Does your University treat you like an adult?

[Singularly Datarific]

Hello, Escapist.
Think about your University's rules and regulations, how they work and what happens. Are you treated like the adults you are? Are you allowed to exercise the same rights as an adult who is not in school? Why do you think your University's decisions support or do not support this overall attitude.

 

[Axolotl]

Yes? I'm not sure what you mean but largely yeah, they just teach you the stuff you're paying to learn and if you can't be bothered to do that then I don't think they could give less of a fuck.

 

[Esotera]

As long as you're not living in the halls of residence, then yeah, pretty much anything goes. I think they've started to monitor attendance to lectures next year but that's only because of the UK border agency being a bunch of racist pricks.

 

[Wadders]

As long as you're not living in the halls of residence, then yeah, pretty much anything goes. I think they've started to monitor attendance to lectures next year but that's only because of the UK border agency being a bunch of racist pricks.

Nah, we have to sign registers already at Birmingham. What's even more ridiculous/funny is that in mixed modules the undergrads have to sign separate ones from the postgrads. Yay, bureaucracy!

Its understandable, to a degree. They've realised that some nefarious people are here illegally under the auspices of receiving further education, but not actually turning up. I have no problem with it, send them back or bang them up.

Although given the incompetence of the admin at this uni, I cant see them catching may people out.

 

[bojackx]

Well, I got told off like a 5 year old for turning up late to a lab day because of my train being cancelled (I would later learn this was due to a landslide on the tracks, and not due to weather which is what the teacher was adamant was the cause, saying I should have checked the weather forecast beforehand), so I'd have to say that I don't feel like I'm being treated like an adult.

On top of that, he says if I'm late again then I'll just be sent away (each lab session is assessed and goes towards my final grade) which is the kind of crap I wouldn't even expect at any age.

I'm paying £9000-a-year jackass, don't force me to lose marks unnecessarily.

/rant

 

[Pinkamena]

Of course it does. But they also expect you to act like an adult.

 

[Superbeast]

Nah, we have to sign registers already at Birmingham. What's even more ridiculous/funny is that in mixed modules the undergrads have to sign separate ones from the postgrads. Yay, bureaucracy!

Its understandable, to a degree. They've realised that some nefarious people are here illegally under the auspices of receiving further education, but not actually turning up. I have no problem with it, send them back or bang them up.

Although given the incompetence of the admin at this uni, I cant see them catching may people out.

Eh, I was (usually) treated like an adult at Birmingham. Apart from by one Latin teacher, and one dick who screwed me about when trying to get my passport signed. On the subject of registers, they've been about for at least 3.5 years now - it's nothing to do with border controls or anything like that, but rather that the lecturers get sick of people taking them for granted (happened a lot), and also for things like the Birmingham Grant - part of the requirements for the bursary involve actually turning up to the damn lectures in the first place. It does create a certain level of bureaucracy, particularly when the register gets stuck at a random point in the room because some idiot will not pass it on (thus making at least half the lecture late for their next lecture/seminar/train home or whatever) or, even better, when the lecturers manage to loose the thing and you have a random piece of paper each week that you have to sign and then it has to get put into the uni system correctly...

 

[wulf3n]

Not sure what you mean by "treated like an adult"

 

[Luna]

Sure. I don't see how a University could be stupid enough to treat 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc year students as if they were children. The Halls of Residence were a bit of a different story, but tbh first year Uni is like an intermediary stage. One time a staff member, (5th year student), asked me to stop eating so much meat at lunch time, and I politely refused. She had an attitude problem and so didn't speak to me after that, but if you want to be a **** about something then don't act surprised when people don't bow down to your whims.

 

[Bvenged]

I spend 2 days a week in College and 1 day a week in Uni, and at Uni they treat me like an adult - and an equal - however at College where the lecturers are fine, the management treats me like a kid.

I'm 20, and there's people in their 30's and older on my course, and yet the College treats us all like children: kicking us out of classrooms, handing off wrong timetables, palming us off into old classrooms, giving us old mothballed equipment and shutting our network accounts down to the same restrictions as the younger kids. It was quite the surprise to them when we complained every day to our lecturers, wrote annoyed letters of complaint directly to them, and then after they did nothing, voiced our complaints straight to top-tier management and the College-Uni liaison saying we were fed up with the college's attitude towards higher education students by treating us like 16yo's. They soon got their shit together, and by "soon" I meant in the second year of the course... even now I wouldn't say my college experience is something I could endorse.

