Folks, this is my first foray into a general discussion. I hope that i can make it worthwhile.

I happen to be expereinced in trying to wade through the mish-mash of a university curriculum. And i see today that the PM has again attacked the Leftist influence in the make-up of our history genre (my interpretation). I coudnt agree more with those who say it is all fuddle-duddle. I mean for a start, why are we set to task on distant notions of history, stuff that is un-contemporary and disconnected with either current events in the first instance. Or from each-other in the second (but not finite) instance?

My expereince has been quite a sham, if one takes into account that i was training for an intellectual role in society; a slight on Me if you will.The other beef i have with curricula is the ambigious essay question. Left open, you could answer it in any fashion; but then you are faced with the 'interpretation' of the marker. What a shemozal. My experience has been that lecturers exploit the amigious essay question for their personal agenda's.

Bring on the re-arrangement of Leftist Unis i say. And make it so that it allows for independant 'intelligentsia'.

Ah, the trick of ambiguous essay topics is to set out in your introduction what you understand the topic to be. The point is to define everything so that it fits what you want to argue. I always found that so long as I defined everything, then I was marked against how I ended up fulfilling those arguments

Oh well, one is enough as they say.

Laurie;

You begin your responses sounding like an academic; and end sounding like a mortal student. Somewhere in the fog of your response will be the sum-total of academia land.

Let me see if i can illucidate.

Firstly and foremost, you havent backed up your statement with research. There is no theory/ists to support yourself either, and by the worst of all leftist academic sin, you didnt include Karl Marx in your response. So for you it is all downhill (if you were in certain institutions), im afraid to say (and no offence intended to you).

Now about the essay question: If it is ambigious, it can be answered in just about any format one likes, correct. Theoretically, even in poem form. You must be right i suppose in stating that as long as one elaborates in the intro, all that the essay is about one can write at whim, and conclude just like the intro suggests. Correct?

But, if the lecturer is bent on inference, esoteric wisdom, and Karl Marx kitchen window, then you have a problem. Because, the marker/lecturer is the only one who knows what the inference is behind the ambigious question: and we arent born with a radar.

So whether the question is answered academically or bureaucratically, makes all the difference to what the final mark and (alas) the academic outcome will be. Only a trained bureaucrat or one in the know, will ultimately succeed in certain institutions. A proven fact im sorry to say.

Gaget, I'm not an academic, I'm merely a (former but recent) student - and I did an Arts degree at Melb Uni, majoring in political science. Even with some of my lecturers being mmmmmm.... 'dedicated' to certain perspectives, I was lucky enough to find that even when arguing against their basic point of view (particuarly in a gender studies class), so long as I defined the essay topic neatly, and argued effectively with lots of footnotes, then I was graded well.

And the only subject I EVER had Marx as a footnote in a political theory class! (bloody Foucault was the bane of my existance however, and a much more useful footnote than any Marx or Engels) :)

Your experience may be different, but I honestly did not find any grading against for different views - and none of my friends reported that phenomenon either

I begin to see why some universities are reportedly introducing remedial English courses for science students.