Who's Going To Uni?

[Raith Against The Machine]

it sounds like a nightmare. for a start, what's to stop someone/the others saying in their 1000 words, "dunc did f**k all" or academic speak for the same.

the whole being a man down but having the same work is a right shitey situation. Has this been brought to the bloke running the thing's attention?

I'm not sure, but I'm going to e-mail him at some point soon just to ask him about the whole thing, because he is a decent guy who e-mails back and answers questions properly.

He's said that the reflective piece isn't there so that you can say "the other folk in my group are lazy fuckers and I did it all", but then I don't really understand it's purpose. To be honest, that wouldn't bother me at all, mainly because I went to all the classes, and did all the work. If it was just that sort of thing, I would be perfectly honest in mine and say "The other two in my group didn't attend all the classes, but I wasn't bothered because I knew that they were putting the work in, and they both told me if they weren't going to be there."

I might e-mail him now, actually. Basically, because I'm procrastinating instead of doing the actual original assignment

[theentomologist]

Yet again I've left a 1500 word essay to the last night without starting it, sometimes I have to just concede what an absolute c**t I am.

The essay is for Sociology, with the question being:

Examine the extent to which social divisions are socially contructed. Use either gender or ethnicity to construct and illustrate your argument.

Now, last time I went overboard and it was too long, this time it's the opposite. In the example of gender some things are constructed and some are genetic, there's your fucking answer there. It's not that the question is too difficult, it's just I can't be arsed answering the question in two lines then writing another 1480 words of wishey washey shite.

ffs its only 1500 words. get on your uni lib website, use your athens password (you DO have one of those surely) and use the journal database for sociology to search for "social construction" "Gender" surely. 5 minutes work, 1450 words. easy.

edit: dont forget your athens password but something like this will get you your 1450 words

Edited November 15, 2009 by theentomologist

[theentomologist]

I'm not sure, but I'm going to e-mail him at some point soon just to ask him about the whole thing, because he is a decent guy who e-mails back and answers questions properly.

He's said that the reflective piece isn't there so that you can say "the other folk in my group are lazy fuckers and I did it all", but then I don't really understand it's purpose. To be honest, that wouldn't bother me at all, mainly because I went to all the classes, and did all the work. If it was just that sort of thing, I would be perfectly honest in mine and say "The other two in my group didn't attend all the classes, but I wasn't bothered because I knew that they were putting the work in, and they both told me if they weren't going to be there."

I might e-mail him now, actually. Basically, because I'm procrastinating instead of doing the actual original assignment

oh well that's all right then cause everyone does as their told.

obviously not going to happen in your group but I've done it before when asked to score what people did.

[gc_smfc]

Decisions, decisions what spatial science essay to 'choose'.

1. Explain why many human geographers wished to abandon spatial science's treatment of human beings as little more than dots on a map, numbers in tables or 'rational economic men'.

2. Critically assess spatial science's concern with uncovering fundamental spatial laws, whether dealing with human beings or natural objects.

3. 'Sums, sums and more sums!' Critically discuss the contention that spatial science was only about quantification.

Basically as part of my geography tutorials i have to pick one of these essays, do it, which will then be peer reviewed. Worst of all, i don't really care for spatial science, with me concentrating my degree on the physical stuff. So i'll let everyone else decide.

[Guest Garibaldi]

ffs its only 1500 words. get on your uni lib website, use your athens password (you DO have one of those surely) and use the journal database for sociology to search for "social construction" "Gender" surely. 5 minutes work, 1450 words. easy.

edit: dont forget your athens password but something like this will get you your 1450 words

Aren't you a clever one, cheers for this. I've never used Athens as nobody really explained what it is, and I never thought to find out. I can't get on at the moment, but tonight I'll read a bit about gender, make a plan of what exactly is going in the essay, then tommorow I've got between 9 and 3 in the library (plenty of time) to blitz out the essay and find quotes to back up my points.

Ta.

[HibeeJibee]

it sounds like a nightmare. for a start, what's to stop someone/the others saying in their 1000 words, "dunc did f**k all" or academic speak for the same.

the whole being a man down but having the same work is a right shitey situation. Has this been brought to the bloke running the thing's attention?

Pre-Honours group work is now being discouraged in CoHSS at Edinburgh at for this very reason.

Either you get some people putting in loads of work, and someone else never turning up but still getting the mark / or you get people saying 'X did nowt' when they did. Or worse - both happen.

Edited November 15, 2009 by HibeeJibee

[Raith Against The Machine]

I've now found out that there are "Group Peer Assessments".

Essentially, I get 2 points to divide amongst the other two folk in the group. I think I'll probably go to about 1.25 to the other guy, and about 0.75 to the girl, because he's been to more of the tutorials, and has been e-mailing me about the work, and I've been doing the same. She has a much bigger workload for her other classes though, so I don't want to just say she's not done anything, because she has.

There's every possibility that the two of them could collude and give each other 2s and me 0. They won't, of course, but you can see how it can easily be skewed.

Group work doesn't work.

[Sir Kevin Of Kilsyth]

f**k sakes. That for Management?