But the Uni is great and so were my college lecturers. All first-name basis, all casual, all mutually respectful. The atmosphere at Uni is great too. Really feels like an institute of education; you don't feel awkward whipping out a book to read in the cafeteria. Very cool.

 

[SaetonChapelle]

I feel as if I'm treated as an adult. However I am getting my major at the moment in psychology, OCD, so I usually have the same two professors for every class. I dont appreciate an attendance policy as my one professor seems to love (I feel that if I payed for the class, and I dont feel like I should go, thats my choice. If I dont attend and still get an A, awesome. If I get an F, then it was my own fault), but most other things are good.

I do have one professor though, and Ive had her for like 2 years now, and she keeps insisting on how to teach us how to write a paper. Now, remember, I'm getting my MAJOR like most other students in the class. Im writing my dissertation. I would hope by now most of the students know how to write a paper.

"Now remember, what does a paper need? A thesis, middle, and conclusion! Dont forget your sources!!"

Ug~

 

[shadyh8er]

It really depends on the professor honestly. But my campus did recently ban smoking. I can see how that can be interpreted as not treating people like adults.

 

[lacktheknack]

They treat me like a number, really.

But from class to class... they still treat us like numbers, in a way.

I'm not treated like a kid, though.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

As long as you're not living in the halls of residence, then yeah, pretty much anything goes. I think they've started to monitor attendance to lectures next year but that's only because of the UK border agency being a bunch of racist pricks.

They have, but my university doesn't really seem to care, except occasionally one of our lecturers might say 'oh, we're a bit concerned about attendance'.

I'd say we're treated like adults, but the university seems fairly incompetent. When I started the year, they forgot to inform the Student Loans Company that I'd enrolled, so I didn't get my loan until about a month after I should have. Our lecturers seem to forget to tell us about important things quite a lot- there was a coursework deadline on Friday that we were only told about on Wednesday, or that a small worksheet from the second week is actually something we need for our coursework five months later. We also get a lot of online tests (that actually go towards our overall grades), which are ridiculously easy to cheat on, because we're not monitored as we do them.

 

[devotedsniper]

So long as you act like one my uni does (Staffordshire Uni), hell even my college treated us as adults. The only thing we have to do which isn't very adult is sign a register so the uni can prove were attending lessons to student finance.

I also have good adult conversations with my Final Year Project supervisor, so yeah provided your not acting like a kid they won't treat you like one.

P.S. if your in UK and are applying for a student loan (student finance company) sort it early, what's meant to be a simple system takes months because they either lose your parents documents (this year my parents had to send in the same info 5 times) or they do something wrong (e.g. my 2nd year they didn't give me my grant estimate claiming i hadn't told them i wanted it, even though i had. That took 2 months...a week before i started uni). I'm just grateful this is the last year so i will never have to deal with them again.

 

[Wadders]

Nah, we have to sign registers already at Birmingham. What's even more ridiculous/funny is that in mixed modules the undergrads have to sign separate ones from the postgrads. Yay, bureaucracy!

Its understandable, to a degree. They've realised that some nefarious people are here illegally under the auspices of receiving further education, but not actually turning up. I have no problem with it, send them back or bang them up.

Although given the incompetence of the admin at this uni, I cant see them catching may people out.

Eh, I was (usually) treated like an adult at Birmingham. Apart from by one Latin teacher, and one dick who screwed me about when trying to get my passport signed. On the subject of registers, they've been about for at least 3.5 years now - it's nothing to do with border controls or anything like that, but rather that the lecturers get sick of people taking them for granted

Yeah otherwise they treat us well enough.

Strange point about the registers though. Admittedly I'm a postgrad so have only been here from the start of this year, but up until around late October/early November we didn't have to sign anything. When asked about it, all my tutors said it was to do with people coming here, pretending to be at uni then working illegally, stuff like that (or even worse * dramatic voice* terrorism!)

In my old uni registers were taken at the discretion of the individual tutor, just so they could keep track of who was actually attending - if they cared enough. Now they seem to be compulsory.

They treat me like a number, really.

I get the impression that thats all undergrads really are, to most Universities.

 

[Karoshi]

At my Uni they don't even check or care whether you attend lectures or not and even the professors don't mind much if you leave early. Either you fail the exams at the end of the year or you don't, simple as that. I found that a very refreshing attitude.

At school, I used to skip class every couple weeks (who the hell needs art or P.E. anyway), but I haven't skipped a single lesson on purpose in Uni. If shit matters, than I'm gonna be there.

 

[Arakasi]

Absolutely. Some teachers even treat you like an equal.
Well, if you aren't an idiot.