Tried my hand at writing a critical essay. This is the first part of a series that I'll be writing about my experiences in the Commerce Faculty at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Tried to be conversational in tone.
-Imran
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-Imran
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Everything wrong with studying Commerce
Part 1: Free Time (Or rather, the lack of it)
Part I: Free Time | Part II: -
Part 1: Free Time (Or rather, the lack of it)
Part I: Free Time | Part II: -
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| Image is the property of One Thousand Words |
I've got a lot of beef with the Commerce Faculty. I've been a student of Actuarial Science at the University of Cape Town for the last four years and, hopefully, within the next few months I'll be graduating and leaving this chapter of my life behind. But as I'm nearing the end of my student life there isn't a sadness that I'm leaving 'the best years of my life'. In fact, I'm pretty damn excited to go out into the real world (as opposed to the synthetic academic one); the prevailing feeling for me right now is 'good riddance'. And that's not because I've spent a decade or two at varsity. On the contrary, I've worked hard and should be able to graduate right on schedule. But even four years feels like too many at this place and as I'm nearing the end of my student life, I've become quite contemplative. In the next couple of essays I write on this topic, I'm going to delve into my some of my experiences as a UCT Commerce student and the things I'm going to take away from it. I hope that makes for good reading for whoever decided to click on the link.
So the first bone of contention I have with the Commerce Faculty in general: the downright disturbing lack of free time. This isn't a problem exclusive to Commerce but it is a problem that exists in elitist faculties that are under the impression that what they have to teach you is the most valuable thing you could possibly learn in your life.
Since my first year at UCT I've done no electives, nor have I even had time for them. Every semester since the first has been packed to the brim with 5-6 demanding courses each convinced that it's more important than all your other courses. While 5-6 may not sound too bad on paper, consider that most courses have 2 tests and 1 assignment so you're looking at in the region of 14-18 time-consuming assessments in a 12-week period followed by 5-7 exams. In my first year I had days where the standard timetable went from 8:00AM to 4:00PM with no breaks. In 2nd and 3rd year, I started at 8:00AM every day and finished at 7:00-8:00PM a few nights a week (large breaks in between).
When you count in the work required outside of lectures and tutorials, this meant that, during the semester, my life was almost entirely consumed by campus. On top of this ridiculous minimum-required workload, I was also somehow expected to study in my free time and do well with there being some really over the top requirements for me to qualify for certain courses. You might at this point be tempted to think that it's what you get when you sign up for Actuarial Science, and perhaps it is, but from what I've seen from my many friends studying Accounting (and Engineering), when you get to the later years, the absurd workload and high requirements becomes a way of life.
And I suppose what really gets me riled up about all of this is what I find myself questioning: 'What the hell is the point of it all?' One of the reasons my programme, and indeed everyone's programme, in Commerce was so jam-packed is because there are all these filler courses that you have to do. Pretty much every Commerce student has to do two years of Economics, one year of Accounts, one year of Maths, some Stats, some Law, Marketing, Finance, People Management, Evidence-Based Management, Ethics, Communication, Business Strategy etc. and those are just the extras; that doesn't include the additional 1-3 per semester for your major.
Now I understand that if you're in Commerce then learning about these fields is potentially important but do you really have to learn about all of them? There seems to be some misplaced impression up top that doing a lot of courses makes you a well-rounded and competent person. The truth is that the majority of what I learned in those filler courses I've forgotten and that 90% of what I learnt at University that was really worth learning, things that I'll keep with me for the rest of my life, came from outside of my actual courses. I learnt more from spending time with friends, experiences with people (both positive and negative) and from reading books than my studies themselves have ever taught me. There's nothing I learnt in Marketing and People Management that 5 minutes out in the real world hasn't shown me better; I read one Book in 3rd year that put Economics into better perspective for me than 2 years of mind-numbing courses. And that's why when Actuarial Risk Management 'recommends' I need to put 5 hours of my personal time each week into reading up on Actuarial Matters then I tell them to take a hike; those 5 hours a week are going into things that I want to do and that I love doing.
