What the freaking fuck is that shit ? [RANT]
I need to rant. Because it's part of something that I have been thinking for a certain time. Because it's getting on my nerves a bit.
One little disclaimer though :
la_sad, this is not a post against you or your results. Congratulations for your first year, you deserved it. However your result is a prop for this rant. Such a discrepancy, regardless of your capacities, smells fishy to me.
I'm once more ranting about universities in France and how badly most of them sucks. You only got to look at the results to contemplate the disaster. And I happened to enter a very bad one, at least in the Asian Studies Department (and from what I heard in others department.) in which I had many problems with the administration and the teaching. And it managed very well in putting me off.
I'm guilty of giving up in both years though. Being too late in my studies because of sickness might be an excuse for the first year but the second year was clearly a lack of interest in the subject. (And later a lack of enthusiasm because of their method of giving grades.) I could have been more enthusiastic, more motivated and got it on my second try. But I was already too far from japanese and too deep into English.
But this is hardly relevant. (Even though I'm going to start thinking I'm curse with getting what I want.) The point of that rant is the UBER FAIL of french university, whether it's about students entries, teaching, marks and what follows from that.
I might come off as an elitist bitch in some parts of this rant and maybe I am. I just have to rant.
I) Students Entries. Or the 'Hm... Just Let Everyone go to University and let's do some cleaning after !' ploy.
Universities in French (apart from some pricy & state universities) allowed everyone to enter, under little restrictions and/or request. The only request being having graduated from High School with your baccalaureate. That's all. There's a little complicated thing after with a pre-inscription which depends on two restrictions :
- Location : You're supposed to go to the University in your region/department. (Nice, isn't ?) Or else you're subject to the second restriction :
- Limited Students Number. Yeah. Because even of the universities are overloaded with students, they do screw candidates over with their supposed numbers. AKA Administrative BULLSHIT.
These things costs me once what I wanted to do and I ended up doing only Japanese. This was two years ago. One year after, they put in place an orientation thingy supposed to regulate the flow of students... Riiiiight ? Universities are still as crowded as ever.
And as result, there's lot of waste, a lot of students drop out of university. Also the marks ? They're stricter and mark harsher. Why ? To reduce as much as possible the number of students in classes and in the next year !
And cue the elitist Bitch... I wish for entry exams. I wish they would get the bad students out before the year even begins instead of being elitist assholes during the year ! Get people out before the year begins. Instead of having waste in their classes, they would have at least people with potential and interest in the subject. They would need then to be as harsh as they are and make elitist classes.
I hate the fact that the university is the back-up plan or last minute place to go. It's like 'Yeah, everyone can go to the university, especially those who don't know what they want to do. People who wants to go to a university because they want to... Nah, they have to deal with the layabouts..' If you don't know what to do, don't go to university for the sake of it ! Find yourself a job and think of what you want to do !
University being crowded leads me to my second point :
2) Teaching.
In universities, I experienced two kinds of teaching. First, in the japanese section, we were in groups of 60/80 sometimes 100. And I'm not kidding. Imagine these numbers for classes of grammar, kanji, civilisation... How can you teach properly when you have that many students ? How can you teach all of them ? The supervision is quasi-inexistant, a handful of students talk and work with the professor. The ambiance is far from being work-like and it's frighteningly easy to drift away and forget about the lesson. Sometimes the groups are smaller but there's seldom interaction with the professor apart from the same persons. They usually do their lessons and disappear the second it's over. So do the students.
They tell you sometimes to work your lessons and gave your exercices. But there's nothing appealing, interesting in it. It's not enthusiastic, it's not learning a language because you want to, it's learning a language because you have to learn more than 400 kanjis in one year. And you will forget them during the summer because your mind is not made for learning a freaking whole new language and writing system in one fucking year !
