Ah right - my lectures are in SOAS buildings - all very incestuous! How're you finding it?
This is supposed to contrast with the much simpler humanities disciplines, where it's all wisyh-washy opinion based no right answers type of stuff. Except there are obviously conceptually very advanced theories in the humanities (Foucault, e.g.), and a lot of the conceptually advanced stuff requires a similar approach to learning as maths or other STEM subjects.
Classes are pretty good. But as a first year undergrad at the age of 23, other first year students have come as a bit of a shock. Everyone seems so very, well... young. I didn't think the age difference was that much, but it really is. I imagine I'll get over it. Probably need to find more graduates to hang out with.
You could be right about that. I can only speak to what I know: the people I work with (social scientists) all have something to say, they're just generally not too good at saying it, and it all tends to come out in this generic academese. I think that this is a fairly common problem in the social sciences. A social scientist who can actually write is a rare thing indeed.
I'd have to agree - but it seems so much simpler to write well/clearly than to write in general academese, in principle..
The reason to use specialised vocabulary is that it makes communication with other experts in a given field more easy.
I think taking a few years 'out' before university should be mandatory.
The opposite is true, as you will find out in a few years, when you'll begin to be at the top of your field. Writing about a specialised subject in a non-technical language (without loosing precision) is difficult and for many advanced sciences essentially impossible. The reason to use specialised vocabulary is that it makes communication with other experts in a given field more easy. You can take all the mathematical texts in the world and express them in everyday language. The price of this translation is that texts would increase in length by a factor of 5000.
Just stop whining and start learning the terms of your chosen trade.
Again, I'm not so much referring to specialised vocabulary, as much as a specific kind of sentence structure. I can't emphasise this enough (well, I can...)!
To your second paragraph: Don't be such a patronising twat, please! Thank you. You wouldn't say that to me in person (although, sigh, you'll probably claim that you would), so don't be insulting over a message board.
But as a first year undergrad at the age of 23
I have been know to groan frequently when authors give a concrete example of what they have been arduously explaining in complex theoretical prose over the past few pages, my reaction being....well, if that's what you meant, why didn't you say it?
This was what really got me (I did philosophy). So often I just found myself thinking 'get to the point'. Sometime this is just because they want to be rigorous, discounting every possible alternative before moving on, but others it is because they are just following tenuously related lines of thought that could easily be cut from the paper/book with no real loss. Then there is Plato whose dialogue format means you have to read through what seems like pages and pages of "of course, it couldn't be any other way Socrates".
Unclear expression benefits poor arguments yet does good ones a disservice - and the writer knows this.
In my head, Birkbeck is home to the most pretentious, irritating academics and the most academese academese. Maybe I'm confusing all the Zizekregore doing stuff at Birkbeck with all of Birkbeck being in the Zizekregore, though.
1st yr undergrad at 25, tell me about it. but it's actually not all that uncommon these days - here at least, can't speak to the UK - and esp. b/c I'm doing my first 2 yrs worth of credits at a community college to save $ (b/c of the crazy system we have here, I pay ~$2,000 a semester right now, as opposed to ~6-7K/semester at a 4 yr state school or 14K/semester & up at a private school. yes, it's a very crazy system). there are loads of older students, both those going for the first time & those going back to get more training or retrain for a new career. most of the time, there are at least half a dozen people in the class my age or older.
I find that it really depends on the class tho - like English 101-102 are full of kids right out of high school. plus no one wants to be there, they're just fulfilling prerequisites, so those classes are pretty dreary (tho I still enjoy writing papers). OTOH, all my science course have had a much bigger age range and people studying things that they're interested in or which are at least relevant to their majors so they're compelled to put the effort in. not a lot of academese, either, tho I'm not doing any social sciences beyond the prereqs (which I'd gladly skip if possible).
I dunno, I can't say I'm glad I didn't go to school earlier, but I certainly don't regret anything either.