In my high school history class we had 20-30 page readings every other night. Not that I necessarily did all of them, but surely that's standard for a class at university?
In my high school history class we had 20-30 page readings every other night. Not that I necessarily did all of them, but surely that's standard for a class at university?
This is what you get with your poncey reading degrees.
I used to set off experiments at 5pm, went off to play poker all night and came back the next morning to collect my results.
Science
It aint Science unless you're twisting a pen over a Bunsen burner.
You'd think if you're actually doing history at a university you'd do 80-100 pages of fairly tough reading every night. It's not like you have physics problem sets to deal with in addition.
At my university I played FIFA and chilled out with mates and then twice a term just waited until the night before, read the blurbs of a few relevant books and the abstracts of a few journal articles and then spiffled off in general terms until I'd rattled off enough words.
I remember quite early on I did that with one module, and ended up getting really passionate about another and read loads throughout the term....and I ended up doing better on the essay I cobbled together the night before. The essay I couldn't even remember by the time I got my grade back. At that point I figured it was all just a load of rubbish and I'd do best to read things I'm interested in and cynically play the system.
Making up references is a good shout too, or making up arguments that those references make. If they say a certain argument at some point in a book then you can use it, and if you reference a 600 page book then they probably do so at some point, so you don't even have to read it.
I did politics (which is like history for cunts) and I was meant to do hundreds of pages heavy reading, but did nothing of the sort. Unless you're going on to a career in academia and thus give a shit what feminists think of the Indian caste system, you can and should just blag it.
References can be gleaned by looking in the index and just quoting those page numbers. The one thing you can rely on as an undergrad is that no matter how little you care about your work, the person marking it will care less.
Sure, but not doing the reading kind of defeats the purpose of a university education.
As long as you get the scroll of paper at the end nobody gives a fuck. Saying that, Degrees themselves are a pound a penny these days.
Exactly.
I actually studied the reasons people came to uni as part of my dissertation. The long and short of it is that the vast majority of people don't give a fuck about the stuff they are studying, or at least they did up until they came to university to study it. Some do, but most don't.
It's useful because it's a piece of paper. Anything you actually learn is a bonus, but getting a degree and actually learning things is not synonymous by any stretch of the imagination. I've known people who have achieved firsts who actually learned fuck all of what they studied, and anything they did learn they forgot within weeks of finishing because they only saw it as relevant in the context of getting the degree.
I mean that's bullshit too. If you discover what you love and talk to and meet professors who are teaching that stuff, and work with them, you'll know the general direction you want to go in and have people that can help you get there. I feel like this whole "degrees are pointless, university is pointless" talk comes from the people who spent their time not doing the reading and not making active efforts to try new things.Originally Posted by Spikey M
Shut up you tart.
I agree with that too. It's largely what you make of it. Aside from my cynical point of view towards the essays themselves, I read voraciously on all kinds of subjects and feel I took a lot from the whole experience.
Most people don't give a fuck about what they're learning though. Not on a personal level, outside of getting the piece of paper. It's a shame, but it's a fact.
I generally like what I'm learning. But reading a 25 page article by an economic historian is pretty bollocks.
It actually started well but after the first 6 pages or so it was an incredibly hard read. Even the lecturer said it was bollocks but he had to include it.
Best article I've read so far has been about maps during the scramble for Africa.
I don't think I remember more than 1 or 2 tidbits from my degree (Computer Systems Engineering). What a waste of time that was. Loved every minute of it, though.
You can also skim read things to get the gist of the argument without necessarily boring your way through all the tangents and badly-written (most academics are terrible writers) sub arguments.
Yeah that's the thing for me - most of them are fucking shit at getting their point across.
If it feels like that then they probably don't have any points (or not enough to justify the publication).
I did a social science so I found that was often the case. I couldn't help but read most Philosophy and Sociology journal articles genuinely wondering how they were getting away with it.
They're pretty much forced to churn out articles though.
Not all articles are shit, but the research assessments that the universities use incentivise the production of worthless journal articles at the expense of proper research projects (books, essay collections, whatever) because all 'output' is treated equally, and it is better to create x amount of articles over five years, and hope that enough of them are worth a wank to be put forward for assessment, than it is to devote that time to a book project that might not work out as planned. Historians (I don't know about other subjects, but I once read that the overwhelming majority of social sciences articles are never cited in any subsequent research) moan like shit about it, but I reckon it suits as many people as it annoys, because the fact is that quite a lot of them aren't good enough to complete more substantial research projects.
