Does the University's reputation matter (PhD)?

So...what? You're saying it doesn't matter if the lecturer is bad and the students have to self teach themselves anyway? This is ridiculous and utter garbage. I'm at to uni to learn from people not from books. If that's the case, the there's no need for me to go Uni. Stay at home and study by myself. The books are there to aid me not to teach me. The lecturers are there to teach me.

I see, I did indeed not read very carefully. However, I maintain that for economics it is entirely possible that you will get funding from one uni but not another or that you get more from one (my friend got straight onto phd program and he will not just have his phd fees paid, but will also receive a yearly 'living allowance' which I know he would not have gotten at our undergrad uni).

University study *is* about becoming an independent learner; of course you can learn from and be supported by lecturers, but if you're completely dependent on them, you're doing something wrong. A lot of what you learn at university is, necessarily, from books, not teachers. In many Humanities subjects, for example, a student can expect only between five and eight actual contact hours a week; the rest of the time, they are expected to be reading and grappling with their subject independently. University is not and should not be about being told what to do and how to do it every step of the way. If you had extra problems with theory and sought help you didn't get, then fair enough; but it's misguided to expect a seminar or lecture to replace the hours of reading and thinking required to fully understand difficult concepts.

I completely disagree. If you'd studied at Cambridge or Oxford you would have had a pretty nasty shock, since both institutions teach by making you disappear into a library, produce an argument based on your own reading and then defend that intelligently in front of a supervisor. They do not see good 'teaching' as spoon feeding lazy undergrads so that they don't have to read a single thing and can just breeze through their exams on lecture notes. And none of the lectures taught are comprehensive enough to enable a student to write an acceptable supervision or tute essay without having done some serious reading.

While that might not be fun, that is the difference between University and school, and it means that people who come out with a University education are capable of independent research and applying their own critical thinking skills to a range of difficult and new problems without somebody breaking it down into 10 easy steps for them.

In my course what you said is not really true, people do get funding from uni directly. And supervisor is one of the other issues I meant. Not that you would know for sure who your supervisor will be before you start (at least not in my subject*) and if you go to one uni coz of one great guy - guess what, everyone wants him/her as their supervisor.

*econ

This is the complete opposite of every field I've ever heard of, when it comes to sciences you pretty much apply for a PhD with a supervisor, the university is just the place that you carry out the research with that particular supervisor.

You're generalizing here and being too embroiled with your own misguided opinion from the spoon feeding mentality accusation.

I'm talking about bad lecturing.

I never like lecture notes. I prefer text books and other references. The lecture notes and slide are only for my guidance. After class time, I usually stayed in the library and used up my time to do extra reading and find extra resource to backup my understanding.

I love arguing with my lecturers. I love how I can make them quiet for a while to try to reason out whether my research is right or wrong. That's the fun part of the Supervisor-supervisee relationship. Seeing your supervisor getting stuck at a concept that you have mastered lol. A bit naughty but you know.

Let me add that, people coming out from Uni can actually explain complex stuff and break it down into 10 easy steps. It seems some lecturers can't even do that.

Perhaps, but I only have your word to go on, and since I wasn't in the actual lecture I have no idea whether to believe you or not that it was bad. Its highly subjective. In the past I have enjoyed lectures by some academics that other students in my college/year group have taken a strong dislike to. So its very subjective.

So...what? You're saying it doesn't matter if the lecturer is bad and the students have to self teach themselves anyway? This is ridiculous and utter garbage. I'm at to uni to learn from people not from books. If that's the case, the there's no need for me to go Uni. Stay at home and study by myself. The books are there to aid me not to teach me. The lecturers are there to teach me.

If I get you right, so if the lecturer is bad, we just self teach our self and we have an advantage later on? I thought like that during my 1st until 3rd year of uni. So I didn't complain much about poor lecturing style. I stopped thinking like that once I found great lectures who give a damn and lecture their topic properly. Not only my understanding improve significantly, I also can go further deep with the topic by myself without the lecture holding my hands. Now you tell me, is that spoon feeding or just plain good teaching?

If you're giving me arguments that good uni students should self teach themselves. Lame. You can't self teach yourself everything. What's the point coming then?

My point here is that saying things like "not being spoon fed" or "expected to explore" is really a poor excuse to defend lecturers who can't teach.

If they are so damn concern about their research and can't teach, then don't teach!
I had the so called brilliant research lecture who can't teach squat. Because of him, my grades suffered and I still can't grasp the basics of the theory. Directly because of that, can't do much with my grad work and was left behind. If I did get him to at least teach well, then I wouldn't be having my current problem at all.

Because they are do "damn" concerned about their research, they know, which things we have to know and can provide us research opportunities, we wouldn't have got otherwise. In addition they have a more interesting job, as they don't spend the whole time of their day teaching basics.
There are enough bad primary teachers, as their are bad University professors, but this hasn't something to do with research or not, but with personality.

Facts