Whither University Education in 2012

The academic world faces a year of great change. Rises in tuition fees are going to have, I suspect, a cooling effect on the number of people wanting to study for a degree. . It’s going to be a dog eat dog world out there and only the most attractive universities are going to survive this educational bun fight.

What can be done? According to my various courses on marketing and advertising it would appear that the universities are going to have to become more customer orientated rather than product orientated. I.E. The desires of the punters (students) are about to rise to paramount importance.

So how does a university make itself more attractive to today’s modern young person? Well, based on my limited observations, I’d like to offer a few suggestions.

• Long weekends – I have noticed that many students enjoy having a good time. Partying, seeing boy/girl/goat friends. That kind of thing. Having to attend university on a Monday and/or a Friday can have a negative impact on these essential social activities. The solution?  It’s obvious, don’t timetable any academic activities on a Monday or a Friday and make sure this salient fact is prominently displayed on all marketing materials.
• Avoid mornings – I have noticed that 09:00 starts are as welcome as a dose of herpes. The punters, most of them, consider being required to rise any time before 11:00 as inhumane. I’d suggest that a forward looking, and client focused, university would do all in its power to ensure that no lecture or seminar be scheduled before the hallowed hour of 11:00. Possibly even later.
• Books – They cost money, they’re bulky, unfashionable and they need to be read. All of which makes any university willing to abandon the prehistoric book concept more attractive to the paying punters. Instead, e-Books should be used or, to be even more current and cool, single webpages with an entire semester’s worth of reading compressed into an easily understood and absorbed couple of hundred words. Let’s face it, any really complicated idea or concept can usually be condensed into a single sentence or paragraph – well, enough for the needs of the punters.
• Locations – Seminar rooms and lecture theatres can be, let’s be honest, unwelcoming and dreary places. They lack the comfort and facilities that a punter would expect. I suggest that universities remodel their rooms using bars, nightclubs and coffee shops as templates. Face it, if you have to turn up wouldn’t it be nicer to be able to enjoy the educational process while imbibing a delicious MochaFlocaBocaChino, pint of lager or cocktail? And think of the extra revenue streams for the university?
• Time – Why should a standard undergraduate degree take three years to complete? It’s utter madness in this age of instant gratification. So why not compress the entire course into a single year of academic effort? Gives the graduates a head start over those attending old fashioned universities that insist on sitting around on your arse for three years. Instead, you’d only have to sit around for one year!
• Assignments – You know what it’s like. An assignment is due, the clock is ticking and the pressure is building to underwear filling levels. Is that really how the punters want to spend their time at university? No, of course not. So how about a CRAP instead? CRAP standing for Continuous Regular Assignment Process. The punters will fill out an electronic form at the end of each week (Thursday) where they mark themselves and give a brief justification for that mark. Simple! No hassle. No endless documents to complete and no need for expensive tutors to waste their lives reading miles of drivel.
• Exams – Exams can be stressful. Trapped for hours in a drafty sports hall, forced to sit at archaic desks and scribble until fingers bleed. This kind of thing can put punters off. What to do? Instead of exams I propose the Personal Assessment Procedures (PAP) instead. The punter is encouraged to provide a written self-assessment of their abilities (it worked so well for mortgages) and a mark. We can, of course, trust the punters to be honest and accurate. Plus it will save a fortune in staff time as well.
• Promotions – You’ve seen them on TV and at the supermarket. BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) and the like. Why not apply it to university education as well? Buy one BA and get an MA course thrown in for free? Guaranteed minimum marks (say a 2:2 even if you do no work and spend the course in bed). Perhaps a loyalty points card, for each unit completed the punter gets points towards a night out?

Speaking seriously for one moment, I think that the next year or three could see a dramatic drop in the number of universities in the UK. If demand falls then closures will follow close behind.

Students Beware!

Well the new academic year beckons. I know that because my third year induction letter, yes a physical letter (are we living in some sort of time warp here?), landed on my door mat the other day with a particularly doom laden thud.

The letter sparked off a couple of thoughts.

The first thought was whether I'd be dumped on by the University Admin department again. My first two years were characterised by a timetable apparently created by a baboon suffering a case of cerebral termites. Or by someone who thought it was fun to make a mature student commute into Lincoln five days a week, three of those days for just a single session. That's about three hours of travelling for, at times, 29 minutes of education. And no, I didn't like it either as it wasted both my precious time and my limited travel budget.

My second thought was that as the new academic year begins there is only one certainty. That the students flowing into the University of Lincoln, and all the other universities that litter the UK like bloated leeches, are seen as little more than cash cows.

Students as cash cows? Yes. You are a source of income for the universities and the businesses that cluster around them like parasites. The bars, the shops, cafeterias, takeaways and nightclubs all see you as walking cash machines. All of them desperate to split you away from your cash. Depending on your gullibility to line their pockets at your expense.

As long as you've got an inexhaustible supply of cash, and I envy you if you have, then this state of affairs shouldn't cause you any sleepless nights. For the rest of you, I've got some advice that’s worth heeding.

