People with degrees that are a bit thick really



Sir Lancelot said:
May I add the editorial team at the BBC who have just informed the nation that Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Sea. I believe it should be Ocean, but there again it’s a long time since I went to school!
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TV researcher nowadays are crap.

Saw something on one of the local news reports a while back about the Dunkirk evacuations.

The report was accompanied by scenes of American troops landing in Normandy as part of the D-day landings.

Wrong army, going in the wrong direction, in the wrong part of France.

As an aside, it really boils my piss when I hear people on the telly say "We was", "I were", "They was", It were", and so on.
 
yyy said:
You'd be surprised how allegedly highly qualified some people can be yet not have a clue.

I've told this story before, however, it's relevant to the above in that there's work out there that should have never been passed.

Way back whilst I was working for a certain ex-Poly in a place not too far from Sunderland (no, not Lord Rowell's place at the bottom of Chester Road), my colleges and I were expected to informally supervise the projects of M.Sc. students within the Engineering department. Most were from India and had allegedly passed a minimum standard of English to be able to able to study at an English University and start the course.

Their ideas of thorough, meticulous project work was to spend their project period working full time in the local call centres around Quorum and Cobalt Business Parks. When asked how they expected to fit in their project work, they responded "Don't worry, well manage it."

Yea, right.

1) One of my colleagues reported that one student's dissertation had largely been cut and paste from the Internet. It even included a passage where the "author" had sat, enjoying views of Lake Placid in the United States. He'd never been to the United States. At least the cutting and pasting at least ensured the standard of the "American" English.

2) I attempted to read one of the dissertations submitted. The English was more like a collection of random words rather than coherent sentences. One of my colleagues instructed me not to help him correct it, something I had no intention of doing. We'd been instructed to ensure the students were to "pass" (the inference being international student's money was more important than integrity and results), however, this dissertation was so incomprehensible it had to be failed. This caused an inquest with complaints from the student and his brother, which bore out our decision to fail him. He resat the following year and passed at the second attempt.

3) I helped also with the assessment of project oral presentations. As it happens, the two students I examined did better with their poster presentations, however, I was told to mark down the presentations to the minimum pass level by a senior lecturer as in his words, it was the "most they deserved'. For once, some honesty from a senior lecturer.

4) I found myself helping out a Thai colleague (and mate) who'd been given three days to sort out the English in his PhD thesis or be failed - he was approaching his four year limit. Once again, the English at times was at times more a collection of random words rather than coherent English. After a a weekend of proofreading for him, we supplied him with the proofed document and the cleaned-up English. He reacted "You've changed the meaning!!!". He did submit and was passed "with minor corrections". He's now considered a leading specialist back in Thailand in the field of renewable energy and wind turbine design.

Whilst he was a likeable lad, even our proof-reading was short of a pass without major correction. But then again, he was an international student. I suspect possibly his supervisor rewrote large sections of the thesis for him to ensure he'd pass, something I as a home grown student could not expect.

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On the flip side of the coin, there were two really hard working, diligent Nigerian lads who passed the same M.Sc. with flying colours. We were informally spotting potential future Ph.D. students and recommended the two Nigerians to be considered due to their work ethic. Excellent presentation skills, little to no problems with their English and well capable of conducting original research with minimal supervision. However, both lads wanted to go back home to take up jobs in Nigeria.

Who went forward to take up Ph.D.s? Two of the Indian students who struggled to pass, including the one we had to fail.

FFS...

Did I mention these students were expected to have a minimum standard of English to be allowed to study in an English University?



He wrote in the first person as well as appalling use of the word "was"? I've always been told never to write a technical report in the first person.



When a student or recent graduate come on The Chase, you just know they're going to be among the worst performers. That includes even some teachers.

There is a lot to be said at times in favour of the school of life.



It's never been considered right to write reports, dissertations, theses or other top level document in the first person.

I've only ever come across one person at a higher level who asked why I never wrote in the first person.

You only use the first person in stories and novels.



I'd let him away with that one. How many times have you accessed this place via your mobile phone and predictive text has stepped in to correct you? How many times have you cocked up with the odd word typing a hurried message on here.



Fair comment. Our two most common verbs, "to have" and "two be", are highly irregular.

If a kid asks "Why do we say 'I was' and 'We were' when we can just use one word?", how do you really answer the question?

Because that is the accepted usage of standard English?

"Why?"

Because that is the way the English language has developed.

"Why?"

If the "Why?" question keeps being repeated, there is no ultimate answer even for the more knowledgeable linguists.



I've been told my repeated use of "actually", "basically" and "to be honest" are annoying. I even got cautioned about the use of "to be honest" after an agency interview, in that my use of it made me seem "dishonest".



I've jumped between academia and the real world. "Urgent" in academia is sort of in the next three weeks. In the real world, urgent can mean within the half hour. Switching your mindset between the two can take some doing and some people can't manage it.

On moving back into a University environment, I just wanted to crack on with the work being told I had a sizeable project in front of me and ended up producing twice as much data as I needed to. It actually proved to be a hindrance towards the end as I could not report all the data without confusing what I had to report, though the surplus data ended up being reported in extra papers.

Switching back the real world again saw me having to adjust back to focusing on the immediate issue, collecting only the data needed to answer a customer or supplier query and no more.
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?
 
Dave Herbal said:
Just offererd to proof read a lad at work’s college assignment. He has a degree in automotive design, so should be pretty competent, I thought.

I thought wrong. I’m no English Professor but fuck me it looked like it was written by a child. Spelling, punctuation and grammar all over the shop. Different spellings of the same word (raiser/razor). Clunky sentence structure. I spent about 2 hours re-doing it for him.

What are they teaching kids these days when you can get a degree with a complete lack of English skills?
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You cant really, had he handed it in like that he would get a 3rd.

Fwiw having a degree doesnt mean you are intelligent, it just means you know a bit about a particular topic. Anybody could do it if they have the interest and the patience
 
Patch said:
Disregarding the obvious misuse of "your", are you pulling him up over failing to use the subjunctive? Not the greatest of crimes.



Nice dissertation but you'll need to get the word count down.
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That's already been pointed out and makes you look like a rather sad individual for pointing it out
 
Frijj said:
The problem isn’t that politicians are thick. They’re often very well academically educated, have a solid understanding of the law, policy, economics etc but they’re forced to be partisan and then ideology comes before evidence and then mistakes are made.
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I think the gap between policy "the thinkers"if you will and the operational and delivery elements often mean mistakes are made. Years of poorly commissoned IT systems for example.

I also think politicians are often out of touch with reality and this leads to poor policy decisions.Blair and housing benefit for example
 
Frijj said:
The problem isn’t that politicians are thick. They’re often very well academically educated, have a solid understanding of the law, policy, economics etc but they’re forced to be partisan and then ideology comes before evidence and then mistakes are made.
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I think that’s the point as my gran would have put it they are well educated but with no common sense.
 

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