It is a well-known fact that the amount of academic effort a student puts into their undergraduate degree is inversely proportional to the amount of time they have spent on that degree. Or, in equation form, E = (t-N)/t. Where E is the effort put into the degree course, t is the time spent on that course in months, and N is time spent watching Neighbours. (The more astute among you will have noticed that this equation actually proves that Neighbours is good for the brain.)
By the end of the third year, most students have reached such a level of boredom with their chosen field that they can barely summon up the amount of effort they expended on their Year Nine SATS. This draining away of passion for the subject of study is inevitable, and cannot be rectified.
However, the undergraduate degree classification system – the other major factor which causes many students to make more of an effort in their pointless first year than their pivotal third – can, and should, be changed.
For a huge proportion of students at this and every other university in the UK, academic ambitions for their undergraduate degree follow a common downward arc. Initial hopes of a Geoff (First) linger for around one and a half semesters of the second year.
But then, confronted with results and a worrying amount of pubs not yet visited, the student rethinks, settles down, and allows their average to slide slowly downwards within the vast comfy caress of the Attila (2:1).
For most of the remaining student population, the same applies, only with the Geoff replaced by an Attila and the Attila replaced by a Desmond (2:2).
The simple fact is that the classification system’s categories are far too wide in span. The difference in academic ability between a student who gets an average mark of 68 and a student who gets an average mark of 59.5 is enormous, yet both will be rewarded for their efforts with an Attila – bunched together within a single massive bracket. For Jimmy 59.5 this is a great relief, but Tony 68, quite justifiably, can feel considerably aggrieved.
Moreover, for some students, an average mark of 70 may be beyond their abilities. No matter how hard they try, the best mark they can really hope for is a 67 or 68. However, with almost no effort at all, they can blag a 60 or a 61. The academic side of University thus becomes an exercise in mental sleepwalking; effort is pointless, because whether they put in a huge amount of work or none at all, the result remains the same.
It’s difficult to write an article on degree classifications without sounding like that Geography teacher at secondary school who had a drip hanging permanently from one cavernous nostril, so perhaps I should clarify my somewhat selfish position here. I am Tony 68.
If I do not get a Geoff – and this is a very likely prospect due to the fact that I haven’t watched nearly enough Neighbours to allay the effort-sapping passing of time – I will be bestowed, like a huge proportion of graduates, with an Attila. This is not to disparage the achievement of an Attila. In many courses – Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry are the first three that spring to mind – the gaining of even a Desmond is a fantastic achievement, requiring grit, determination and an impressive intellect; and an Attila in any subject is, at the very least, a good achievement. I have no intrinsic problem with leaving Cardiff University without a Geoff..
My problem lies in the dreadful knowledge that, for my particular course, I could have gone on crack, constructed a steam boat, watched the entire six seasons of The Sopranos six times, got off crack, read The Bible, The Quran, War and Peace and In Remembrance of Things Past, gone back on the crack, eaten a climbing frame, got off crack, visited every pub, club, leisure centre and cinema in Cardiff, and still got the average of 59.5 needed to secure an Attila. Put simply, if I am not lucky enough to scrape a Geoff, I have wasted many, many hundreds of hours of my life.
What needs to be changed is simple: a new category for those with an average between 65 and 70, and a new category for those with an average between 55 and 60. Until this happens, a gargantuan amount of students will be forever tortured by their months of wasted effort, of parties not gone to due to revision, and of sunny days spent indoors.
Classifying two years of work into such capacious categories only fuels our propensity to do the minimum required, and bumble toward the lower end of a spacious grade. Selfish concerns aside, it simply isn’t fair that people with averages 10 marks apart are bundled together under one degree class.
OK, you can all beat me up now.
