Is cutting courses bad for Australian universities? (1 Viewer)

[braindrainedAsh]

Argh as someone who studies something which often gets thrown in to the cappuccino courses category fairly frequently (which is BS spread by people who don't value the humanities in my opinion), I think that cutting down courses at universities is EXTREMELY detrimental to the development of academia in Australia.

Having more of "similar" courses at differing universities is the best way to increase the standards of research and the variety of opinions on the discipline within Australia.

If only one university taught nursing, with one main methodology used, then how would new ideas about better ways to practice and learn nursing be developed?

By limiting the number of tertiary institutions teaching courses, you are cutting back on the amount of employed professional academics who are conducting research for a living. You are also cutting back on the exchange of ideas on a particular subject, and hence, in my opinion, inhibiting it's further development.

I think that cutting back on the number of institutions teaching certain courses could be highly detrimental.... not just to your so called "cappuccino courses" but to any course.

 

[neo o]

Well they're cutting my course cause it's 'not prestigious enough'. Wish they'd just say it's not making them any money. Fucking cockheads.
NTB so how about we cut Art courses? They seem the most irrelevant of the university courses yet they decide to cut Nursing instead. What a fucking joke.

No, it's because nursing is a national priority course, like teaching.

 

[Sarah]

Times change. The purpose of going to uni has changed now.

Ideally, you go to uni to learn about topics you have interest in get an education and meet people.

Now days, most ppl i've met (could be becuase most ppl i know are commerce ppl) are at uni to get a job.

There are some degrees out there which should be cut. For example, i don't get the difference between science/arts and arts/science (at usyd). That's just an example i'm using.

 

[Generator]

There are some degrees out there which should be cut. For example, i don't get the difference between science/arts and arts/science (at usyd). That's just an example i'm using.

Arts/Science is being dropped in favour of increasing the number of Science/Arts places, I believe (it's being dropped as an option, anyway).

 

[spell check]

Yes! I agree, we need less people doing 'cultural studies' and more people doing nursing!

maybe they should pay nurses more then mr free market

 

[katie_tully]

As I am not yet a university student, I've been studying what courses are available. Of course I saw some that were just completely useless and made me think, wtf would you do with a degree like that, then I wondered was I being bias against it because that particular topic doesn't interest me.

It is outrageous that universities are cutting courses such as nursing, especially larger universities in Sydney. That said I say we wouldn't have that problem if the government made the nursing profession more attractive, and gave it the credit it deserves. Reading my mum's nursing journal she gets sent, I read that there were more applicants for nursing degrees, than there were positions. You would think we would MAKE more positions available.

CSU Offers half a million bloody Applied Science degree's -
Bachelor of Applied Science (Ecotourism)
Bachelor of Applied Science (Ecotourism)/Bachelor of Information Technology
Bachelor of Applied Science (Equine Studies)
Bachelor of Applied Science (Food Science)
Bachelor of Applied Science (Parks, Recreation and Heritage)
Bachelor of Applied Science (Parks, Recreation and Heritage)/Bachelor of Applied Science (Ecotourism)
Bachelor of Applied Science (Parks, Recreation and Heritage)/Bachelor of Information Technology
Bachelor of Applied Science (Viticulture)
Bachelor of Applied Science (Wine Science)
Bachelor of Applied Science (Wine Science)/Bachelor of Applied Science (Viticulture)

And 4 nursing degrees

Bachelor of Nursing
Bachelor of Nursing [by distance education]
Bachelor of Nursing/Bachelor of Clinical Practice (Paramedic)
Bachelor of Nursing/Bachelor of Midwifery

Alot of degrees I see appear to be very vague, as if to say - you dont know what you want to be, so do this "generic degree with a bit of everything that wont make you qualified in anything at all but atleast you'll have a shiney, framed degree"

 

[Not-That-Bright]

As katie tully said, it's a number of positions, not a willingness.
Nursing isn't *ACTUALLY* doing that bad, i know quite a few people that want to get into it.

As for MR Free Market, i do understand that there are some situations that require government intervention

 

[Enlightened_One]

I just thought i'd propose the question of "is cutting courses bad for Australian universities?

The way i see it is, there are alot of 'cappucino' courses, or courses that basically teach the SAME thing as another course. Should we get rid of theses? in my opinion yes.

It depends on the course. Algamating similair courses though is bullshit. Some courses are the same in some ways but a lot different in others. Plus it destorys the choice of the user.

