Welcome to the Degree Farm!
We are a group of disgruntled lecturers who work at one of the post-1992 universities in the UK. Our professional lives are filled with ridiculous rules, ever growing red tape, students’ lack of appreciation of knowledge, and most of all - management’s obsession with statistics (NSS scores, pass rates, student satisfaction etc.), which trumps any intellectual values and respect for staff. In short, the university is run like a corporation - generating income and surplus is the only aim even if it means lowering standards and forgetting what being a university is about. We are aware that what we describe here is not a characteristic of only our workplace but a reality in the modern university sector in general.
We chose “Degree Farm” to be the title of this blog because of our growing impression that modern universities are about giving degrees to anyone who is willing to pay the fees. Over years we have witnessed falling entry and pass requirements. Can you imagine that our university requires us to have a pass rate of 95% in our modules?
"Degree Farm" relates to Orwell’s Animal Farm. There are many (far too many!) parallels between the world created by Orwell and our university. Managers hungry for power, destroying careers of people who may threaten them one day, coming up with tasks, rules and meetings which have only one aim: to justify their existence. This is topped up by a good dose of manipulation, misinformation, deception, bullying and turning people against each other.
This blog describes our personal experiences and voices our personal opinions and often will be used to air our frustration over the higher education sector and our own university. As a reader you should expect high levels of sarcasm and black humour. After all many of our every day situations at work are so tragic that all we have left is to (bitter) laugh!
Join us on our journey through the absurd world of modern universities!
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