Useless degrees

So perhaps the monetary rewards should come from the assessment of the quality of teaching, rather than the amount of publications. Obviously the question is how though, as always.

We get tutorials on my course, once a term. The problem I have with them is that because that tutorial will be one of 3 or 4 occasions that term where I'll see my tutor, he/she will have very little of any use say. But this is because fine art has different demands than english, of course. And is also less profitable, hence the ridiculous student-tutor contact times in 1st and 2nd year.

My course could in fact be condensed into 1 year, in terms of the amount of contact with staff. If they had any balls they would leave us completely on our own for 2 years, but the fact is they simply do not give a shit about us, at all.

Yeah, I can believe it. I know a few people who teach at (decent) art colleges with just MFAs, which I find quite baffling...

The problem with de-emphasising publications is that as a system it does in some ways indicate the level of quality of research going on at that department: I do believe that the more academically sound institutions should be rewarded accordingly, and since the only publications that count are thoroughly peer-reviewed, it has a certain logic. So it is an intellectually rigorous system, but yes, it disadvantages students that are not capable of independent learning (it also makes earning a living pretty tough for young academics, but we don't care about them right now). At its best, it means that clever students will thrive through proximity to expertise in that particular field.

I think this used to work when universities were free and only the clever kids got in, to put it crudely. But that was incredibly unfair on bright kids from worse-off backgrounds, as I was arguing earlier. Anyway, I should do some work :s