Oh I see the problem, I just don’t like it…

@Klara – Agreed, but I was comparing Graduate school to Graduate school, not Grad to Undergrad. I have a previous Masters degree from U of T — in English, no less — and yet I’m at the bottom of the curve, scoring below undergrads. I’m not claiming to be the smartest person in the world, but I do find this situation anomalous, if not insulting when I compare it to past academic performance, i.e., back row, third from the left.

*le sigh*

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@Gord- Yes, yes, and yes. I see where you are coming from and really appreciate your commentary. I’m still critical of FIS, however, as other departments at U of T (graduate English, for example) are able to employ more profs, therefore enriching the learning experience for students and easing the professor stress level and workload. In GradEng, the standard tends to be one prof teaching one seminar (16 or so students) per semester. I guess I was spoiled last year, having the opportunity to develop relationships with profs, truly learning from seminars, and receiving valuable feedback from my professors, rather than purple forms.

You raise a good point — and one I agree with 100% — in regard to marking: “My preference would be to mark all papers but it is impossible to do with the size of the classes”. If it is unfeasible to ask professors to mark this many papers, then can this be asked of a TA? Further, I have the same TA marking my assignments for two, if not three of my classes this term. So that’s… how many.. 100? 200? papers he is responsible for marking over the course of a week. And this is on top of less important things.. like writing a PhD dissertation.

It’s one thing to have TAs marking at the graduate level. It is appalling to have ANY individual assigned to this many classes.

*le sigh sigh*

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I don’t mean to whine, but I’m feeling so disconnected from academia right now. I am uninspired and dispassionate, and find myself approaching assignments with a “whatever, it’s just going to be another B+” attitude, rather than my usual fervor.

There’s other issues going on, too.

- politically governments have embrace the notion that everyone should go to univ, that a univ educ is a right not a priviledge to be earned
- economically governments have not provided adequate funds to cover the increases in enrolllments and have created a funding formula that rewards universities for adding students and penalizes those that want to remain small

the result is the situation we now have – a decline in educational quality and an increase in costs to the buyer..

gord