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Re: [ProgSoc] ipod battery



On Wed, 2006-06-14 at 11:35 +1000, Nathan de Vries wrote:

> On 13/06/2006, at 10:14 PM, Roland Turner wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 2006-06-13 at 10:57 +0000, John Elliot wrote:
> >>
> >> I had a discussion once with a UTS staff member (I'm not sure what  
> >> their
> >> name was, a lecturer in some IT field), because I was thinking about
> >> leaving. Their advice was to stay, because, according to this person,
> >> when he and his wife entertained friends who hadn't been to  
> >> university
> >> the level of conversation was low. I.e. people who didn't go to
> >> university were dull, and "you could tell". (This comment struck  
> >> me as
> >> wrong, 'for so many reasons').
> >
> > Confusing correlation with cause is a pretty common error, if indeed
> > there was a correlation in this case. Assuming that the prejudices  
> > of a
> > single academic are representative of the tone of an entire
> > school/college/faculty, or worse an entire university, is another.
> 
> 
> Brace yourself.
> 
> Sadly, I tend to agree with him on a university scale. I mean, take a  
> look at the Big Ass (tm) banner hanging from the UTS Faculty of IT  
> building. It says "10 Reasons for choosing UTS: ...", and then goes  

I've left the entire quote intact because I'm having trouble working out
who or what you're agreeing with. How does a banner attached to a
building relate to boorish behaviour by an academic?

> on to list all the UTS faculties - such as IT, Science, Law etc. -  
> which are available at EVERY Australian university (and TAFE for that  
> matter). Think about that for a second...let's assume that there have  

Umm, yeah. This is more about corporate behaviour and Australian
egalitarianism. The university could certainly trumpet the best
engineering schools in the southern hemisphere (on a graduate employment
basis, UTS engineering is a slam-dunk), but that would pretty much be
sticking a finger in the eye of the other schools/faculties and would
fail to trumpet exactly what we're talking about (vis "is it a
university?"), that UTS is thoroughly multi-disciplinary; this is
presumably of some importance, given that some bright spark put
"Technology" in the name.

Let me turn this around though; what would _you_ put on such a banner?

> been ~5 or so people involved writing up that banner. There's  
> copywriters, designers, sign-writers etc. Each of them have seen this  
> sign, done their part on it, and now we see it - hanging up for all  
> to see.
> 
> You might be thinking to yourself, what the hell does this have to do  
> with anything? It's just a sign after all, right? Well in my humble  
> opinion, that sign and those who were involved in creating it are  
> very much indicative of UTS:FIT and its' staff. Or perhaps even  

Erm, do you have any evidence at all to suggest that FIT was involved?

> universities in general. The message on the sign indicates that even  
> the university thinks it has nothing to offer its' students other  
> than what all other universities and TAFEs can offer. The staff which  
> were involved in the sign-writing process probably saw how ridiculous  
> it was but didn't  feel they could  change anything.  Even scarier,  
> they might NOT have seen how ridiculous it was.

But it's not ridiculous. Broadening its scope is an important part of
UTS's development.

> It's the same in the classroom; very few lecturers and tutors bring  
> real world examples into the material that's been taught for decades.  
> Reason? Either they don't keep up to date with the field they're  
> teaching, they don't keep up to date at all, or they just don't see  
> the point. What reason do they have to migrate from the syllabus  
> they've been given? The university certainly doesn't encourage it,  
> and now we've even got students who COMPLAIN when staff stray from  
> the syllabus and teach relevant, real-world stuff. All they want is  
> their piece of paper and a job-placement in some large bullshit  
> conglomerate.
> 
> Yes, I'm jaded. Please excuse the rant - the production-line nature  
> of universities angers me.

OK, this is an entirely different issue. Certification is becoming the
major part of what Australian universities actually do. That's
unfortunate, but hardly indicative of unreasonable behaviour on UTS's
part.

(BTW, much the same is happening here (in the UK); Blair's target is
that 50% of school-leavers complete an undergraduate degree. Wild.)

- Raz


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