Comments | elseware: Which courses to cut?

elseware

Which courses to cut?

Aug 05, 2009 08:35

OMFG WTF?The above article is pretty fucking painful reading. I know the Solent isn't exactly in the same league but this feels awkward, like watching your parents dance at a wedding. I can just see her getting bookings based on that degree. Maybe she could take an MSc in stripping ( Read more... )

Comments 10

kludge August 5 2009, 08:36:27 UTC

Holy hell, those "highlights" were unfunny. The last one had some promise, but it was phrased very badly.

The whole article seemed a bit page-filler-y to me. I mean, if they have a degree course in stand-up there's got to be some woman who's the first woman to graduate from it. It's not like comedy is a closed guild - OK, the ratio of men to women isn't perfect, but it's not like a woman comedian is a hen's tooth or anything.

elseware August 5 2009, 08:41:03 UTC

Yeah, I'm from compsci. When we worry about gender gaps it's not 40%/60%. It is a "aren't they dumb" article, clearly designed to provoke outrage.

But like I said, it's not really a great choice. I don't often hear comedy clubs complaining about the lack of good graduates on the circuit.

surliminal August 5 2009, 09:46:25 UTC

ps but it's all in the delivery. I can imagine most of thosed getting a laugh and the last being really funny.

kludge August 5 2009, 10:05:42 UTC

True, but for me the delivery would have to be fucking amazing.

That said, I accept that taste in humour is very idiosyncratic, so I guess I'm not saying that I think she's a bad comic, just that she's not to my taste - even further than that, the reporter may well have picked those jokes from a wider selection, so I can't even know whether I'm saying that Hannah George's sense of humour doesn't click with mine or whether it's DAILY MAIL REPORTER's humour I'm objecting to. NB: Brave byline, DMR! Way to take responsibility for your journalism!

Yet again, though: "no-one likes a ginger"? When the fuck was that last funny? Culloden?

Thread 5

nmg August 5 2009, 08:52:13 UTC

Hmmm. That degree course sounds as though it should properly be considered a specialisation within cultural/media studies (with a healthy dose of eng. lit.)

I don't think that it's necessarily a poor course, but I think that the student's expectations are a little unrealistic; I don't see that course as a springboard into comedy writing. In fact, judging from previous successful comedy scriptwriters, your best bet would seem to be a degree in English or History from Oxbridge and a bit of moonlighting in Footlights before coming out at the Fringe.

The point of a university, like any arm of the government, is to increase the wealth of the people. Fail fail fail.Flat wrong. First, universities are not an 'arm of the government'. Publicly funded yes, but independent of government, and mostly operating under royal charter ( ... )

elseware August 5 2009, 09:16:01 UTC

If we're funded by taxes we're an arm of the government IMO. They pay us therefore we work for them, as leaders of the people who fund us. I agree I was over-reacting. First thing in the AM.

I believe that I defined quite clearly what I meant by wealth, please re-read.

nmg August 5 2009, 11:37:25 UTC

What about academic freedom? Universities are still independent of government (despite the attempts of successive governments); they don't control what we teach (TQA is more about how we teach), and while they may control the purse strings, they have no direct control over what we research.

Okay, so I guess that 'positive experience' could cover some notions of cultural wealth. And yes, bit of a knee-jerk reaction from me, I'm afraid.

ext_31109 August 5 2009, 09:03:51 UTC

Meh. It's a humanities degree with a weird kink. Would you like to explain why it's stupider in principle to take Stand Up than say English or History like so many of our comedy writers? Don't take the Mail's description of the course content, such as it is, too seriously ( ... )

surliminal August 5 2009, 09:42:55 UTC

Indeed you can regard it as a good thing cos it makes you expand your repertoire. i think one of the serious problems with modern academe is PhD syndrome - new lecturers get hired on a narrow specialism and allowed to teach to it almost exclusively bar a few tutorials maybe. it makes me wonder where in 20 years will be the kind of chairs who mentored me, who knew EVERYTHING (within reason) and as a result had a holistic perpspective that really enlightened. I tell the new lecturers these days all the things I taught in my first few years and (yorkshire accent) they dooo-on't believe me...