Title image from the Critic article [25th Feb 2019]
Working life as an academic precariate doesn’t always give us much to laugh about these days – but thank you for including ANTH papers in your overview of the easiest degree possible at ‘Varsity! The lecturers and tutors in the Social Anth programme were (for once) glued to your pages, hastily scanning to see if they scored an ‘easy’ for the fruits of their intellectual labour.
To be honest, I think we were more perturbed about the handful of our papers that you decided were too ‘difficult’ to include.
Critic’s dabbles in degree planning… featuring ANTH325 (Death, Grief, and Ritual) and ANTH327 (Anthropology of Money)
But it makes me think a little more about why we study what we do, at Uni. Why would we want a degree that was ‘easy’? Critic’s analysis of a dream degree holds some internal contradictions about achievement, it seems to me…
The article is a ‘how to’ guide for the minimum effort possible to achieve a qualification. This is erroneously calculated of course: all 18 points at the University of Otago are designed to be around 10 – 15 hours of both contact and non-contact time per week. Papers pass through a rigorous review to ensure this – ask the OUSA education officer, who sits on these Divisional Academic Committee Meetings!
Social anthropology papers include large amounts of background reading, ethically approved fieldwork and independent study and analysis, alongside contact hours – skipping over these elements of learning are not the pathway to an A+ but perhaps a C.
But let me return to what it is that we value in our degrees. Is it the piece of paper and a string of Cs? Or is it the experience, the self awareness and critical insights that a capacity for life long learning instills in us? Critic has one answer, but a lot of my own students have another:
“Your course [in social anthropology] has profoundly influenced my path over the last 7 years: I’m currently a student midwife at Ryerson University, Canada, and think back often to the critical and curious lens that your teaching afforded me… In my work, political life, and student life, I work to ground myself in the engaged critical practices I was lucky enough to learn from professors like yourself…I really credit your course as an important part of why I do the work that I do! – Unsolicited email, Alumna, 2009
Another paper offering diverse case studies and critical thinking
In fact, dear Critic, it is thanks in fact to these very (critical thinking) skills, that our students have been so quick to place your article into its wider socio-political context – an ideological shift towards devaluing the humanities.
In Facebook comments and hallway conversations, many made a clear and disgruntled connection between this article and a bigger trend of “arts bashing”, and jumped to defend their degrees accordingly. One recent BA (social anth) graduate shared:
“I studied damn hard to get my Anth major […] they’re so much harder cause it’s not just straight up facts but looking into things and understanding lots of different ways to see something.”
Another BA(Hons) social anth graduate says:
“clearly no one at critic has actually taken any Anth papers! Easy is not the word I’d use… Diverse and broad based perhaps… I mean where else do you get to cover papers in one subject on medicine, death, reproduction, economics, religion, evil and supernatural forces, globalism and philosophical movements.”
Yet another affirms that the experience hinges on if you “take the time to really make an effort”. Perhaps ‘easy’ is an approach, rather than a characteristic of any one paper or degree.
Graduation 2018: Prof Ruth Fitzgerald standing with BA (Hons) Social Anthropology graduate Jennifer Bell. Jennifer was offered a job at the Ministry of Justice, before she had even finished the year.
So let me encourage and admire all of our past and present students who have worked hard to engage meaningfully with their studies, and who have achieved distinctions like local and international scholarships, and awards for their dissertations and conference presentations. Not to mention all of those marvellous transcripts full of B’s and A’s, achieved through hard work, integrity of purpose, and dedication to the ideals of good scholarship.
I think it’s easy to see the difference.
Yours Sincerely
Prof. Ruth Fitzgerald
Social Anthropology Programme, School of Social Sciences
Posted on by smisu13p
Dear Critic – Te Arohi – Student Magazine,
Title image from the Critic article [25th Feb 2019]
To be honest, I think we were more perturbed about the handful of our papers that you decided were too ‘difficult’ to include.
Critic’s dabbles in degree planning… featuring ANTH325 (Death, Grief, and Ritual) and ANTH327 (Anthropology of Money)
But it makes me think a little more about why we study what we do, at Uni. Why would we want a degree that was ‘easy’? Critic’s analysis of a dream degree holds some internal contradictions about achievement, it seems to me…
The article is a ‘how to’ guide for the minimum effort possible to achieve a qualification. This is erroneously calculated of course: all 18 points at the University of Otago are designed to be around 10 – 15 hours of both contact and non-contact time per week. Papers pass through a rigorous review to ensure this – ask the OUSA education officer, who sits on these Divisional Academic Committee Meetings!
Social anthropology papers include large amounts of background reading, ethically approved fieldwork and independent study and analysis, alongside contact hours – skipping over these elements of learning are not the pathway to an A+ but perhaps a C.
But let me return to what it is that we value in our degrees. Is it the piece of paper and a string of Cs? Or is it the experience, the self awareness and critical insights that a capacity for life long learning instills in us? Critic has one answer, but a lot of my own students have another:
Another paper offering diverse case studies and critical thinking
In fact, dear Critic, it is thanks in fact to these very (critical thinking) skills, that our students have been so quick to place your article into its wider socio-political context – an ideological shift towards devaluing the humanities.
In Facebook comments and hallway conversations, many made a clear and disgruntled connection between this article and a bigger trend of “arts bashing”, and jumped to defend their degrees accordingly. One recent BA (social anth) graduate shared:
Another BA(Hons) social anth graduate says:
Yet another affirms that the experience hinges on if you “take the time to really make an effort”. Perhaps ‘easy’ is an approach, rather than a characteristic of any one paper or degree.
Graduation 2018: Prof Ruth Fitzgerald standing with BA (Hons) Social Anthropology graduate Jennifer Bell. Jennifer was offered a job at the Ministry of Justice, before she had even finished the year.
So let me encourage and admire all of our past and present students who have worked hard to engage meaningfully with their studies, and who have achieved distinctions like local and international scholarships, and awards for their dissertations and conference presentations. Not to mention all of those marvellous transcripts full of B’s and A’s, achieved through hard work, integrity of purpose, and dedication to the ideals of good scholarship.
I think it’s easy to see the difference.
Yours Sincerely
Prof. Ruth Fitzgerald
Social Anthropology Programme, School of Social Sciences
This entry was posted in Curriculum and Pedagogy, Media/political commentary and tagged arts, BA, Critic Magazine, critical thinking, degrees, education, employment, Humanities, Social anthropology, Student, study, The Critic, University of Otago, work by smisu13p. Bookmark the permalink.