It's in their eyes
Blog 1 - the eyes are the window to the soul
No self-respecting first year undergraduate student experience would be complete with the customary purchase of posters to personalise the walls of their halls or rooms. I don’t teach first year students so I miss out on all the keen enthusiasm of new students.
My attentions are focused on the returning third years as I teach their compulsory final year advanced accounting module. If first year students eyes show enthusiasm, second years show confidence, they’ve been here a year now, they’ve sussed out the social scene and made their friends, now they are here to make their mark, little do they know things are about to get much tougher, and definitely ‘real’. But final year students have a special haunted look about them in the first two weeks of term.
You see they know how much harder year 2 was, and are expecting the same leap, plus now the thought of degree classification looms large, gone are the thoughts of parties, friends and missing early morning lectures to rise at the crack of noon and increase their addiction to Homes under the Hammer and Jeremy Kyle, these are replaced with thoughts of, if I don’t get a 2:1 will I get a job? One thing they fail to see early on, is that they will get the degree classification that they earn. Some students can fail to grasp the concept that there is a direct correlation between effort in, and results out, in their studies.
The introduction of the £9,000 fees has seen students very much consider themselves the customer, with customer demands. Often students will make demands on help with assignments and notes that is beyond the role of the lecturer, and if they don’t get what they want the standard response is “I’m paying £9,000 so I should get what I want”. Imagine their dismay when I point out the stupidity of paying for course to then not attend their sessions (University attendance is around 65%).
I will spend the next two weeks trying to reduce the haunted look in my students eyes, and trying to work out how much the poster vendors and assess this as a viable business option!!!!
