As long as you give them the respect they don't deserve

Postman Pat. Postman Pat. Postman Pat is the King of Scat.
Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop.

I realise I haven't written one of these in over a week now, but this administration is gravely concerned about the quality slide that occurs when I post a post just for the sake of posting a post. Rest assured however, that by working together, we will overcome and prove our detractors and doubters wrong. Amen and Xmen.

Recently I have been having a quiet time (notwithstanding the screaming child and its clumsy parents that live above my lounge or the skittering animal that spends its nights tapdancing above my bedroom) in Freedom. The most exciting thing to happen is that the sole destroying peace of wurk that was the bulk of my thesis has finally been finished and shunted off to a preprint server to be overlooked by the scientific community. A great weight has been lifted, like a giant metaphor, from my scrawny shoulders. At least until such time that I submit the paper to an honest to God (and no one else) journal, so that referees can take issue with it.

Let's pretend that this has put me in a reflective mood. It seems like a long time ago that I started my undergarment degree at a world famous institution. Having only applied at the last minute, thinking I wouldn't get in, and then in fact being rejected by my first choice college and only just getting in, I was looking forward to four years of confusion and intellectual submission to my infinitely superior contemporaries.
I was then disgusted to see that the vast majority of them were idle imbeciles with nothing more than their cv's, the milkround and extracting more money out of daddy on their 'minds'. Absurd rumours such as "employers prefer graduates with a 2:1, they think firsts are too hard working" echoed around the hallowed corridors of ignorance to reassure those who might suddenly sit up and question their languid approach. While queuing for lunch once, I even heard a version where the sweet spot had been downgraded to a 2:2.
"I never had to revise for exams at school", was a popular complaint, always delivered just before exam time and in the manner of someone who had been struck a grievous blow.

Particularly dispiriting was that the mental wasting sickness had infected some of the faculty, so that they gave facile and insipid powerpoint seminars in which great care had been taken to excise anything that might possibly be construed as 'difficult' (very often this was a synonym for 'Russian'). That this often made the subject matter nonsensical or that any chance of fundamental understanding was discarded along the way apparently didn't matter. Still, every so often a hero would emerge and deliver an inspiredly incomprehensible lecture at tremendous speed to remind us that a different world did exist.

Thankfully graduate life was somewhat different, and I spent lots of time feeling useless and stupid, as I rightly deserve.

Clearly the plague isn't confined to my previous institution. The university newspaper here caught my eye again recently, like an incompetent fisherman. One of the front page stories was "Study reveals Student Feelings of Entitlement". Apparently most students believe they deserve an A for completing their reading list and attending their classes (lectures). General consensus was that a B was a satisfactory grade for the class tutor to award for doing just one of the above, but they would be a better tutor if they gave an A. Handing in assignments and the actual quality of any such 'work', did not factor in this grading scheme in any way. Neither did exams.

The doctrine is that any distribution of grades other than the whole class getting A's is the fault of the teaching. This is because we are all equal, and if the teaching is good then getting a good grade is an effortless experience on the part of the student. A spread of grades in the class, from A to D say, shows that the teaching was D quality and that some students unfairly advantaged themselves by doing some work, those with A's being the most shameless in this respect.

Perhaps this is right attitude, the abhorrent practice of ability based discrimination is so last century. Anyone who doesn't accidentally start a family at 14 and is rich enough to attend university should be commended for an exemplary performance and summarily presented with their monocle, gown, professorial chair and snuff box. Similarly, anyone who turns up for the tryouts of their favourite professional sports team gets to play in the next match! Don't let ability be an obstacle. In fact don't even let it be a word you can spell.

Another good article covered a study that showed that MBA students are more likely to cheat, explaining that it was because they "see goals, rather than the method used to reach them, as more important". Rejoice in this knowledge.