There is also the 'impact' bullshit, which means the relevance of the work beyond the academy, but it's hard to get into that without sounding like a bitter cunt whose excellent research proposals (if I do say so myself) kept being overlooked in favour of bollocks social history about immigrants and trannies.
Should have done accountancy, bunch of bullshit exams followed by 3/4s of my three years of studying doing the square root of fuck all.
Of course chemists are not like this because we're not cunts, but I've noticed the standard of biology related papers being released is absolutely woeful. Data that doesn't even make sense, detailed article titles that then deliver absolutely fuck all, and some that are just waffle and filler.
I was told very early on by a professor that biologists were wankers and it seems to be broadly true.
I started at 7 this morning to get a head start on the day and now it turns out that I won't be home til 7 tonight. Monday to Friday my arse.
On the flip side the person I'm working with needs to be back to her car (my house) by 4:30 at the latest, so I can have an early tea and go play Pro Evo at mikes nice and early, rather than getting there close to 7 like normal.
I'm a twit
It's Wednesday, bro.
Monday to Friday is supposed to be 9-5. I left shift to work 9-5 as 12 hour days are only worth it when you do three and a half of them a week.
So again, if you're going to be a smartarse; keep up.
So you forgot to omit the 9-5?
Apology accepted, let's move on.
Well I started early at 7 and am finishing late at 7. Top work Sherlock.
9:30 to 5:30 with an hour lunch. Own clothes on Friday with beer cart. Music on always. TV with sports and likely to be getting a ps4 added for some lunch time FIFA.
You've done it wrong.
What are you doing now?
It's still Monday to Friday regardless. You've fucked it mate. Chill
In fairness I get to wear clothes every day.
I did politics as well, and totally blagged my 2.1. I remember going to a 3rd year exam and joining my mate who was sat with some other people doing some last minute revision. They were all going through the 10 or 20 relevant politicians they'd revised on, and how they all linked to whatever policy area it was (each week's lecture was a policy area), and when my mate asked me who I'd revised I honestly said that I hadn't, and that I was just gonna blag it using maybe a couple of important prime ministers. He was genuinely terrified on my behalf. Obviously got a solid 60-something.
Another really easy way to blag EVERY single exam was to remember the universal format - 2 hours, pick 2 questions from 12 or so. Each question corresponded to a week's lecture, so obviously I only ever revised on two of the lectures, occasionally 3 if I was worried one of the ones I'd revised for would be a stinker.
I do engineering, so I don't get any reading assignments, but I do know that professors totally take the piss when a assigning readings. Main issue is that most assignments, in any field, are not thought out at all. They just assign whatever shit comes to mind without any regard to what the student is supposed to get out of it. Professors are just shit at teaching but they have no incentive to improve.
That should really be the tagline under the forum banner.
He actually does engineering though.
Yeah, he "does" engineering.
Can he build a wall?
Trump has personally employed him.
We all actually do engineering. It's part of the sign up.
So long as he can climb one.
Much to GS's dismay, accountancy, however a firm that specializes in music and entertainment.
We need a better engineers/accountants ratio in order to save the board. Spoonsky, it is your duty.
We need more unemployed people too. Do none of you work for the Jobcentre?
Also my phone's swype keyboard always thinks I am swyping 'Bebside' instead of 'Because'. Fucking stupid piece of shit.
Use Swiftkey or Chrooma.
Sky moving good away days to Thursday nights.
Fucking loathe Sky with a passion.
Test.
Would Wolves have survived that double relegation without it?
All match-going fans (proper ones, at least) secretly wish to see their club in the conference. FACT.
I thought I was pretty tolerant but the wife has an older bird round to get her eyelashes done and she's brought her son who is beyond a mincer. He's come to get his eyebrows done which is awkward because it's like a bloke is round so get the footie on but no straight upstairs. Just really bizarre and I'm uncomfortable now. I was going to do my warming up in the dining room as usual but think I'll just do it in the garage now...probably with the door locked.
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