Term in Review: Academics

Since I've only got a little more than one and a half weeks over here, I figured I'd start closing things up.  There's only going to be a couple more of these.  This one, and maybe 1-2 more.  For this one, I figure I'd "review" or speak of my time here in the academic sense.  While I still have two finals and a paper to do before I go, classes have been done for a long while, so I can write about the academic atmosphere here to some extent.  I know I've elucidated (or, rather, complained) on the subject before, but perhaps it's better to summarize.

The obvious difference is that I only have one set of classes here whereas at Ohio State I'd have two sets of classes (Winter Term as opposed to Winter and Spring Quarters).  But the way the UK school system is set up, my lectures essentially fit into Winter Quarter at Ohio State, while Spring Quarter is just exams and papers.  It's been a rather interesting approach.  The plus side is that I got to go visit Europe for awhile, seeing Geneva, Paris, and Edinburgh.  Not a whole lot of places (some people saw a WHOLE LOT of places, unlike me), but I'm not displeased with the amount I did, especially with impending exams.  The downside to the large break is that I really have no sense of work ethic anymore.  The Easter break sorta took that out of the picture, which given the work I still have to do, is not a good sign.

In terms of difficulty level?  UCL has been a lot more difficult than Ohio State.  Perhaps this could be attributed to my "Band Three" economics courses (equivalent to 600+ at Ohio State), but I think even given the equivalencies it still comes out to be more difficult.  This could probably be attributed to the "education culture" here.  We only had lectures once a week for each class, and only sometimes would we have extra tutorial classes to go over problem sets or readings, depending on the class.  This leaves most of it up to the student.  There's simply not enough class time to develop the understanding of material required for the exam.  Whereas at Ohio State a week devoted to a topic takes four hours of lecture, at UCL you get two.  The other two to figure out what the heck you heard basically come from you.  It has been problematic in light of Spring Term (the technical term for the exam period, but it's really all attached to the previous Winter Term and so the use of "Spring Term" is slightly dubious in and of itself), but it's something I still just have to push through and get this junk done.

The one area I find UCL extremely lacking in is "service."  This goes from teachers helping students, teacher aides helping students, to even providing amenities in dorms and otherwise.  Teachers are not very helpful here.  Perhaps it's part of the whole culture here, but they're not very responsive and oftentimes not the friendliest folks around.  One of my Professors, when dismissing his last lecture, told us to "not email [him] any questions about the material or the exam, because [he] won't reply to them."  When I went to another Professor's office hours, he essentially refused to answer my questions about the problem set due in a couple of days, mostly being dismissive and telling me to just "try my best and wait for the tutorial."  While in that instance it's true, I'll learn it at some point, I want to know it when I do the problem set so I can do it easily on the exam!  It's not that ridiculous of a concept.

The other lacking arena of UCL "service" is the provisions for students.  For one, there's no wireless internet in the dorms.  While I suppose for some wireless internet is a luxury (may be the case in Britain), at Ohio State there was most definitely wireless at campus dormitories.  Not so here.  While my dorm is sort of "satellite" with regards to the rest of campus, they should really provide that.  When I'm on the internet, unless I'm in the middle of campus, I'm in my flat on my computer, which is connected to the internet via ethernet.  It's a pretty old technology, so I don't see why they can't just update it.  Also, while wireless security is understandable (Ohio State's has that), ethernet port security is entirely unnecessary and useless.  If someone is over or visiting and needs to access the internet via their own computer, it's impossible.  The ethernet connection won't operate.  One of the worst policies I've seen here.

And, one last gripe about UCL is their library system.  So maybe I'm biased because I've worked at the Ohio State Libraries since I got to Ohio State freshman year, but I have not seen a university library as dysfunctional as UCL's.  Their classification code is essentially a poor "homebrew" which makes little to no sense, and it's really not great to work with.  Different branches of university libraries even use different classification codes.  At least the Library of Congress code is a workable system.  In addition, their collection seems to be rather small in comparison to Ohio State's.  Some other things include limited desk hours available, such as very limited opening hours for their "issue" (circulation) desk and "enquiry" (reference) desk, which is a problem...at least Ohio State's are open past 5 o'clock.

Part of the problem is that there's no student staff helping.  It's literally just a bunch of librarians working.  And part of this issue may be explained by the size of student body served: UCL's undergraduate population is about 20,000, half of Ohio State's.  In addition, some of the library size issue is mitigated by the existence of a public London library system, which is not really plausible at Ohio State, but multiple libraries resulting in library-hopping is no fun (especially when it is necessary to decode multiple classification code systems as I do not think there is a universally applied code in London).

All this disparaging does not imply that studying at UCL and in London was the worst time of my life.  It's certainly been challenging, but more of what I'm trying to say is that UCL is fundamentally different from Ohio State, and perhaps I don't jive with it as well.  The other thing is that I've certainly been learning a whole lot here, both academically and non-academically and so the study abroad experience has proven itself to be invaluable.  But perhaps for me (at least for now) the lessons with the bigger benefits have been non-academic in nature.  That's a story for another time, I suppose.

The end is nigh,
-e.

NP: The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

This is one of my favorite records.  I'm listening to the "Closet Mix" present on the Peel Slowly & See boxset, which I prefer to the Valentin Mix.  I did elaborate on the whole mix shenanigans on my sister blog a couple days ago, and the pertinent entry can be found herein.