In many regards, that's what campus life has been like for me: one long battle to hold onto my free time. And I'd like to believe that it's a battle I've managed to win sometimes; perhaps my UCT Chronicles photos in the first three years and now One Thousand Words is proof of that. The truth, hard and fast, is that you just don't become a well-rounded or competent person by reading a textbook; most of the students I know forget their filler courses within a week of finishing the exam. You develop by pursuing things you have a genuine interest in expanding your horizons beyond the confines of whatever group, faculty or course you currently belong to. Maybe us Commerce students would be better off if our plates weren't so fully loaded. That way, we'd have more time to do the things we really enjoy, spend time with the people we care about or maybe even pick up some electives that we have a genuine interest in. Because that's how you can develop as a person: by doing things that actually matter to you… not by reading a 600-page textbook on how to be ‘good’ at Marketing.
To be continued...
So the first bone of contention I have with the Commerce Faculty in general: the downright disturbing lack of free time. This isn't a problem exclusive to Commerce but it is a problem that exists in elitist faculties that are under the impression that what they have to teach you is the most valuable thing you could possibly learn in your life.
Since my first year at UCT I've done no electives, nor have I even had time for them. Every semester since the first has been packed to the brim with 5-6 demanding courses each convinced that it's more important than all your other courses. While 5-6 may not sound too bad on paper, consider that most courses have 2 tests and 1 assignment so you're looking at in the region of 14-18 time-consuming assessments in a 12-week period followed by 5-7 exams. In my first year I had days where the standard timetable went from 8:00AM to 4:00PM with no breaks. In 2nd and 3rd year, I started at 8:00AM every day and finished at 7:00-8:00PM a few nights a week (large breaks in between).
When you count in the work required outside of lectures and tutorials, this meant that, during the semester, my life was almost entirely consumed by campus. On top of this ridiculous minimum-required workload, I was also somehow expected to study in my free time and do well with there being some really over the top requirements for me to qualify for certain courses. You might at this point be tempted to think that it's what you get when you sign up for Actuarial Science, and perhaps it is, but from what I've seen from my many friends studying Accounting (and Engineering), when you get to the later years, the absurd workload and high requirements becomes a way of life.
And I suppose what really gets me riled up about all of this is what I find myself questioning: 'What the hell is the point of it all?' One of the reasons my programme, and indeed everyone's programme, in Commerce was so jam-packed is because there are all these filler courses that you have to do. Pretty much every Commerce student has to do two years of Economics, one year of Accounts, one year of Maths, some Stats, some Law, Marketing, Finance, People Management, Evidence-Based Management, Ethics, Communication, Business Strategy etc. and those are just the extras; that doesn't include the additional 1-3 per semester for your major.
Now I understand that if you're in Commerce then learning about these fields is potentially important but do you really have to learn about all of them? There seems to be some misplaced impression up top that doing a lot of courses makes you a well-rounded and competent person. The truth is that the majority of what I learned in those filler courses I've forgotten and that 90% of what I learnt at University that was really worth learning, things that I'll keep with me for the rest of my life, came from outside of my actual courses. I learnt more from spending time with friends, experiences with people (both positive and negative) and from reading books than my studies themselves have ever taught me. There's nothing I learnt in Marketing and People Management that 5 minutes out in the real world hasn't shown me better; I read one Book in 3rd year that put Economics into better perspective for me than 2 years of mind-numbing courses. And that's why when Actuarial Risk Management 'recommends' I need to put 5 hours of my personal time each week into reading up on Actuarial Matters then I tell them to take a hike; those 5 hours a week are going into things that I want to do and that I love doing.
In many regards, that's what campus life has been like for me: one long battle to hold onto my free time. And I'd like to believe that it's a battle I've managed to win sometimes; perhaps my UCT Chronicles photos in the first three years and now One Thousand Words is proof of that. The truth, hard and fast, is that you just don't become a well-rounded or competent person by reading a textbook; most of the students I know forget their filler courses within a week of finishing the exam. You develop by pursuing things you have a genuine interest in expanding your horizons beyond the confines of whatever group, faculty or course you currently belong to. Maybe us Commerce students would be better off if our plates weren't so fully loaded. That way, we'd have more time to do the things we really enjoy, spend time with the people we care about or maybe even pick up some electives that we have a genuine interest in. Because that's how you can develop as a person: by doing things that actually matter to you… not by reading a 600-page textbook on how to be ‘good’ at Marketing.
To be continued...
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