The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

LETTER

Dear Gown,

Feedback. Can you afford to ignore it? Well, apparently my tutors can afford to ignore it. And ignore me.

One of my tutors told me that requesting an individual feedback session was a “non-starter” and then ignored an e-mail I sent her when I informed her I couldn’t attend her designated feedback time. Another one of my tutors completely ignored my request to be slotted (temporarily) into a new tutorial session because I had an appointment in Derry.
As far as feedback itself is concerned, most of the people I’ve been in contact with when I was looking into this problem have said they feel it’s completely pointless, and that all they’re receiving from their tutors are generic statements and bland pleasantries. And since so many of us feel this way about feedback, and its supposed benefits, who exactly is there to contact about it? Not the Students’ Union, that’s for sure. A more haphazard and imbecilic group of “representatives” I’ve yet to find. They’re clearly aiming for something along the lines of the Stormont Executive: promise a lot, give very little. Take a lot away, and complain about not getting even more. So much for the democratic process at work in QUBSU.
I’m contacting the Gown with this because I’d like to know if you’re aware of any other students having these kinds of problems. I know that tutors are overworked, especially in the face of VC Gregson’s “let’s be the best university in the world” drive, but if I was a tutor, I don’t think I’d be able to reconcile my duties as an educator with not being willing to meet my students face to face. In fact, so far in my first year experience at Queen’s, it’s become pretty clear to me that to many lecturers, they’re researchers first and teachers second. Is this what I’ve paid my fees for? And how on earth do they expect student performances to go up if they aren’t willing to meet with students? Or is asking questions like these a non-starter too?
From my angle as an inexperienced fresher, it seems that QUB staff are too willing to either ignore, or not respond to student grievances. And that includes staff in the SU and in the Elms Village, as well as the Student Guidance Centre.
Queen’s prides itself on giving us a “student experience”. Well, if it’s experiencing dissatisfaction and feeling completely irrelevant, then they’ve succeded.

Best wishes,

!st Year Student

Tags: Gown, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, The Gown

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 12:06 am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.