Whether it be exam stress, swine flu worries, social exclusion or something a bit more delicate, personal tutors are there to lend a kind, experienced ear and direct you towards the correct course of action.
With their worldly wisdom and tantalizing tales of their time as a student, some would argue that they are your academic and personal backbone during university. Others would say that’s complete tosh, and they’d be right.
The ‘Rate My Personal Tutor’ campaign has heaped praise upon those tutors who have been leading their confused students up the path of top-class essay-writing and exam-busting revision techniques, and steering them away from boozy tomfoolery and dozing at the back of lecture theatres.
All well and good if you’re lucky enough to have Biomedical Science’s Alistair Warren as your tutor, but for other departments it’s highlighted a vital flaw in the system.
The Education Officer has said on the Union web site that 400 people took part in the rate – a significantly small amount of the student populous.
It would be easy to blame this on the usual student apathy for anything which involves any minimal amount of extra effort. Many a student is left running scared at the mere thought of a ballot box. But in this case, I don’t think the problem lies with the students.
How many students at this university have actually had the pleasure of meeting their personal tutor? And discounting the compulsory meet in the very first week, who has ever had the privilege of darkening in their doors again?
Furthermore, who, when sat rigid in the IC up to the eyeballs on energy drinks and scrawling frantically through textbook after textbook, has the time or the inclination to visit their tutor and tell them they’re having a rough time?
The last thing I think of when I’m banging away at my keyboard is ringing up my tutor for a quick chat in hope he’ll ease my conscience. And somehow I doubt he’d appreciate a frantic call at 11pm when sat in front of his TV set with a bottle of cheap plonk and a cat sat on his slippers.
My Journalism Studies department doesn’t so much as have a ‘personal tutor scheme’, but an ‘email this person if you have a problem but you’ll probably never meet them’ scheme. A conversation with a tutor is a rare and precious thing, reserved only for those awkward times when you realise the person you’ve just opened the door for is the man himself.
The majority of those people with whom I will shortly be sharing a degree seem to have no reason to grumble.
But if we are allocated personal tutors who appear to make little effort, what’s the point of allocating them at all? Especially when we seem to be managing life perfectly well without one.
This whole campaign has made me realise two things. One: some people actually do know their tutor well enough to give them a score. And two: my tutor must be a lonely man.