A word about tutors:
I had two very different tutors this semester. Both were guys and both were post-grads, but that's where the similarity ends. Let's call the English tutor John and the Reli tutor Joe . We met with John weekly and with Joe every second week.
John is probably in his mid-20s. He has floppy dark hair, brown eyes and dresses in that shorts, jandals and a big shirt style so typical of your average Kiwi bloke. John is doing his Masters on Milton. He really likes Milton, he's interested in him and takes every chance to mention him in relation to whatever we are talking about in English. Now, John was very new to tutoring. The first session was a disaster: he handed out some poems, made us go round the room reading them - no one knew where they were supposed to start or stop, or even how to pronounce the weird Old English words. At the end of each poem, he's say: so what do you guys think? and after a few moments, someone might say something and he'd just nod, and the silence would continue. We'd then go on to reading the next poem and the same thing would happen. If someone asked what something meant, he'd hunt about on the page to find the reference and then say he had no idea, maybe it meant such-and-such. He also kept checking the time on his cell phone, as anxious as any of us for the torture to be over. We all left ten minutes early.
Now, one of my new mature student friends was in the tut with me and she immediately arranged to be moved to another group. I asked as well, but due to numbers they couldn't swop me out. So I talked to the senior tutor and gave her feedback on why I wanted to be moved. She supervises the tutors and she must have done a really good job because from then on, John just got better and better. He relaxed, he brought biscuits, he came up with really interesting exercises, he wrote down everything we contributed on the white board, he was active, he divided us into groups and got us to debate issues - in other words, he engaged with us and more importantly, he engaged our attention during the tutorial too. By the end, we were a cohesive group and we'd learnt a lot and we were all sorry to say goodbye. He was a bit slow with marking our assignments but kept us informed and apologized for the delays, one of which was due to personal bereavement.
Now, Religious studies and Joe. Joe is doing a PhD in - I don't know what. He's been in the PhD program since 2007. Joe always wear a cap, a big fisherman's jersey, jandals, has fuzzy facial hair and a perpetual half-grin on his face. If I'd seen him on the street, my first thought would not have been 'academic' - I'd have been looking for the collecting tin on the ground. Joe, however, is very academic indeed. He runs his tutorials from his chair at the head of the room and his method is to simply rehash on of the set readings and ask a number of questions. Most of the students just sit and stare, a few contribute a thought now and then. When they ask questions, it is usually about which reading they should pick to write about for the next essay. After this discussion, Joe then gives us one or two of the preceeding week's student essays to read and comment on. Generally they are essays which have scored 9 or 9.5 out of 10. It's quite hard commenting on the work of your peers, even if it is anonymous. When it comes to returning essays, Joe is also very, very slow and his comments generally come off a pre-typed list (I know this because sometimes they'll show up as ... 4. In future essays, you should .. etc - but there is no 1 or 2 or 3 preceding it. One girl I know got a comment that started 11. Try to ... etc. He knows everything about citations and how to put together an academic argument, but on the whole he seems to be going through the motions with us, rather than exhibiting any genuine enthusiasm for his subject.
John may have been young and relatively inexperienced but in the end - for me - I think he was the better tutor.
Showing posts with label mature student. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mature student. Show all posts
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Mid-year exams already!
And here we are in early June already. It is almost unbelievable how quickly time has gone. In ten days time, I'll be writing a three-hour exam in English and handing in a 2,500 word essay in Religious Studies, and that will be the end of Semester One. Luckily for me, I'm on vacation from my paying job so have ample time to study and prepare!
It's been a wonderful, wonderful three months, on the whole. Practically speaking, the work remains more than manageable and I've been able to keep my grades up at an average of A for English and A+ for Religious Studies. The final exam and the final paper count for 50% of the marks in both courses, so I'm going to have to do really well in both to maintain those averages.
Things I have learned:
I really dislike the whole academic essay thing (as in the Reli course essays). The subject matter is fascinating, stirring up all sorts of thoughts and ideas (the kinds of things I had naively hoped would be discussed and debated in tutorials!). But the academic approach is to take this fascinating subject, examine it through the lens of some academic theory and then say how the THEORY works to either explain or fail to explain the fascinating subject. For the final essay, we have to describe a spiritual practice, explain it using a theory of religion and then say how the theory works or where it falls short. They make a point of saying 'we are NOT INTERESTED in your conclusions - we just want to see evidence of your creative and critical thinking'. Talk about sucking all the life out of the subject ... So, despite having a deep, deep interest in all things religious and despite there being some really fascinating courses available at levels two and three, I'm not going to be doing any more Reli papers.
On the other hand, I really enjoy doing the critical analysis papers in English. As I got to grips with this over the term, my grades improved and my enjoyment increased. I like the challenge of taking a passage and going into it both 'wider' (seeing how it relates to the work as a whole) and 'deeper' (what do the particular words mean and what else could we infer from these word choices?) I love learning about where particular words originated, how they evolved and how they can be used to create layers of meaning. I'm at the moment preparing for the exam by reviewing the set texts and annotating wherever possible - it is an open book exam and all three questions will be to write a critical analysis of a poem/extract. The two compulsory questions will be from Chaucer's The Miller's Tale and Keats' poems. The last one will be a choice from four other extracts, so there's a bit of leeway there.
