Seminar Frustration

[jbob]

The best ones are usually the ones that are about 3-4 people meeting with the lecturer or something.

Well, it doesn't make much difference if there's 4 people or 20 if there's only one person voicing an opinion, or 20 people speaking the bleeding obvious. I'd take the former over the latter, though. Dub's issue seems to be more of a questioning of the qualitative nature of his seminar discussions rather than concern over the volume of contributors.

 

[Stobart Stopper]

Jesus, I've only been back a week and I'm already depressed.

This is such a flashback to last time I tried to do degree, and was a factor – although only a small one – in why I drifted off the course.. I’m far from academic, not particularly politically or philosophically astute, and I also realise that any lecture – and more particularly seminar group – has a range of ages, awareness and intelligence.

But already the seminars are driving me to fucking distraction. Example – today discussing Isiah Berlin’s 2 Conceptions Of Liberty, which is quite interesting stuff and within which there were questions I wanted to ask. But the whole seminar was just wasted discussing / arguing about things that surely shouldn’t still be an issue at this level? The whole thing came to a dismal end when – having got sidetracked into a discussion about what constituted slavery - some brainiac suggested that, y’know, slavery isn’t always bad and that lots of people who got taken as slaves from Africa were probably living in horrible conditions.

I didn’t fucking sign up for this.

Please queue up to tell me I’m a selfish, arrogant cunt 

Why don't you do something useful, like a manicures course?

 

[Dubversion]

i come back to this slightly annoying point of guilt: they might be a bit shite, for whatever reason, but they're eager and determined and they want to know. Who am i to piss on their fireworks.

or something

 

[Dillinger4]

i come back to this slightly annoying point of guilt: they might be a bit shite, for whatever reason, but they're eager and determined and they want to know. Who am i to piss on their fireworks.

or something

Ahhh. Your a proper student now.

 

[Pieface]

But if i get all frustrated and despondent about it again, i might just lose commitment

Like fucking fuck you will.

This is so typical of you - you've only just started - stop moaning and get on with it

 

[sam/phallocrat]

innit, big whingey-pants

 

[Pieface]

"whingey-pants"

 

[DotCommunist]

If it makes you feel any better, I have slipped back into my natural role as Breaker Of The Silence in my seminar group (Writing Fiction). There's me, and there's jbob, and we talk and talk and talk. Everyone else mostly just sits there, despite our tutor's repeated requests for 'anyone else?' to speak

that really fucks me off that does, cunt's sitting around silent and stony faced. What are you doing here? I feel like an overly-keen puppy because there's just me and two other people contributing

damn I just remembered I've got another lecture with a cunt. Aumtuer psychologist, professional arse

 

[Diamond]

a) It is early days, so don't get too disappointed just yet.

b) Attack! Attack Attack! In my recent undergrad degree I had reached the point you had (albeit a few more weeks in), and just decided to snarl and critique as and when neccessary. It was my degree, I paid a lot to do it, it meant a great deal to me, so what if the others couldn't keep up, or worked on such a basic level of understanding that it was laughable they were there in the first place? That's their damn problem. I found that the lecturers went with it - they were bored and wanted to be challenged. Sometimes, yeah, it lead to me having a discussion with the lecturer while the others sat there slack-jawed for 2 hours, but if they weren't going to make the effort, read the books and present an argument, they shouldn't be there.

You're not wasting your time, you're having your time wasted. It's well within your power to reverse this state of affairs. After all, you're not there to make friends, are you? And anyway, my approach didn't appear to make me unpopular per se, it just added a different dynamic to the group.

I'll second this as well. I recently finished a four year undergrad history degree at Edinburgh and it took me the better part of three years to understand how to deal with seminars.

We had a lot of problems what with too many students, the department going into meltdown, untrained PHD students taking our seminars etc, and for a long time it was rather depressing. Because of the numbers, the unstructured nature of the seminar and the hands-off approach of the seminar leader they were mostly useless.

But in my final year I realised that I'd been sitting in seminar rooms for three years quietly stewing while the discussion went round in circles and that I was part of the problem. If you're confident, if you know your stuff and if you can speak relatively well, it's very easy to dominate a seminar and if you tick those boxes then in many ways you should feel obliged to dominate the room.

Having said that there's no point pretending that there isn't a reason for 'good' universities. Edinburgh's supposed to rank pretty high but I thought there was an amazingly high percentage of idiots, not morons or bad people but genuinely stupid individuals, in the student body. I imagine if you go to Oxbridge, Imperial, maybe the LSE you would probably find a better quality of seminar. I don't know where that leaves you if you're frustrated at a non-elite university, but it's the way the system works.