 

[trace7988]

hmmm i think its bad cutting the courses.. Having a lot of courses the same means more opportunity for students to do that course, and have different options in terms of where to do their course at. Having more courses could be more beneficial to people, as usually there are slight variations in what is studied in the courses at different universities.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

i don't really think cutting courses achieves anything positive. Although, i would like to see a lot more emphasis placed on providing courses/positions for things that we really actually need (eg. nurses, teachers) rather other courses which while certainly useful are not exactly national priorities. That's not to say that we should be cutting arts courses either, though. (to use an example of the sort of course that is often talked about as being pointless, etc).

 

[banco55]

If you have a look at how many courses they offer at english, us and australian unis now versus say 30 or 50 years ago there's been an exponential increase in faculties and courses. I don't think it's at all clear that phenomenon is a good thing.

 

[kami]

I am actually against the idea of cutting courses entirely, however I think the numbber of positions offered needs to be redistributed. For example, katie tully provided a list of App Sci courses - rather than scrapping those why not simply reduce positions in the specific strands and introduce more places in the nursing or education degrees? This wouldn't destroy the variety of what one could choose for their proffession, and many of the subjects could be made available as electives within other degrees.

I also think we need to streamline naming conventions, similar to how they do it in the US. We shouldn't have a BCommunication, a BMedia and a BA in Communication etc. We should strip it down to the BA, BCA, BSci, BEd, BEng, BApp. Sci, BCom, LLB, BNurs and MBBS and make everything in specific strands with wider elective pools. The current system only serves to reduce comparibility and confuse potential applicants.

 

[turtleface]

I think a university should primarily be about providing the population with knowledgable people perfect for employment.
"Learning for the sake of learning"
If you want to learn, you'd do it much cheaper. You'd go to the library, you'd take up some short tafe courses, you'd utilise the internet.

That isn't what attending university is about, at least not traditionally.

I think university education is changing into a state similar to what you describe because industry and employers are constantly trying to take the academic and scholarship component out of it and turn it into more of a prereq commodity.

Tell me, how exactly would I get into law from tafe?

Certificate of Legal studies is available from my local TAFE

 

[wuddie]

i dont cutting is the answer but rather reforming, like y dnt understand having just B Communications and ppl select their sub majors when they get into it like wat B Business does at uts at least, the specialisations of degrees being named is so stupid when ur not gonna touch them for at least a yr

ok umm i didnt get a thing you wanted to say there...

australia's economy relies so much on the exportation of primary commodity that if the current commodity boom didnt happen for us, we'd have been in our 4th year of recession. now that there's talk of the prices of the coals and minerals have peaked, our economy has straight away hit the slide.

australia's narrow export base is a direct result of our lack of skills, which explains our continuous imports of skilled labour. unis should encourage the diversity of degrees and courses, not cutting back on them because they think tertiary education should focus on one area.

sure we go to unis for our employment, not for the good of the economy, that's why we have the treasury right? wrong. our employment opportunity will come directly from the demand and supply of firms in an industry. if an industry struggles to compete internationally, where is employment going to come from? australia itself is a too small a market for the industry to target. we need to diverse our skills to cover and compete in as much areas as we can.

 

[wheredanton]

A friend pointed out to me the phenomenon of usyd arts creating degrees which are just arts degrees except with another name.

Bachelor of socio-legal studies
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/future_students/undergrad/socio-legal.shtml
It's just an Arts degree majoring in socio-legal studies.

Bachelor of Global Studies
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/future_students/undergrad/global.shtml
You have to do certain subjects to be awarded this degree rather than a plain arts degree.

My arts degree isn't called a Bachelor of Political economy even though I did just political economy for the last 2 years of my degree.

 

[kami]

i dont cutting is the answer but rather reforming, like y dnt understand having just B Communications and ppl select their sub majors when they get into it like wat B Business does at uts at least, the specialisations of degrees being named is so stupid when ur not gonna touch them for at least a yr

Its just a way of enforcing a certain standard to gain access to specific majors, some universities do it by GPA, some by UAI and others by interview. I don't really see what is wrong with a university only wanting students of a certain standard studying specific subjects, so I don't really understand what the issue is.

 

[banco55]

That isn't what attending university is about, at least not traditionally.

I think university education is changing into a state similar to what you describe because industry and employers are constantly trying to take the academic and scholarship component out of it and turn it into more of a prereq commodity.

It depends. In the german and french tradition of universities that was very much what they were about. Some historians have argued that one reason the UK's economy stagnated during the 20th century was because there educational system wasn't as closely aligned with industry as the american and german university systems were. You had the UK turning out heaps of classics grads while germany and the US were turning out engineers, accountants etc.

 

[ElendilPeredhil]

I guess it depends on what you value more (or who you value more)
Einstein (American and German Uni's)
or Shakespeare.
(Didn't go to uni but still a product of an English focus on 'humanities')