15 Medical Science Scholars?

Cantab.

I'm going to be really unpopular here for a moment.

Now I'm sure the 15 are all very worthy students, *but* in my experience, perfect life medical students types spend their years studying their asses off, only to automatically walk into some highly paid position, in the process taking Trinity and the scarcity of qualified doctors for granted. It's their careers outside the College that they're primarily interested in, not the well-being of the College. [worst part of rant over]

We should be encouraging people who want to make academic careers for themselves, not a bunch of 600-points-perfect-life-spent-6-years-in-the-library types. Why not more maths/science/arts/law/divinity students? 15 from the school of medicine seems a bit rich. Would it not be more beneficial to the College to have a more diverse range of scholars and scholars whose affinity is to the College, not their careers?

The School of Medicine seem to be very dominant and they've carved out their own little identity for themselves, separate to that of the College. Their staff get paid way more than staff in the other departments (I hate using the word 'school') and I even remember once this year where the School of Medicine over-booked the Dining Hall, leaving the scholars and students to eat in the Buttery!

Now I know scholars' primary interest is the library and a bit of nerdiness bordering on autism is quite common in the Dining Hall around 6:15, but can we not at least have a bit more diversity? I'd sooner sit beside a maths scholar or a theology scholar than be surrounded by trainee doctors, any day of the week.

IvyTheTerrible

From I saw of the list of scholars, there seemed to be a good range of disciplines represented.

No one is going to force you to sit beside the medicines scholars anyway, and there is every chance they won't want to sit beside YOU!

Podge_irl

Cantab. wrote: »

Why not more maths/science/arts/law/divinity students?

It's already disproportionately easy for maths/science students to get schols over arts students imo.

Mark200

Don't they get schols once they get over 70% average? Medical students are most likely better exam takers than the average college student considering they needed to get close to 600 points in the LC... it's just the way it is. What do you want? To change the rules for some departments to make the exams even harder for them just because they're better at taking exams?

And as said, I doubt they'd be over the moon being forced to sit with you either.

JC 2K3

Every one of the 83 scholars, including the 15 from medicine, worked damn hard. You want to discredit the achievement of honest, hard working students because of your apparent predjudice against the medicine department? Get lost tbh.

scruttocks

I can kind of see where Cantab. is coming from: every scholarship given is expensive, particularly so with Medicine students as they have 4 years left of their degree. If College is going to spend this money, it makes sense that it should be spent on people who are likely to stay in academia and work for Trinity in the future and return some of the value: med students generally don't.

It depends on whether you see schols as a deserved gift for those who work hard in their field, no matter what it may be; or as a tool to keep the most talented undergrads for later research/lecturing positions.

Mind you, I write this as an economics scholar with no intention whatsoever of going into academia...

claire h

That is a slightly mental number from one subject to be getting Schols. But getting Schols is not conditional on how likely students are to stay in academia/research or even in Trinity - there are plenty of scholars in other subjects who a) go elsewhere for postgrad because it's better and/or more prestigious for their discipline or b) don't stay in academia past undergrad.

(Quite aside from this, there's the case of whether written exams are the best way of assessing someone's ability to stay in academic research, which involves writing/researching papers rather than sitting exams.)

There's a definite inconsistency in how far Schols papers differ from end-of-year exams across the departments in college, though - arguably the greater the difference is, the better it is at identifying future research-type students, though there's still the question of whether the exam format is the best way to assess that.

Plug-me-in

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Every one of the 83 scholars, including the 15 from medicine, worked damn hard. You want to discredit the achievement of honest, hard working students because of your apparent predjudice against the medicine department? Get lost tbh.

+1 tbh.

Tricity Bendix

Is schols really about getting people to stay in accademia?

claire h

Tricity Bendix wrote: »

Is schols really about getting people to stay in accademia?

Yeah, kinda. Whether it actually does that or not is another thing. But Trinity aren't giving out five years of free fees, commons and accommodation just to be nice to undergraduates, y'know?

Tricity Bendix

I thought it was just incentivising excellence. Cus if you're really smart you'd realise that there is more money to be made outside of college.

Mark200

Tricity Bendix wrote: »

I thought it was just incentivising excellence.

Yeah I always thought that too

AlanSparrowhawk

i think the Medical and Dental schools are a separate beast to the rest of the college. you have to remember that the medical school attracts entrants from all over the world who are paying HUGE sums of money for the education. It must be an extra incentive for a very very bright American/Asian to focus on Schols. But having said that. Why have "foreigners" in an Irish medical school where medical places are so rare, especially if some of them will qualify for schols and not even pay the huge fees.

