
Absolutely shocking that charging students £9k a year would reduce the number of people going to university for the “experience”, and encourage students to work harder.
[deleted]
What’s the point in paying £10K for a fake COVID degree which most employers realise is worthless??
Just as a possible defence of young students these days, they pay considerably more now to study, the job market is harder and for the last 2 years they’ve had less opportunity for the social side of uni. Is it possible that many of them have grafted a lot more to try to get the best grades?
I say this as someone who got a first almost 20 years ago but many of my mates at uni didn’t work that hard (and were happy to get 2:2) or try to get a first because they knew they’d get a good job with a lower grade still and the social side of uni was more important
When students do well, the establishment complain, because they don’t want intelligent people, they want people they can manipulate. Why do you think they took away grants.
It’s a natural consequence of the marketisation of higher education isn’t it? Students become more customer than student and they’ll get what they pay for more than what they earn through study if you set the incentives up like that.
Society that made its schools into exam taking factories that drill students on how to do well in them is shocked when the products of that system do well in exams
12 comments
It’s what they paid for after all.
I’d be curious to know if grades are being inflated uniformly across different institutions, or if there’s ‘hot spots’ of greater grades (I guess the latter would be easier to crack down on though)
some places like York have higher classes of degree (first class with distinction) and I guess that could end up becoming more standard, like the A* A-Level, but it wouldn’t fix the root cause of the issue :/
ultimately though I’m not sure it matters too much… pretty much just have to get a 2:1 from uni and that’s the checkbox ticked…
2016 I took a number of exams for my Computer Science MSc, the rules were normal:
* Tables spaced apart so you can’t see your class mates work
* No phones, cameras, ear phones, smart watches, certain jewlary, clear pencil cases or no pencil cases etc etc.
* Escort to go toilet
* 2 to 4 hours to complete exam.
Normal, right? All designed to prevent cheating of course.
I read the guidelines of the university now for online exams:
* Students get 24 hours to complete the questions.
* Nobody is watching you of course, as you’re at home
I could have another screen running with Google or a fucking code editor that I could run little snippets of code that came up in the exam to find out what certain functions were doing.
I failed a coding exam at uni in 2016 (because I wasn’t engaged in the course and I did not revise). If I had Google and a code editor at my disposal, no doubt I would have passed, even though I shouldn’t have.
Is it not logical that in a culture that treats academic achievement as an obssessive compulsion and cultural fixation towards future opportunity and success, more and more people, when given the opportunity, would dedicate their time and focus to it to do well? Especially in a world where having a comfortable life and earning enough to support yourself through hard work are no longer in any way guaranteed?
Or are we simply using the education system as another method of control and exclusion to justify throwing away and not supporting people who don’t make the cut, and thus have to perpetually increase the standard required for excellent ever upwards?
Making them worth half as much.
Absolutely shocking that charging students £9k a year would reduce the number of people going to university for the “experience”, and encourage students to work harder.
[deleted]
What’s the point in paying £10K for a fake COVID degree which most employers realise is worthless??
Just as a possible defence of young students these days, they pay considerably more now to study, the job market is harder and for the last 2 years they’ve had less opportunity for the social side of uni. Is it possible that many of them have grafted a lot more to try to get the best grades?
I say this as someone who got a first almost 20 years ago but many of my mates at uni didn’t work that hard (and were happy to get 2:2) or try to get a first because they knew they’d get a good job with a lower grade still and the social side of uni was more important
When students do well, the establishment complain, because they don’t want intelligent people, they want people they can manipulate. Why do you think they took away grants.
It’s a natural consequence of the marketisation of higher education isn’t it? Students become more customer than student and they’ll get what they pay for more than what they earn through study if you set the incentives up like that.
Society that made its schools into exam taking factories that drill students on how to do well in them is shocked when the products of that system do well in exams