Posted by alexandra_k on April 16, 2016, at 2:35:48
In reply to Re: another year down, posted by alexandra_k on March 31, 2016, at 4:12:44
Had my physiology mid-term. Don't have results back yet. I don't feel worried, because there really isn't anything that I can do... I think it went well. It felt pretty good. I'm very (very very) cautiously optimistic. But a little bit of fear / dread that I messed a bunch up, I suppose...
One week study break... Then 2 midterms first week back. Micro and Immune and then Anatomy. Then Mech of Disease the following week.
Wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have 2 lab reports to be doing, as well...
It really is a ridiculous amount of content. Made harder than it needs to be, too, with our having coursebooks with some information, powerpoints with some other information, lecturers presenting some different information, textbooks to be reading, and laboratory exercises that often bear dubious relationship to the other things... But it is what it is and they are teaching more to people without higher learning strategies... And fill in the blanks or label the diagrams activities are supposed to be encouraging people to think or to attend class or... Whatever. Anyway... Leaves you with a bunch of busywork to be doing after every lecture... Getting your information together... With learning outcomes that read like they are going to be parts to the lecture but the lecturers don't often pull through on that...
Anyway...
The content is interesting enough...
I think they run the same content with different groups. Someone said something about the pharmacy students getting the same physiology test that we do so we wouldn't have ECG questions in the test since they didn't give pharmacy students the lecture on ECG or the lab that we had... I think they probably give the optometry and the medical students the same test... I wonder how different the content delivery is... I'm discovering that medicine is the priority program... They think that because the fees are higher that means medical students should get access to a bunch of resources that the other kids don't get access to... I think it is part of the whole convincing ourselves that those kids must be smarter, thing... Taking them out quickly so their educational advantage didn't run out... Then making sure we keep up on that so they stay ahead on the tests... I would suppose that is it. Something like that. Convincing ourselves that the kids of doctors aren't just educationally advantaged they are actually genuinely smarter.
What other country selectes them 6 months out of High School ffs? On the basis of their performance in tests and exams done after 6 or 12 weeks of university? They start out saying 'I'm so glad my High School teachers explained that really well because I'd never have got it if I was relying on this lecture presentation to learn it!' and they... Learn to shut up. And be all like 'nah, I've never seen any problem like that before'.
Because they let in 1,300 kids... And you only need a salient 300 or so to demonstrate their inability to fidget and keep their mouths shut for 5 minutes... You only need a salient 300 or so to proclaim loudly that they are going to be doctors (while simultaneously proclaiming loudly how boring everything is and how they don't do any study and how they did really badly at high school)... You want to expose them to just enough of that so they think they better just nod and smile nod and smile nod and smile... Play dumb... And beam me up scotty after 1 year.
We so corrupt we don't even think this country has any corruption. Like, at all.
Anyway... By failing my population health essays they effectively prevented my applying to medicine... And now I'm seeing how they have really skimped on our resources now that they've taken the priority program kids out. I mean, last year all the microscopes worked pretty well. Because, you know, the deans daughter might have wanted to sit at the back. This year, you'll be lucky if you get one that works in the back row.. And the demonstrators just pretend like you mustn't know how to use the equipment properly...
Anyway...
Maybe things will be a bit better for me out of Auckland. Or maybe not... People say don't expect it will be much different... But maybe that's just what they say to try and encourage people to stay here out of inertia. I can't do any more anatomy here unless I get into med... And I guess I think that that is just a pipe dream if I stay here. The whole D for population health essay thing... I don't have any faith at all that there is any intellectual honesty or integrity here, anymore. Not at the appeal level - where you most need it just in case. Whether people choose to be intellectually honest or display individual integrity is all up to their whim... We don't even do blind grading. I mean, we have to submit everything to this foreign software program... And when the lecturers / tutors grade our name is all big and bold on the front page... There isn't any attempt to avoid prejudice or anything... It's shocking to me.. I've never not blind graded... I remember being lectured specifically on blind grading policies, like, everywhere I've ever graded... Seems that our solution to grade inflation is grade randomisation. Or... Worse than that, actual targeting and destruction of anyone who displays anything like originality (low 'plagarism' score) or creativity or innovation... I mean... Why would you encourage or value a person doing something that another person / a computer program couldn't do? You want to encourage them to only do what another person / a computer program could do. Then control them with external incentive. Obviously. Of course.
The university...
The whole love of learning thing...
It's kinda been wrecked. By the dull witted psychopaths who are all willing to take their luck (or their nepotistic advantage or both)... To get money so they don't have to live near people who drink and yell all the time.. Who sh*t on the streets... Who throw their trash about and who openly abuse each other... Someplace pretty...
I don't know... Too many kids... But organisational structures seem to really have broken down...
Something about... Local optima. Fitness traps. From my own limited and selfish pov there is no difference between my attaining / achieving something greater than other people vs my kicking other people downa nd preventing them from attaining anything at all. With respect to my position on the hierarchy it is all the same. It's typically easier to work on pulling other people down and preventing them from being able to achieve or do anything than it is to work on ourselves to do better. So we tend to settle in local optima. To the detriment of us all.
I think this country is... Extinction. Heading towards something like that. Some kind of demise. It really does feel like a sinking ship... And it's mostly being run by people who seem to have resigned themselves to thinking that it is a sinking ship so they are simply looting it for whatever they can get.
I'm sure their psychopathic kids will look after them just fine. Of course they will. Sure. So very much better than the kids who were able to respond best to the same standard of teaching. So very much better than the kids who are doing it not for external incentive but for genuine interest / less egotistical desire.
Anyway... half way through the first semester. 6 teaching weeks to go... Then some time to apply for studying in different places and accommodation... See what I get... See where I get to go... I don't think there is anything here... And I think they genuinely do think that I'll simply stay out of inertia...
I don't know how I'll find Otago... Best I can figure... That's where the rich doctors send their kids. Away from home. So they get to feel like they acomplished things all by themselves (smuggled protectively away in certain specific special residential halls with a little more of the academic supports and a little less of the free pizza).
I don't see why we can't see who wants something the most... In the good old fashioned way.. The people who are prepared to work for it over time... The people who are prepared to give up things like parties or whatever... To do something they actually enjoy (learning). The kids who aren't all like 'oh no way did I do anything at all over the summer lol I was far too busy having fun'...
Anyway...
Seems there really isn't any place in the world for people with genuine intellectual curiosity and love of learning to commune with likeminded others and engage in genuine learning anymore.
No place. No place at all in the whole world.
It's been wrecked by people who don't even give a sh*t.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1076978
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20160101/msgs/1088192.html