Unis are out of touch with their customers.
Just a quick rant tonight, as I’m studying for an exam tomorrow… yes I’m procrastinating, so sue me.
Universities are big business, and if you look closely you can see they run like your typical for-profit company. And yet, I think they often tend to be completely disconnected with their customers, the uni students!
Surely they should know your typical uni student lifestyle involves waking up as late as possible, and going out on weekends.
So why have exams on Saturday mornings for f$#k sake?
Meaning I not only have to study on a Friday night while everyone else is out having fun, but I have to wake up at 8.30am on a Saturday morning!
Argghh(!)^10
A simple one question, yes/no survey would give them all the data they need to see if they’re appealing to customer wants: “Do you like Saturday exams?”
The exam is on quantitative methods (business stats) which is pretty easy if I can manage to study all the stuff I’ve missed in the next hour and a half. I should really start going to lectures. I did go to the first couple, but listening for literally a full hour on what the median, mean and mode refer to was kind of a deterrent.
/end rant
Edit: There’s a chance I might have passed… I basically self-learnt myself while in the exam on some questions 
But I ended up going to sleep at 1am and waking up at 7.30am to finish off studying. Fun, fun.
Nathan Waters
If only uni was less theory and more business.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Hey Nathan,
I liked this posting so i thought i’d respond back to you. Unis and Colleges alike are great teaching tools for Entrepreneurs and Employees alike.
If you like the Rigid schedules imposed by teachers(bosses) trying to get the most out of you for the least amount of their time involved you’ll do fine. Remember you are paying for this
If you question the system you are in and become an advocate for change the teachers will see you as an enemy because you are threatening their very existence. Everything the academics fight to keep. Its a highly political walk… befriend a prof and make your life easier… make an enemy and lose the guy fighting in your corner.
Basically to quote “Beat someone up the first day or become someone’s bitch”… little raw but you get the point
Cheers
Luc
September 14th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Hi Nathan,
I appreciate what you are doing here but I had to just throw a couple of things into the pot….
First)
“…..disconnected with their customers, the uni students!” I hate to tell you this but the students are not the customers to a Uni. If the DO have customers to speak of (and it doesn’t really work like that) then it is the businesses that they do research for. Do you think that the tiny couple of grand a student pays for the year covers anything? I paid over £2500 for a DISTANCE LEARNING course that can take less than a year and that’s still good value. Honestly your fees pay for nothing.
Second)
Getting up to take an exam on a saturday once or twice a year is really no big boo. By the time your into your twenties (assuming you’re still not a frsher, I don’t know) you tend to understand that A) it is your choice to be there in the first place and B) taking a responsibility for your future requires some sacrifice and the lengths to which you WANT to go to make this sacrifice ultimately determin your success. If you didn’t want to get your qualifications maybe you made wrong choice somewhere? People in 3rd World countires would tramble over nails to get to your exam on Saturday morning if they thought they could get the skills and qualifications you will.
I don’t mean to sound rude here, but playtime is over, Uni is VERY different from school, nobody is forcing you to do anything you don’t want to.