If you're a normal "middle class" bess student the free campus accommodation is nice but it's more a bonus than a necessity.

And most importantly, if they got schols they deserve it.

gaybitch

First of all, I'm an Arts student, so I'm not biased towards the medicine students, really.

You mentioned medicine graduates "automatically" walking into highly paid jobs. That's BS. There are subsequent years of hard graft, low pay, and long hours in hospitals as interns, as well as having to move around the small regional hospitals etc for experience. People don't receive their degree and suddenly become loaded consultants sitting in an office - medicine is hard work for the guts of fifteen years to get to anywhere near that position.

I think it's genuinely amazing that 15 people got Schols. in medicine. It's an amazing achievement for them. Fact is, 15 Arts student didn't get above 70 in all their exams, and those med students did, so well done them

Plug-me-in

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

you have to remember that the medical school attracts entrants from all over the world who are paying HUGE sums of money for the education. It must be an extra incentive for a very very bright American/Asian to focus on Schols. But having said that. Why have "foreigners" in an Irish medical school where medical places are so rare, especially if some of them will qualify for schols and not even pay the huge fees.

The "foreigners" don't get their massive fees paid for, just the equivalent of what Irish people would usually have to pay, they still have to make up the rest of what could be up to 20,000 themselves....

devinejay

Cantab. wrote: »

I'm going to be really unpopular here for a moment.

Has that ever stopped you? :pac::D

raah!

I think Cantab has some fair points here. That most medecine students are thinking of their own careers rather than furthering their study in the college is fairly evident. And if everyone were to start thinking of colleges as merely places "to get degrees to get jobs" then... that would be terrible.

But there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about that, not everyone sees college that way, and it seems that neither does everyone agree on the purpose of schols. If it is the case that schols are there to promote post graduate work etc. then what people have said about the schols tests reflecting this should fix that.

It is a shame though, that in a university such people seek only their own success rather than knowlege of their respective subjects. Naturally, to them and many others it's not a shame, so this statement equates to "it's a shame people see university differently than I do"... which I guess is meaningless, but still!

antiselfdual

So Trinity should select Scholars with the aim of creating a more varied seating arrangement at Commons, and also have a separate test to check whether would-be Scholars are doing it for a) personal gain, or b) love of their subject and the hallowed institution of Trinity College Dublin, which are naturally mutually exclusive goals. Of course.

Cantab.

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Every one of the 83 scholars, including the 15 from medicine, worked damn hard. You want to discredit the achievement of honest, hard working students because of your apparent predjudice against the medicine department? Get lost tbh.

I'm sure the 15 worked very hard (notice how I stated this in the OP).

Surprise surprise, a lot of this comes down to money (so I was reliably informed this evening) -- the individual schools have to fund their scholars, and guess who's got the most money? You've guessed it -- the school of medicine. They get money from the College (and are designated 'underfunded' under ARAM), they get all those overseas fees and they get money from the government.

Theology, letters, women's studies, etc. can't afford scholars.

Cantab.

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

i think the Medical and Dental schools are a separate beast to the rest of the college. you have to remember that the medical school attracts entrants from all over the world who are paying HUGE sums of money for the education. It must be an extra incentive for a very very bright American/Asian to focus on Schols. But having said that. Why have "foreigners" in an Irish medical school where medical places are so rare, especially if some of them will qualify for schols and not even pay the huge fees.

If you're a normal "middle class" bess student the free campus accommodation is nice but it's more a bonus than a necessity.

And most importantly, if they got schols they deserve it.

They should go off and establish their own colleges then. That dentistry flag they insist on flying makes my teeth grind. Why don't they fly the College flag?

Cantab.

Tricity Bendix wrote: »

Is schols really about getting people to stay in accademia?

A fair point.

AlanSparrowhawk

Well I don't want to get carried away talking about this because I've never been in the medical school and I only know about 5 people who are.

Plugmein - are you certain about that? an american scholar still pays huge fees? My apologies for my mistake if you are correct.

A lot of Doctors do stay in academia either through research in different institutions or be teaching in hospitals.

mardybumbum

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

Well I don't want to get carried away talking about this because I've never been in the medical school and I only know about 5 people who are.

Plugmein - are you certain about that? an american scholar still pays huge fees? My apologies for my mistake if you are correct.

A lot of Doctors do stay in academia either through research in different institutions or be teaching in hospitals.

I always thought the foreign scholars got their fees waivered too, but then I checked the TCD website.