I experience a radically different kind of teaching in my english civilisation classes. We were in groupes of 20-35 persons at most, in class room. The supervision is part of the teaching, the professor knows his students, asks questions. You're only allowed three non-attendances. They push you to be meticulous about your studies. They gave you motivation and incentives to succeed. It's a different world, literally. Same university, different department, worlds apart.
The teaching leads me to the marks :
3) What
la_sad's results confirmed. The Japanese Section's method of notation ? BULLSHIT.
During the year, she said it herself, she got low grades, sometimes very low grades. Why ? She has the capacity to do better, I know it. Even if she's overwhelmed by work in both Japanese & English, the problem lies greatly in the hands of the teachers that mark much more harshly than necessary and IMO, wrongly. They judge your writing (as in 'the way you wrote your kanjis') before they judge your grammar and your vocabulary...
WTF ?
The result ? A low number of students in second year, a great number of students dropping out throughout the year. When I learn that this year, I decided not to try to pass my exams. I have a very crappy writing in latin alphabet so... Ideograms, I suck even more. It explained why I barely succeed first semester in first year and not the second semester. I might know grammar & vocabulary & kanjis enough but my writing is what making me fail. And it could be what would have probably prevent me from ever succeeding in this university.
Now,
la_sad had worked a lot for the remedial class/exams. I know she has the capacities to do well, I'm not judging her capacities I'm judging her marks.
She passed, second year. That I don't deny and am happy for her and she should be proud.
But her marks ? Wow. I was not expecting that. She was not expecting that.
Once again, I want to be perfectly clear I'm not saying she did not deserve her marks. She worked a lot and she deserved good marks. But the ones she got seem to me too high compared to the marks she got throughout the year. And I'm not accusing her of anything. I'm smelling something fishy with the teachers themselves.
She passed (said so herself on her LJ) from 4/20 & 6/20 to 14/20 & 16,50/20 for the first semester. She never got a mark beyond 7/20 in the second semester and there she got 12/20 & 13,5/20.
...Hm... What ? Am I only one to find it strange ?
Why the discrepancy ?
Are they going from an extrem to another ? What is the point of being unnecessarily harsh during the year and overly nice during the remedial exams ? Are they testing the students' resiliency ? If it's that, then it's disgusting and even worse than I thought. I''m glad for my friend but in the same time I'm worried. The second year is much more difficult than the first. Will she have to pass remedial exam again to pass her year ? Is this the stupid game the Japanese Section is playing at ?
I'm frustrated, yes. I might have been able to have my first year. But playing the game of going to one extrem to another, no thank you. I don't see the point. I questionned their teaching, I questionned their marks. Staying in this department would be useless for me, I don't believe they're able to provide a correct knowledge and supervision. They're pushing students to learn for the sake of the exam and not for the language in itself [Because you can't be learning a language properly when you're supposed to be billingual in one year with a brand new language]. The average student might be screwed if he does not have faith up until the end. I'm that average student. I tried twice, screwed up twice. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I'm not going to repeat this mistake again. I failed at my exams but they fail at everything !
If I learn Japanese, it will be as aside, my tempo, no stress, no stupid quota.
If I'm lucky now, I'm going to learn what I really like and live for in the same department but in a competent and pleasant department : The English Studies Department.
... End of the Rant XD
On a related note, my marks for the US & GB Civilisation (the only exams I've taken).
GB : 11,8.
It's an average from a test (15/20), homeworks I'm sure I screwed up and the final exam, in which I screwed up too. But it's not so bad, hey ! XD Still got my UE *w*
US : 17,25.
...O_O... I did better in US than in GB... It's noooooot normal.
And it was on the Manifest Destiny. (You know the famous subject I loaaaaathe !) And the roots of the Civil War.
I'm good. Damn, I'm good but only in English & History :D I was booooorn for it XD All the more reasons to let Japanese go and embrace English ♥ (I could also embrace an Englishman *w*...skandar *w*)
(sorry for any typos, I'll proofread later !)
The End~