The worm turns

Re: The worm turns

Mark Hedberg — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:38:00 GMT

Aye, I was down the river from you in Budapest. :)

Re: The worm turns

Clair Firth — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:45:33 GMT

[quote user="Mark Hedberg"]

that was a risky strategy in a system where all final exams were oral presentations. (they could have then weeded us out one by one.)

[/quote ]

Almost all exams here in Vienna are oral exams and I would agree that this prevents students from going against the system! At the end of the day it's just your word against the professor and that is never going to go well for the students. We also have a similar system to that Mariette described in Holland, we have OSCE (objective (haha) structured clinical exams) which are like veterinary speed dating - our small animal OSCE includes the subjects: Internal Med, Surgery, Anaesthesia, Reproduction and Bird Medicine. 10 mins with each professor then an invigilator blows a whistle and we move onto the next subject. We don't know how we've done until the very end - allegedly even the profs don't know how many points we need to pass! My first attempt I got 87% overall and failed!!! (got between 92-100% in 4 subjects but only 60% in bird medicine) - so basically I passed 4 subjects and failed one -----> retake all 5. On the retake I got 83% overall and passed!!! Not very logical and very motivating for the poor students! Oh and re. the oral exams and biased professors - I sat down to my bird medicine part to be greeted by the professor looking at my (obviously not Austrian) name and saying (in German) "can you even speak German?" - needless to say I was fairly speechless and it was obvious that the exam wasn't going to go well! (I have lived here for 14yrs and am fluent in the language so that wasn't the problem! The same prof has also failed an Italian student (who speaks excellent German) for slightly incorrect pronunciation! We regularly discuss mutiny but when you've survived 5yrs of this treatment you tend to develop quite a thick skin and just get on with it! Plus we aren't paying 9000 pounds for the pleasure, but 32 euros!

Re: The worm turns

Mark Hedberg — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:56:09 GMT

We did this in my 4th year; the uni tried to impose a mandatory month of in-house EMS a month before summer holidays and threatened to fail us if we didn't comply. (This would have screwed us with our EMS at home, as we were all international students.)

We basically said 'fine, flunk us all and see what happens.'. (We eventually split the difference and did 2 weeks because getting it all cut would have made the professors look like right fools, and that was a risky strategy in a system where all final exams were oral presentations. (they could have then weeded us out one by one.)

Re: The worm turns

mariette asselbergs — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:40:31 GMT

When I studied vet medicine in the 60s and 70s in Holland, the system used to be that if you failed 2 out of 19 exams in your 5th year, you had to repeat the whole year and all the exams. For years we fought this ridiculous system through the university democratic structures but got nowhere. Some years after I graduated, the student body took the vet faculty to court over this issue and it was decided that any exam passed was a definite pass, and students should have the opportunity to resit 3x a year. Problem solved. Why did we never think of doing this....?

Mariette

Re: The worm turns

Clive Ansell — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:00:58 GMT

I wondered how long it would take for the worm to turn.

If some (only some, as much of it was very good) of the tuition is as bad now as it was when I was at university, I am surprised students have not began to protest already and say "for £9000 a year we want a course/tuition that is good and at least fit for purpose"

Re: The worm turns

James Allsop — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:51:14 GMT

I think this is the way of things to come, students already are much more demanding of their course that I was and the expectation amongst the university clinicians i have spoken to is that this will increase

Re: The worm turns

Hannah Wynne Richards — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:32:06 GMT

Who set off the fire alarm-if the uni decided on an inappropriate time for a fire drill they should re-imburse the students If it was another undergraduate playing games then this is the individual who should be punished

Wynne