The entitlements of Foundation Scholars are set out in the College Calendar. In the 2008-09 academic year, scholars were entitled to:

have their Commons free of charge;
are entitled to rooms free of charge for up to nine months of the year;
receive a salary which, together with any grant they may receive from an outside body, shall amount to not less than €253.95 per annum (after payment of the annual fee);
are entitled to remission of the annual fee appropriate to their main course of study if they are not in receipt of outside scholarships or grants, save that undergraduate scholars from non-E.U. countries shall have their fees reduced by an amount corresponding to the appropriate fee level of an Irish Student.

Dentistry flag?

Brods

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

Plugmein - are you certain about that? an american scholar still pays huge fees? My apologies for my mistake if you are correct..

They get ~€8/9K (whatever EU fees are) off, still pay €22k.

Podge_irl

Cantab. wrote: »

Surprise surprise, a lot of this comes down to money (so I was reliably informed this evening) -- the individual schools have to fund their scholars

Are you sure? That would surely be a disincentive for schools to gain a lot of scholars....

claire h

Cantab. wrote: »

I'm sure the 15 worked very hard (notice how I stated this in the OP).

Surprise surprise, a lot of this comes down to money (so I was reliably informed this evening) -- the individual schools have to fund their scholars, and guess who's got the most money? You've guessed it -- the school of medicine. They get money from the College (and are designated 'underfunded' under ARAM), they get all those overseas fees and they get money from the government.

Theology, letters, women's studies, etc. can't afford scholars.

Women's studies isn't an undergrad school - which brings up the question, how can the funding-own-scholars thing work for students who go on to do a postgrad in a different school in the college? And/or how does this not lead to more standardisation re: how many scholars per school get it per year, if they're covering it themselves and therefore presumably setting aside a certain amount of the budget each year, and/or a complete lack of scholars in any of the arts and humanities so that they can save the cash?

HoboJesus

Just for the record, any staff I've ever spoken to about schols have the attitude that you can sit the exams for any reason you want, and use it however you like. I always thought schol was there as a tradition, then kept on as something that makes trinity unique, as well as attracting ambitious students to the college in the first place. I've spoken to more than a couple of people who chose trinity so that they could go for schol.

Also, I'd say if you went to a member of staff and said the only reason you wanted to stay in academia was because it's free, they'd probably encourage you to do what you actually want to do.

Liquorice

Gawd, those selfish doctors, going straight into their self-serving careers and not benefitting anybody. How dare they take the college's money and make life a little bit easier for themselves before entering the emotionally and physically draining ****pile that their early career will be.

The only difference schols has made to my career trajectory is that now I think I'll go for that free masters before doing a doctorate.

JC 2K3

Cantab. wrote: »

the individual schools have to fund their scholars, and guess who's got the most money? You've guessed it -- the school of medicine. They get money from the College (and are designated 'underfunded' under ARAM), they get all those overseas fees and they get money from the government.

Theology, letters, women's studies, etc. can't afford scholars.

Are you sure this is true? I would find it quite bizarre if it were a case of a school having X amount of money and thus being able to afford Y amount of scholars.

Podge_irl

HoboJesus wrote: »

Also, I'd say if you went to a member of staff and said the only reason you wanted to stay in academia was because it's free, they'd probably encourage you to do what you actually want to do.

I don't think they're so much trying to encourage you to stay in academia as they are trying to encourage those who want to stay in academia to stay in Trinity.

tolosenc

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Are you sure this is true? I would find it quite bizarre if it were a case of a school having X amount of money and thus being able to afford Y amount of scholars.

I'd also fear that I was put at a disadvantage, were this true. I thought scholars were funded by the college, no?

Podge_irl

obl wrote: »

I'd also fear that I was put at a disadvantage, were this true. I thought scholars were funded by the college, no?

I was almost certain they were.

HoboJesus

Podge_irl wrote: »

I don't think they're so much trying to encourage you to stay in academia as they are trying to encourage those who want to stay in academia to stay in Trinity.

It is necessary to point out the difference, but are members of staff really doing either? I've been encouraged more than once by lecturers to keep my options open as regards postgrad positions in other colleges etc. A good chunk of the staff didn't spend their full academic lives in TCD.

Tricity Bendix

Cantab. wrote: »

That dentistry flag they insist on flying makes my teeth grind. Why don't they fly the College flag?

On this, I wholly agree with you. But I'm rather pernickety about flags. There is something offputting about wanting to claim a seperate identity from the rest of college.

Podge_irl

HoboJesus wrote: »

A good chunk of the staff didn't spend their full academic lives in TCD.

