Is it me... or is any other MQ law student getting tired of the inadequacy of their teaching?? I mean 1 hr tutes and not enough staff and only enough time to go through one or two questions isn't exactly my idea of 'quality' education....
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MQ Law School (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter royalhizo
- Start date
What do you (or your mates) mainly attribute that decline to?
This is my first year in the law school, so I haven't really known what to expect, but I've heard two tutors that I've had for law this year comment on the 1 hour tutorials.
I do most certainly think that 1 hour is definitely not enough.
misericordia
Confused Member
I think the main reasons for this decline are:
1) cutting back of teaching hours, as many people have pointed out
2) loss of really good lecturers (e.g. david spencer and cameron stewart amongst
others) which partly contributed to poorer choice of electives in 4th & 5th year &
delay in getting feedback of assignments (this was especially the case for
constitutional law)
I really wish PLT was integrated into the law degree & choice of electives was wider. Also some units need better academics / restructuring (e.g. criminal law, constitutional law and administrative law). I think there was petition last year or few years ago that addressed growing concern of students but it was dismissed.
1) cutting back of teaching hours, as many people have pointed out
2) loss of really good lecturers (e.g. david spencer and cameron stewart amongst
others) which partly contributed to poorer choice of electives in 4th & 5th year &
delay in getting feedback of assignments (this was especially the case for
constitutional law)
I really wish PLT was integrated into the law degree & choice of electives was wider. Also some units need better academics / restructuring (e.g. criminal law, constitutional law and administrative law). I think there was petition last year or few years ago that addressed growing concern of students but it was dismissed.
I heard about that petition, I think it was last year. If the concern is as widespread as you say, I think it should be resurrected.
Any idea on why they have cut back the teaching hours? I assume this is attributed to understaffing, which is probably also related with the delay in getting feedback of assignments (that you mentioned).
I'm doing Crim this semester and thus far I have not heard one good thing about the course structure, it is horrendous!
I also wish PLT was integrated, that would make life a lot easier.
What I really want to know is why on earth there has been a scaling back of the law school resources, why is it understaffed? Why is the university not dedicating more money to it?
I've heard various theories attributed to Steven Schwartz's brand new ideas putting a strain on the university... do you guys think that this is related?
After seeing this thread, I'm really starting to think that I made the right choice by not doing law at Maquarie.
haha, I would love to transfer, but I'm doing my final 2 units of my Arts degree and if I transfer to another uni, I won't get exempted so i'd basically be throwing my entire arts component away.
Apparently the law school has been quite underfunded which has resulted in less teaching hours and less staff. I've also heard that the underfunding was caused by MQ's academic restructure which placed the law school under the faculty of arts instead of its own independent faculty. As a result of this, the law school lost a lot of control over its own funding.... but this just hearsay
This keeps coming up each year, basically the Law School, due to its fundamental and alternative approach to other Law Schools has had a horrid run with managing itself. So much so it got put into the Faculty of Arts partly due to the fact it was incapable of managing itself.
There are other factors, but they aren't the victims, well in a case they are, but they've been self-harming for years.
There are other factors, but they aren't the victims, well in a case they are, but they've been self-harming for years.
What was the reasoning behind the academic restructure to begin with? Is it related to the introduction of People/Planet and PACE units or the new library or both?
It completely sucks that the law school is now a subsidiary of the Arts faculty.
You probably missed it because it was posted at the same time as your message, but the post above yours seems to explain it a bit.
wow... that's really bad.
Hmm... Interesting... I'd love to get my hands on that letter posted on the last page... too bad it's offline... anyone have a copy?
*Baby-K*
Member
I do actually, see the attachment.View attachment Letter_to_VC.pdf
I attended the Staff Student Symposium last year and pretty much Peter Radan summed it up along the lines of "Business law department has left the law faculty, hence the financial cutbacks, hence 1 hour tutorials, deal with it"...
Well that was rather insightful... I can't believe they ignored pretty much every single request in that letter... that's absurd.
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Its because those were by-products of the deeper issue, they were never going to solve those without first figuring out the actual cause of it all. It's been going on for a few years now, iirc, the first to split was Public Law, then Business?
What do you think the chances are of the law school going bust? And do you think its on their radar to even fix these issues?
I think the chances of that happening are virtually 0 to be honest. I don't think the situation is that bad, but even if it was, imagine the ramifications of that happening. It would destroy the reputation of MQ. As far what priority has been assigned to fix these problems - I'm not too sure to be honest.
lol well from what it sounds like the law school reputation is already shot.