Third year Business student at a Canadian University. For the most part I have enjoyed my degree but on many occasions run into hardcore capitalist content being taught to unsuspecting students by profs that happily lip smack the a** cheeks of Adam Smith, Porter, Ford etc… Today Im catching up on my Economics of Unions lectures but ended up venting to Reddit when I heard my prof and saw his video lectures. I care about this content because unions are one of the ways workers stand a fighting chance against corporate greed. My prof clearly does not give a s***.
His lecture open is in a poorly lit 480P room with “unions” written on the too-small whiteboard behind him. Opening remarks: “howdy folks, sorry to be late, (three weeks late posting video lectures) this is Economics of unions, forget the number (the course code) um… COVID and all… ya know…”
Basically hit it out of the park. Looking to drive home the wonder and enthusiasm he follows it up with:
“So this is the Economics of unions which… well… Economists aren’t very good at unions…”
At this point (15 seconds into the first lecture) im pissed. This is a fall 2022 course no prof has the excuse at this point to be missing video lectures and not providing online content. Finally, we get some lecture content and it is one of the most horrendous, ill prepared, unedited and genuinely unwatchable videos I have seen in my life. I would watch an hour of shaky old GoPro footage in a VR before I sit through another digital excrement from this prof. Ask your grandparent to move closer to the camera next time you FT and get a better picture than what im dealing with here.
What really sent me over the edge was thinking about how this reanimated corpse of a prof with trash content makes business students think about unions. It’s old, unsexy, outdated and unruly. If my business school can afford a new entrance hallway, board rooms, signs, a digital marketing campaign and pay profs like mine $150,000+++ then why is there not an onsite studio for filming lectures? Why wasn’t every prof sent a 1080P webcam and a ring light? Why aren’t their support systems for profs to help them overcome technological barriers? Why are there no review processes for what content profs post? And finally, What the hell are students expected to actually learn from this waste of server space.
All in, I want a better student union that gets me real value from my $10,000k a year tuition but somehow I doubt that will happen any time soon. Im going to go choke down the rest of my lectures at 1.75X and leave you with my summary of what I learned at Business school.
After 3 years in business, the message is clear. Dehumanization of business relationships with the prioritization of profit and efficiency are what makes a good manager. They teach you this right out of the gate: It sucks being on the lowest level… so go into debt getting our degree and we will let you move to the next level. Business school is grooming the next generation of “leaders” to destroy this planet.
Good luck to all the students out there.