what students want

Since I've started learning and teaching in British universities, I've been trying to notice and compare students' behaviour that I see here with what I've seen before in Cairo. It's actually interesting to note that there are some international symptoms (if I can call a comparison between 2 countries international) which apparently play a role in all students' lives. So, for example, there is the 5-active-people-in-class-rest-couldn't-care-less syndrome, there is the lack of general knowledge, and there is the persistent exam/credit-oriented way of thinking that always translates into the question: "how many credits is that?" (or "is that covered in the exam?") when you mention a new activity to be done.

But another important point of comparison, which I only started to notice a couple of weeks ago when I began attending courses at UCL, is students' doodles on the wooden desks in classes or lecture theatres. I don't know if this will make me sound geeky or not, but I don't think I ever wandered away in a lecture and started brushing up on my artistic skills in drawing (which are pathetic anyway) on the desk in front of me. But, I've always been amused by going over the things other students write or draw. And from what I've seen so far at UCL, I've got to hand it to students here, they just might score more on the artistic scale. Of course, there is the usual signing of names written in different ways, and there are all sorts of comments that tell you just how hard a student's life is which range from the standard "my brain is melting" to the more blunt "sit here for longer and you might die" :) One thing you will never find written on a desk in my home university, on the other hand, is what I read today on my desk: "gay" on the left-hand side and "lesbian" on the right-hand side. Reason or motivation? unknown :) But my personal favourite, and that's what reflects the artistic image, is that one (very bored) student actually took the time (probably a full one-hour lecture) to paint the whole desk top in black with a few planets and space shuttles scattered here and there. As nice this may be, I was thinking: Houston, we have a problem. Still, from what I've seen so far, I can safely say that Egyptian students are obviously more romantic. One big huge category of what students write on their desks back home is all about love, which starts with the simple heart shape and arrow with the first names of the loving couple on each side, and ends with one love-stricken or heartbroken student pouring his heart out in one long love poem on the corner of the desk with or without a dedication to someone :)

Mai