I've also rediscovered something else about me: I'm a procrastinator of the first order. I mostly kept up with the pre-class readings in Religious Studies but fell behind in English (probably due to unfamiliarity with Old English and not knowing the stories therefore getting confused by reading on my own). I also fell behind in revising post-lecture - no excuse except laziness and lack of focus! Which means all my prep now is what I should have been doing in that pre-and post-reading! Ah, well. Better late than never. (Yeah, I said it!)
The second trimester starts on 11th July. Between now and then (once exams are done) I will be flying back to South Africa for three weeks to visit my parents and friends - having worked for the last 18 months, I've accumulated a lot of leave time and am taking six weeks in total. When I get back, I'll have a week to get back into the uni schedule before I start back at the hospital. I'm registered for two courses next trimester, with a possible third ... seeing as it's been so manageable this term, I figured I might try three while they're still 100 level courses - once we get to the 200 and 300 levels, I don't think it'll be as easy. So, I'll be doing Ling 101 (Introduction to Language) and Film 101 (Introduction to Film). Both fall within the choices for English Studies major, so will work as far as total credits are concerned. The third paper I've applied for is actually a 200 level limited entry creative writing workshop - they only take 12 students and apparently up to 40 usually apply. Entry is strictly on merit - I spent all of last weekend polishing the two samples and cover letter - so we'll see. They don't encourage first years to apply, but neither do they preclude them specifically. Fingers crossed for that, as I would absolutely LOVE it!
So, for now, back to the books and specifially, Keat's Lamia. If you're interested, read it HERE.
It's been a wonderful, wonderful three months, on the whole. Practically speaking, the work remains more than manageable and I've been able to keep my grades up at an average of A for English and A+ for Religious Studies. The final exam and the final paper count for 50% of the marks in both courses, so I'm going to have to do really well in both to maintain those averages.
Things I have learned:
I really dislike the whole academic essay thing (as in the Reli course essays). The subject matter is fascinating, stirring up all sorts of thoughts and ideas (the kinds of things I had naively hoped would be discussed and debated in tutorials!). But the academic approach is to take this fascinating subject, examine it through the lens of some academic theory and then say how the THEORY works to either explain or fail to explain the fascinating subject. For the final essay, we have to describe a spiritual practice, explain it using a theory of religion and then say how the theory works or where it falls short. They make a point of saying 'we are NOT INTERESTED in your conclusions - we just want to see evidence of your creative and critical thinking'. Talk about sucking all the life out of the subject ... So, despite having a deep, deep interest in all things religious and despite there being some really fascinating courses available at levels two and three, I'm not going to be doing any more Reli papers.
On the other hand, I really enjoy doing the critical analysis papers in English. As I got to grips with this over the term, my grades improved and my enjoyment increased. I like the challenge of taking a passage and going into it both 'wider' (seeing how it relates to the work as a whole) and 'deeper' (what do the particular words mean and what else could we infer from these word choices?) I love learning about where particular words originated, how they evolved and how they can be used to create layers of meaning. I'm at the moment preparing for the exam by reviewing the set texts and annotating wherever possible - it is an open book exam and all three questions will be to write a critical analysis of a poem/extract. The two compulsory questions will be from Chaucer's The Miller's Tale and Keats' poems. The last one will be a choice from four other extracts, so there's a bit of leeway there.
I've also rediscovered something else about me: I'm a procrastinator of the first order. I mostly kept up with the pre-class readings in Religious Studies but fell behind in English (probably due to unfamiliarity with Old English and not knowing the stories therefore getting confused by reading on my own). I also fell behind in revising post-lecture - no excuse except laziness and lack of focus! Which means all my prep now is what I should have been doing in that pre-and post-reading! Ah, well. Better late than never. (Yeah, I said it!)
The second trimester starts on 11th July. Between now and then (once exams are done) I will be flying back to South Africa for three weeks to visit my parents and friends - having worked for the last 18 months, I've accumulated a lot of leave time and am taking six weeks in total. When I get back, I'll have a week to get back into the uni schedule before I start back at the hospital. I'm registered for two courses next trimester, with a possible third ... seeing as it's been so manageable this term, I figured I might try three while they're still 100 level courses - once we get to the 200 and 300 levels, I don't think it'll be as easy. So, I'll be doing Ling 101 (Introduction to Language) and Film 101 (Introduction to Film). Both fall within the choices for English Studies major, so will work as far as total credits are concerned. The third paper I've applied for is actually a 200 level limited entry creative writing workshop - they only take 12 students and apparently up to 40 usually apply. Entry is strictly on merit - I spent all of last weekend polishing the two samples and cover letter - so we'll see. They don't encourage first years to apply, but neither do they preclude them specifically. Fingers crossed for that, as I would absolutely LOVE it!
So, for now, back to the books and specifially, Keat's Lamia. If you're interested, read it HERE.