[Raith Against The Machine]

f**k sakes. That for Management?

Aye.

I'm fucking sick of Parcelforce.

[Sir Kevin Of Kilsyth]

I just read the emails. Cannae fault that lecturer. Annoying accent but he tells you exactly what you need to do. 1000 words for a reflective piece will be quite hard.

[The Arch]

I just read the emails. Cannae fault that lecturer. Annoying accent but he tells you exactly what you need to do. 1000 words for a reflective piece will be quite hard.

This doesn't have anything to do with uni, but I can remember you saying you get the train from Croy.

Every morning about 20 people pile off the train at Croy about say 10 past 8, wearing bright red polo shirts. They come back on the train about 10 past 5 and get off at Central like I do.

What are they? Is there a school in Croy that wears red polo shirts, or are they young offenders? They look rough, so I'll go for the second.

[Raith Against The Machine]

I just read the emails. Cannae fault that lecturer. Annoying accent but he tells you exactly what you need to do. 1000 words for a reflective piece will be quite hard.

Aye, I sent him a couple of e-mails earlier basically about the issues I mentioned in this thread, and he replied as quickly as can be expected, properly explaining a few things. He was saying that although it's not ideal to have groups of 3 and 4, there isn't a massive advantage to either, because it's harder to coordinate between 4, and harder to make it seem like one complete report, rather than just 4 separate ones. If the reports come in and the groups of 4 are scoring higher than the groups of 3, then he'll take another look at it and maybe take some action.

He's a stand-up bloke, even if he is Welsh.

[vikingTON]

My essay on the failure of the Jacobites is a little beefy at 2300-odd words, but it's all good, well-written stuff. Fit for the perusal of Richard himself.

[Sir Kevin Of Kilsyth]

This doesn't have anything to do with uni, but I can remember you saying you get the train from Croy.

Every morning about 20 people pile off the train at Croy about say 10 past 8, wearing bright red polo shirts. They come back on the train about 10 past 5 and get off at Central like I do.

What are they? Is there a school in Croy that wears red polo shirts, or are they young offenders? They look rough, so I'll go for the second.

It could go either way when it comes to Crojans anyway tbh lol. I'm not sure about them . Theres only the one school in Croy and its a primary. Although I think they do wear red polo shirts.

[The Arch]

It could go either way when it comes to Crojans anyway tbh lol. I'm not sure about them . Theres only the one school in Croy and its a primary. Although I think they do wear red polo shirts.

They're aged about 16-20.

I'm going to have to investigate further.

[Sir Kevin Of Kilsyth]

They're aged about 16-20.

I'm going to have to investigate further.

I asked my mother lol. She reckons that they work in the GIST factory up at the Westfield industrial estate.

[craigkillie]

This doesn't have anything to do with uni, but I can remember you saying you get the train from Croy.

Every morning about 20 people pile off the train at Croy about say 10 past 8, wearing bright red polo shirts. They come back on the train about 10 past 5 and get off at Central like I do.

What are they? Is there a school in Croy that wears red polo shirts, or are they young offenders? They look rough, so I'll go for the second.

I saw them a couple of months ago when I was through in Edinburgh visiting my girlfriend.

I think they had a logo of some sort on the polo shirts with something written underneath. I can't remember what it said though.

[craigkillie]

Group work doesn't work.

We've started doing group projects this year for 3rd year Statistics, and I think our system works well.

We are allocated to a group, given a project to work on, and one of the group members has to present it to the rest of the class. We are put into different groups each time, and every class member has to present once through the year.

After the presentation, we receive feedback, and then go away and each member of the group has to hand in their own report. It is these reports which we are marked on.

This means that you get some experience of group work - which I think is important because it will be something you need in the workplace - but you don't run the risk of your grade being affected by having some complete moron in your group.

[dave_binos]

For example, the assignment has four distinct areas, and all of the tutorials except mine and one other are split into groups of four. Because there's only three of us, we have to try and work out who's going to do this other section, whilst also doing the work on our own one.

Aye but you don't need to talk about these 4 areas in the same amount of depth. I've done the history for our company and the other 2 boys are doing PEST factors and linking some of the areas covered in the tutorials. Agree on yer point that people in groups of 3 may get a slightly lower grade. Hopefully they calculate it so this isn't the case.

[HibeeJibee]

We've started doing group projects this year for 3rd year Statistics, and I think our system works well.

We are allocated to a group, given a project to work on, and one of the group members has to present it to the rest of the class. We are put into different groups each time, and every class member has to present once through the year.

After the presentation, we receive feedback, and then go away and each member of the group has to hand in their own report. It is these reports which we are marked on.

This means that you get some experience of group work - which I think is important because it will be something you need in the workplace - but you don't run the risk of your grade being affected by having some complete moron in your group.

It can work very well in honours, where people have learnt a degree of professionalism and feel a pressure (and desire) to contribute to the broader good - and of course gain credit themselves. At Edinburgh at least, it's a shambles in 1st and 2nd year, and frankly should be pared back because it's really unfair.