Friday, March 13, 2009

Evaluation: A Process Which Consist of Butt Kissing to Survive

So i've heard,
news regarding the Medical department of TCU failed (again, duh!) in the TMAC evaluation thingie. I'm not really sure how the evaluation process goes, but to me, all these are just some screw up fuckheads trying hard to...well, screw things up.

The department i'm in, the English Literature department, will be facing the evaluation horror in less than a semester, and already, the president of the department already caleed for a conference on how to "improve" our department so to smooch the jury's asses and to pass the damn test.

By now, even morons would have sense the obvious sarcastic tone in the previous paragraph. I mean, does all those measly stuff worth it? It seems this is the trend of Taiwanese learning instituitions; departments and professors just don't have the "self" in them, and would do anything to please the government to survive.

In order not to get kick out of the country, i'm gonna shut my trap now, but mark my words, i could go on and on. But, i'll focus on my departments effort on kissing the evaluation panel's asses.

We have a small, cute (oh what the hell, literally empty) library exclusively to our department. So, in vain effort to boost traffic, Dr. K, our department's president forced every professors of our department to make the students borrow at least 5 books and write an annotation bibliography on the book. Aside from that, students who spend 5 hours in the library will each receive a 1 point boost on their final average score. Unfair right? We'll talk about later.

Back to the bibliography thing. I mean, is it even necessary? Compiling a tomb of our bibliography collection which, to be frank, i don't think many sane students would do so, because they'd simply copy every single word from the back of the cover. So, do we actually learn from the whole thing at all? It'll be just another run off the mill burden piling up on other stuff that are already burning our butt.

On to the 5 hours for 1 point thing, how will it be fair for people who actually work hard but just doesn't have the time to crawl to the library? (Me!!!)

Ugh, i'm sick of the whole evaluation thing. Dr. K has been hounding me for the past few weeks to assist him on the preparation. Setting up an English Corner, a book club, and etcetera. Man, these things progress slowly. Just because you present something you whipped up in less than a month isn't gonna do our department any good. It's like, people would do absolutely anything in vain, no matter how superstitious they are just to please others.

A few stacks of "proof" consist of papers with stamps indicating credit hours students spend in the Library to show how devoted the students are? You have got to be fucking kidding me. And worst, bribe them with average points? Wow. I'm speechless.

Here's a quote on a blog post by JYsim, a friend from the medical department.
It's a question of fire for warmth and burning up the house really, but as students we care only about the quality of education we receive. Being pampered from the very beginning (TCU is not really a university in terms of lectures and teaching methods), class reaction was radical to say the least. Powerpoints flew past our eyes, 3 seconds per slide, while some others chose to skip slides - "you'll learn this soon enough," "this is not really relevant," etc.
The consequence - we flip through books so thick they need cutting in half for better transportation. And some stupid fellas like me, need more than one book to truly understand. The library's collection of textbooks had all gone into hideout, leaving the ancient editions (I got a 2nd edition; the latest print is 4th) behind.
On top of that, we are bound to preparations for the cremation and memorial service of our silent mentor this weekend. Of that we really did our best despite the limited time and immense academic pressure. I am glad to be of assistance to the class in their choir during the service, while the short stage show they put up was simple, touching and memorable.

Sad, really. I think i'm gonna check and see if there are any switching opportunities. Maybe to NTU? Nah, too ambitious...Maybe Dong Hua University? Uh...Probably not...or maybe i'll think about it. Gosh. If the butt kissing fail to work, well, i might as well kiss my degree sayonara.

1 comment:

JYSim said...

Heh, they did not fail again. The last failure was October 2007. To be re-evaluated this October. Keep our fingers crossed.