Monday, March 28, 2011
New Beginnings
I'm a big fan of new beginnings. I've made quite a few of them over the years, some personal and some professional and I've learned that on the whole, change is a GOOD thing. Along the way, however, there have also been some resounding failures, which like most people, I've preferred to sweep under the carpet and ignore. One of these, back in 1983, was an ill-fated attempt at university.
At the end of '82, with a nursing qualification, a post-grad in midwifery and two years ICU experience under my belt, I felt it was time for the next step up the ladder, so a friend and I decided to apply for admission to the medical school. I'd dropped maths in early high school so I spent five months doing a crash course in and passed - but my grades weren't good enough and I didn't get a medical school place. But the idea of going back to study still appealed so I enrolled instead for a BA and picked interesting but random courses for my first year: psychology, Greek and Roman myth and legend, intro to French and English 1. At age 23, I was already far, far older than most of the other students. Living off campus and working part time, I struggled to fit in. Back in 1983, there was no internet, no support for mature students so by mid-year, depressed, confused and with no specific goal in sight, I dropped out.
Life continued. Nursing, marriage, babies, depression, divorce, illness, recovery, redundancy, raising kids, spiritual highs and lows, adventures in writing and travel, and finally, in 2009, a major geographical shift when, still a single mom, I emigrated from South Africa to New Zealand. And so now, with my kids almost fully grown (19 and 22), it's time to change it all up again. I've spent countless years in nursing and I know that I really don't want to be rushing round a ward with a bedpan when I'm 62. So now it's time to give some serious attention to those things that have proven themselves enduring loves over the years, things I've dabbled in by reading and thinking abou them on my own in the most informal and unstructured of ways.
The good thing is that now I'm older, I've gotten to know some important things about myself. One, I get bored easily. Two, I'm intelligent and I write well. Three, there are a wide variety of things that interest me: literature, writing, anthropology, film, linguistics, philosophy, cosmology and religion are the first ones that come to mind. So, with a view to effecting a career change within the next five years, I've enrolled at our local university for a part time BA degree. My plan is to major in English Studies (includes the option of focussing on any two of literature, linguistics, media, film and theatre) and to pick up a smattering of interest papers along the way to have a taste of the other things that continue to fascinate me so.
So, this is a real New Beginning for me. I'm combining being a part time mature student with being a part time RN, working 0.7 FTE in a busy medical assessment unit, and with being a mom, as both my beloved kids still live at home. Interesting side note: both of them started at uni this year as well so it's a bit like flatting - only not! It's interesting to compare our experiences but also challenging as I try to keep my roles as mom and fellow student in balance.
Next post I'll talk more about the challenges of getting it all sorted out and actually starting back in class again, after twenty plus years away.
At the end of '82, with a nursing qualification, a post-grad in midwifery and two years ICU experience under my belt, I felt it was time for the next step up the ladder, so a friend and I decided to apply for admission to the medical school. I'd dropped maths in early high school so I spent five months doing a crash course in and passed - but my grades weren't good enough and I didn't get a medical school place. But the idea of going back to study still appealed so I enrolled instead for a BA and picked interesting but random courses for my first year: psychology, Greek and Roman myth and legend, intro to French and English 1. At age 23, I was already far, far older than most of the other students. Living off campus and working part time, I struggled to fit in. Back in 1983, there was no internet, no support for mature students so by mid-year, depressed, confused and with no specific goal in sight, I dropped out.
Life continued. Nursing, marriage, babies, depression, divorce, illness, recovery, redundancy, raising kids, spiritual highs and lows, adventures in writing and travel, and finally, in 2009, a major geographical shift when, still a single mom, I emigrated from South Africa to New Zealand. And so now, with my kids almost fully grown (19 and 22), it's time to change it all up again. I've spent countless years in nursing and I know that I really don't want to be rushing round a ward with a bedpan when I'm 62. So now it's time to give some serious attention to those things that have proven themselves enduring loves over the years, things I've dabbled in by reading and thinking abou them on my own in the most informal and unstructured of ways.
The good thing is that now I'm older, I've gotten to know some important things about myself. One, I get bored easily. Two, I'm intelligent and I write well. Three, there are a wide variety of things that interest me: literature, writing, anthropology, film, linguistics, philosophy, cosmology and religion are the first ones that come to mind. So, with a view to effecting a career change within the next five years, I've enrolled at our local university for a part time BA degree. My plan is to major in English Studies (includes the option of focussing on any two of literature, linguistics, media, film and theatre) and to pick up a smattering of interest papers along the way to have a taste of the other things that continue to fascinate me so.
So, this is a real New Beginning for me. I'm combining being a part time mature student with being a part time RN, working 0.7 FTE in a busy medical assessment unit, and with being a mom, as both my beloved kids still live at home. Interesting side note: both of them started at uni this year as well so it's a bit like flatting - only not! It's interesting to compare our experiences but also challenging as I try to keep my roles as mom and fellow student in balance.
Next post I'll talk more about the challenges of getting it all sorted out and actually starting back in class again, after twenty plus years away.
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