And finally I would just say that I suspect getting a good seminar anywhere within the university system is really a matter of luck. You need an interested seminar-leader and a group of engaged and intelligent people who get on with each other well enough to risk insult through argument.

 

[jbob]

i come back to this slightly annoying point of guilt: they might be a bit shite, for whatever reason, but they're eager and determined and they want to know. Who am i to piss on their fireworks.

or something

Gulit? This a higher education course, not some community spirited education programme for the welfare of those who require training and help. It's pure intellectual elitism - or at least it should be.

As I mentioned before, you won't really be pissing on their fireworks, you'll be adding a different dynamic. Perhaps my post made out that I was more verbose about doing this than I actually was/am; I've never been rude or openly dismissive, but there are ways of raising the level of debate. As a simple example, I noticed that when lecturers/academics are trying to say something that has been mentioned is bleeding obvious, they will say something along the lines of 'well, I think that's implicit in so and so's work, etc etc.', which sounds less harsh, even though it's pretty damning.

From what you've said, if they're eager and keen they'll like the challenge of someone with a different perspective. Believe me, having enthusiasm and comittment is good in whatever form it take. Itdoesn't sound anywhere near as bad as you think it is. The wall of silence and talking to yourself is much worse.

 

[wtfftw]

Honestly. Don't expect much out of the other students. Immerse yourself in the subject and get in a good amount of face time with your lecturer (especially if you've already ID'd who you'll liaise with for your dissertation). You have to go to the seminars so rather than go all tourettes or eating your own fist you could try various tactics to shake things up (first one should probably be to give it some time).

 

[TheDave]

I hate that in my lectures there are on average 150 students in the lecture theatre but only 6 or 7 people willing to contribute when the lecturer asks for comments on what he/she is discussing. Some people in my course just seem to have no desire and it annoys me because they tend to whisper at the back disturbing the rest of us.

 

[equationgirl]

Dub, having met you, I'm finding it hard to believe you don't get stuck in to the discussion with this lot!

Come on, mate, start a real discussion!

 

[laptop]

and I have to go to the seminars, they're assessed

Ah, I feared as much.

Plan A: Any chance of setting up separate mature-student seminars?

(Skimmed thread and don't recall you saying how many others there are - but it might, just, be a bureaucratically feasible solution. Extra time commitment for the tutor - but then they might enjoy them.)

If not, it's back to Plan C, the politician manouevre: leaping in with: "That's an interesting question, but I think you'd get some way to answering it yourself if you considered <one of the questions you wanted to ask anyway>".

I put C forward having considered and abandoned Plan B, also suggested by my esteemed fellow posters, which is "Shut up you arsewipe, fuck off and don't come back until your IQ rivals room temperature".

 

[mrs quoad]

There is a facebook group called: Keep Your Fucking Hand Down in Lecture and Shut Up. No One Cares.

I would heartily recommend it to sir.

 

[YouSir]

Oddly enough the worst person in my seminars is a mature student who insists on derailing every discussion just so he can show off his speciality subject. Even the lecturer just blanks him these days as he wanders off on another meaningless rant about some shite that he's incredibly proud about.

 

[RubyToogood]

Hum. University is partly about learning to formulate and marshall your arguments. You could try using it as an opportunity to do that rather than just calling them all cunts.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

But that would be elitist.

 

[Dubversion]

... rather than just calling them all cunts.

which I absolutely haven't done, and I do think you've missed the point of what I was saying. I can't even get started with an argument because EVERYTHING has to be spelt out in the tiniest detail. You can't get an argument going...

 

[aqua]

maybe you need to come at this from a different point of view

I'm assuming that the majority of the students are fresh from college students? maybe they haven't been encouraged to develop their own views (I know thats what they're supposed to do at uni, but trust me, they don't), can you ask questions yourself rather than want to debate things straight off? If you have a weak lecturer then this might provide them with the support too

seminars are about ownership, if people don't drive them they are an utter waste of everyones time, maybe use your skills and the things you've learnt over the years to everyones advantage

 

[Dubversion]

i'm obviously not explaining things very well. I had questions i wanted to ask, i just never got a chance to because the initial questions in the seminar were so basic we never had a chance to move beyond them.

 

[aqua]

it's hard without seeing the dynamics, it sounds like there is a total mismatch here with expectations of the other students what the seminars are for and it needs a good lecturer to lead them properly

also, I'd like to suggest that you do know above and beyond what is called for for your degree programme (esp at Undergrad level) and that maybe what you think you want to debate, it way beyond what the other students have even thought about

and thats a fucking nightmare fo ryour and your lecturer