1. If coffee is your thing then make your own up every morning and bring it into uni in a thermos flask. Enjoy your favourite coffee hit for pennies instead of pounds.

2. Avoid buying meals from cafeterias and takeaways. Reacquaint yourself with the good old lunch box. Bring in your own food. From my experience the food will not just be better tasting but also a fraction of the price.

3. Avoid the tech temptations. Yes, a new laptop looks the dog's cojones. Yes, it's nice to swan around with the latest smartphone or tablet computer but do you actually need it? Or if you do need that gadget can you get something cheaper? A top tip for tech temptations is to look at last year's offerings. They're usually just as good and a fraction of the price being charged for the latest gadget. You pay a premium for being a first adopter, or should that be gullible sucker?

4. Don't print anything unless you really have to. Paper and printing cost money so find alternatives. Why not PDF instead? There are plenty of free opensource applications that can be used to create PDFs straight from most applications. Store the information, don't print it! (Just remember to back up everything, as I expect you do all the time).

5. Don't let peer pressure influence you into doing anything, or buying anything, you don't need or want. Remember, it's not what you've got but what you can do with it that counts. This world is full of tackle tarts. People who are fixated on things instead of results. Follow their lead and you're guaranteed to waste your precious funds on pointless tat.

6. If possible, get a job. It might not pay you a fortune but it will bring in an income. It will also give you some experience of the world of work. A place that is totally alien to the academic world. You get something on your CV to prove that you can actually handle a job and you’ll learn the value of money. Money earned through your own efforts, sweat and tears. A lesson that is beyond price.

To survive student life with the smallest pile of debt possible you need to adopt a miserly attitude to money. Don't waste it. Don't say “keep the change” when buying a sausage roll from the local baker (and they do that up here in sleepy Epworth). No, hoard your cash instead. Guard against those who want to live off you. Sucking the very life out of you and the money out of your pockets.

The Carpet Inspectors

As a mature student (42 years old) I remember that those who were lucky enough to go to university were seen as the crème de la crème. It was explained to us at a school lecture (Kingsmead Secondary Modern, Enfield, London or Middlesex if you’re a pedant). We were assembled for a talk about our academic and working futures. There it was explained that the top 20% of us would be good enough to take O Level exams. That the top 10% of us would be good enough to take A Level exams and that only the top 5% of us would go onto university or polytechnic. It was also stressed that marking for O and A Levels was very much based on the quality of the students taking those exams. So if our year was blessed with lots of smart people who got higher marks than normal then the bar would be raised for each of the passing grades. That meant that, for example, only the very best stood a chance of gaining an A grade. Perhaps this was a trifle unfair but it ensured quality levels were maintained.

I think it is a distinct pity that this is not the case today.

I have been attending the University of Lincoln since last September. Some of my fellow students have impressed me. “Some” should actually be translated into “very few”. Many of my fellow students don’t appear to want to be at university at all. They show little enthusiasm for their work and many think attending lectures and seminars is purely voluntary. Some of my lectures are attracting a paltry 50% attendance rate. When students do attend lectures and seminars it’s pretty obvious that it’s purely on sufferance.

In some lectures the vast majority seem more concerned with their own conversations than the efforts of the lecturer to teach. At times it sounds like a meeting of baboons rather than an undergraduate lecture. Remember that I’m not talking about 11 year olds here but supposedly intelligent undergraduates. The fact that many of these students “hide” at the back of the lecture theatres is also indicative of their desire to avoid the discomfort of learning.

Seminars, for those who don’t know, are sessions where the students can interact together and with their seminar tutor. It’s a chance to exchange ideas, put forth opinions and explore the subject together. A great learning opportunity. Except it often isn’t. What you actually get is “Carpet Inspectors”. Students who, when presented with a chance to answer a question or put forward an opinion, become experts in gazing downward at the carpet. We are also meant to prepare for our seminars. Reading set texts, doing a bit of research or even answering questions. The evidence to date is that many of my peers never do this. Probably it gets in the way of their so important social lives!

All this seems insane to me. Here they are at university. Getting into debt, investing their precious time and for what? The chance to get drunk, have sex and what else? Because, for many of my fellow students, learning isn’t on the curriculum. The fact they are being offered fantastic learning opportunities just passes them by without impinging on their little worlds.

Don’t think that the Lecturers and Tutors aren’t aware of the situation concerning attendance, attitude and commitment. Those who I have spoken to are as unimpressed with my peers as I am. I fear that this is all a result of Tony Blair’s dream of driving up the numbers of people who hold degrees. This foolish idea isn’t just driving up the numbers attending university. It’s also driving down the quality as well.

PS. I am, unfortunately, in a group project for my Advertising unit. My fellow team members don’t exactly impress me. One of my fellow team members has managed to get some research to me and it’s only a whole week late. Fantastic (sic). I couldn’t wait and have already done the work myself.

PPS. I’m glad I’m not a parent of one of these “students”. I’d be livid to think that drinking, fun, sex etc are pushing education into fourth or fifth spot. What a waste of someone’s money!

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