DISCLAIMER: The below story is ENTIRELY fictional and is made up by the author and should not be taken seriously by anyone or anything

Before we begin, most polytechnics student should know that textbooks aren’t a compulsory thing in school. They act like a supplementary material for people to read provided anyone even bother. However, in my 3 years of my polytechnic life, the first module that ever force me to buy a textbook has just surfaced. It is a module regarding mining of data and putting them into a warehouse. I’m not mentioning any names here but I’m certainly unpleased with how certain lecturers are conducting their module.

First and foremost, most or should I even say ALL the modules I’ve taken, uploads their tutorial and lecture slides to something we called Blackboard (where student can access and download different documents). However, thats not the case for this particular module. There is NO tutorial uploaded into the blackboard and I was like huh ? The lecturer then proceeds on to say that you NEED to buy a textbook in order to even have  a look at the tutorial question (which later on, he/she flashed on the visualizer). What crap is that ? And then he/she proceed on to rant how you need the textbook to score and if you got no textbook, you probably won’t score well (psst: threatening if you don’t buy the textbook).

Thats not the main gist. The main gist lies in the fact that the author of the textbook for this particular module is the lecturer who is teaching us. So what does this mean ? He/she advices all her student to buy the textbook for obvious reasons which may or may not link to money (psst: royalties).

I don’t get it. Materials should be readily available to students, not be BOUGHT by students. To add on to the fact that he/she doesn’t even know his/her stuff well and half the time is beating around the bush and don’t get on the point with my questions.

PS: Don’t give bullshit things like you need textbook to score. Its not the textbook, its the amount of effort you put in that determines your grade.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 8:10 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.