And it would be a rather silly idea to do so. Lecturers, I think, ultimately are trying to do well by the student rather then the college as a whole. Its always a good idea to go elsewhere for graduate work to expand your horizons and all that. Schols is certainly an incentive to stay in Trinity though, but I would doubt its the overall deciding factor for very many.

JC 2K3

Cantab. wrote: »

That dentistry flag they insist on flying makes my teeth grind.

:pac:

Kwekubo

Sorry for the line-by-line comments here, but as one of the people being talked about I want to make a few points.

Cantab. wrote: »

We should be encouraging people who want to make academic careers for themselves, not a bunch of 600-points-perfect-life-spent-6-years-in-the-library types. Why not more maths/science/arts/law/divinity students? 15 from the school of medicine seems a bit rich. Would it not be more beneficial to the College to have a more diverse range of scholars and scholars whose affinity is to the College, not their careers?

You don't know who I am or how I got here. I may not get the chance to be involved as much as I'd like in college (being in hospitals almost every day from this term on doesn't help) but I play a little sport and am an incoming society president this year, and have something of a life outside college too. I have as much of a right to call myself a Trinity student as anyone else.

I was always under this crazy impression that schols were non-competitive on a college-wide basis (excepting the overall trend towards the exams being more straighforward for EMS). If you've heard otherwise then please do share the details with the rest of us.

They should go off and establish their own colleges then. That dentistry flag they insist on flying makes my teeth grind. Why don't they fly the College flag?

The dental hospital is legally under the auspices of the Department of Health and Children, but with responsibilities for education and training lying with Trinity. Last I checked, not even College flies the College flag on a daily basis. You've expressed your disdain for medical and dental students before; why not also sever the ties with people doing nursing/education/occupational therapy/midwifery/any vocational course that means you have to venture outside of College once in a while?

I'm sure the 15 worked very hard (notice how I stated this in the OP).

You are however making it clear you don't think we should have been entitled to try for schols.

Prof.Badass

Cantab. Since when did you care about popularity? You seem to be betraying your inner troll. Here's how it should be done;


Schols should only be for subjects with ongoing research and new discoveries being made. That way the money is being spent in the places where it is most likely to benifit society :eek::eek::eek:!

See, not only have I discriminated against more people. I've also got a better pseudo-objective argument to hide behind .

Awayindahils

Cantab,

No one needs to defend having gottten schols. Especially not to a troll like you.

For attempting to take the good out a well earned achievement for 15 people I will see you in a week.

Awayindahils

mardybumbum

Awayindahils wrote: »

Cantab,

No one needs to defend having gottten schols. Especially not to a troll like you.

For attempting to take the good out a well earned achievement for 15 people I will see you in a week.

Awayindahils

Is this an internet forum or North Korea?
I dont agree with anything he says but let him spew his waffle if it keeps him happy.
A lot of threads have been locked here recently for very minor/silly things.

Thirdfox

Apart from Cantab's point. Isn't schols (by treating all subjects' scores equally) actually discriminating against some courses?

Case in point - a very intelligent English/History/Law student writes a fantastic paper - they get 74%. An equally intelligent Maths/Science/Med student writes a fantastic paper - they get 95%. Have we had m/any foundation scholars from the Arts department recently? (I genuinely have no clue - I seem to recall quite a few physicists getting it).

Back to my example - if bright History/English/Law student screws up on one exam and only performs well - 65%. Bright Science/Maths/Med student screws up and gets a 65% - that's okay - compensated by his/her 95% from a different topic.

So, I suppose my point is not to attack any of the students who worked their guts out for schols, which they all are justly rewarded for doing so but that when it comes to marking, it simply isn't an equal playing field with Arts being disadvantaged. My sources for this would be my friend's experience from science schols and others with law schols (I believe one person had been awarded 78% in law, my science friend got a 87%(?) in a separate subject). They are both highly intelligent people but one will never see an 80+% result.

As opposed to the US - it felt so good when I got a 97+% for my law paper...my American friends were intrigued that grades are marked around 70% for the papers in Ireland. What is the rationale behind that actually? Is it a humbling exercise - telling you that you're not in secondary school anymore where you always get 100%s ?

Jonathan

Awayindahils wrote: »

Cantab,

No one needs to defend having gottten schols. Especially not to a troll like you.

For attempting to take the good out a well earned achievement for 15 people I will see you in a week.

Awayindahils

Is this not a discussion forum?

Brian

Medicine students are smarter than most other students ... that's not fair!

JC 2K3

Thirdfox wrote: »

Apart from Cantab's point. Isn't schols (by treating all subjects' scores equally) actually discriminating against some courses?

Case in point - a very intelligent English/History/Law student writes a fantastic paper - they get 74%. An equally intelligent Maths/Science/Med student writes a fantastic paper - they get 95%. Have we had m/any foundation scholars from the Arts department recently? (I genuinely have no clue - I seem to recall quite a few physicists getting it).

Back to my example - if bright History/English/Law student screws up on one exam and only performs well - 65%. Bright Science/Maths/Med student screws up and gets a 65% - that's okay - compensated by his/her 95% from a different topic.

So, I suppose my point is not to attack any of the students who worked their guts out for schols, which they all are justly rewarded for doing so but that when it comes to marking, it simply isn't an equal playing field with Arts being disadvantaged. My sources for this would be my friend's experience from science schols and others with law schols (I believe one person had been awarded 78% in law, my science friend got a 87%(?) in a separate subject). They are both highly intelligent people but one will never see an 80+% result.

As opposed to the US - it felt so good when I got a 97+% for my law paper...my American friends were intrigued that grades are marked around 70% for the papers in Ireland. What is the rationale behind that actually? Is it a humbling exercise - telling you that you're not in secondary school anymore where you always get 100%s ?

There is a quota of foundation scholars from every dept.

My friend got 79% in Computer Science and only got non-foundation schols, yet someone doing English and something got 75% and got foundation schols.

Also, I think you're slightly misinformed if you think that 90+ results are common in schol papers in the EMS dept.

EGaffney

If I am not mistaken, there are two foundation scholars from each of the six old faculties and from TSM, making a total of fourteen, created each year.

Am I allowed say that?

Jonathan

EGaffney wrote: »

If I am not mistaken, there are two foundation scholars from each of the six old faculties and from TSM, making a total of fourteen, created each year.

Am I allowed say that?

Careful now..

Thirdfox

JC 2K3 wrote: »

There is a quota of foundation scholars from every dept.

My friend got 79% in Computer Science and only got non-foundation schols, yet someone doing English and something got 75% and got foundation schols.

Also, I think you're slightly misinformed if you think that 90+ results are common in schol papers in the EMS dept.

Thank you - I had thought it was a general competition as to who got the highest marks in college overall.

Not common but achievable. Whereas it is impossible to achieve in the Arts subjects (speaking only for law, perhaps English/History etc. can get 90%+).

Podge_irl

EGaffney wrote: »

If I am not mistaken, there are two foundation scholars from each of the six old faculties and from TSM, making a total of fourteen, created each year.

Am I allowed say that?

There aren't an equal number of foundation scholars each year. There were 16 i my year (two from TP and possibly another in science I think), and only 9 the following year.

Podge_irl

Thirdfox wrote: »

Thank you - I had thought it was a general competition as to who got the highest marks in college overall.

Not common but achievable. Whereas it is impossible to achieve in the Arts subjects (speaking only for law, perhaps English/History etc. can get 90%+).

I think its easier to get schols in science/maths, but having never taken an arts schol I dont really have any basis for that. While its possible to get much higher marks, its also very possible to get zero marks for something, which is not something you come across much in the arts I imagine.

Thirdfox

Podge_irl wrote: »

I think its easier to get schols in science/maths, but having never taken an arts schol I dont really have any basis for that. While its possible to get much higher marks, its also very possible to get zero marks for something, which is not something you come across much in the arts I imagine.

I imagine that overall it the systems may work out similarly (more fails and more ultra high results compared to closely grouped marks). I miss getting those 95%s though

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

Awayindahils wrote: »

Cantab,

No one needs to defend having gottten schols. Especially not to a troll like you.

For attempting to take the good out a well earned achievement for 15 people I will see you in a week.

Awayindahils

Surprise surprise, Cantab. got banned. Of course we could probably all see it coming a long way away, not because he's saying anything particularly disruptive or going against the forum charter, but because he doesn't belong to (and more importantly, toe the line of) to the little cabal of people that run the show here.

So Hilary bans him, which let's face it, is fairly ridiculous, but not in the slightest bit surprising. After all, I've been banned by her a fair few times now, and every attempt to get any sort of clarification has been ignored in a fairly rude (again, unsurprising) way.

So....I don't want to get banned again, and I'm sure neither does Cantab., so can we drop the pretense of merely having to follow the forum charter, and instead can one of the mods, preferably Hilary, since she seems the most volatile, draw up a nice big whitelist of topics that we are allowed to discuss, as well as which side we are supposed to take on each topic, so as not to upset the powers that be.

inb4 "ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI banned for criticizing the moderation here"