why is the quality of Oxbridge lectures so bad

Because you don't go to Oxbridge.

Fishing for neg rep so I'll do the opposite.

nope Sherlock, you're fishing for negs. I'm fishing for answers as to why the Oxbridge lectures suck. Please read b4 you answer a question.

Nope, it honestly does sound you're fishing for negs, otherwise you'd have phrased the question in a much less confrontational and obviously superlative manner. e.g.:



And to answer: yes, some of the lectures I have attended have been dire, as in literally not worth going to. And some of them have been excellent, riveting and truly insightful. Most are in between somewhere. And like previous posters, I do agree that lecturers are generally hired on the basis of research instead of teaching skill, and TA-type positions are rare.

We accept as a matter of course some lectures are going to be ****, but the supervision system really does provide an excellent second layer of teaching that helps cover any deficiencies in lectures.

Of course, it actually does depend on the content of the lecture itself. I actually have fallen asleep in some 9AM Maths ones before.

I've been lucky to have had some truly inspirational teachers in my time and I always assumed that professors at Oxford were just as good.

But is it the case that they are just the experts in their subject and are there to do further research, not to teach undergrads? Unlike at school students can learn independently and so is being a communicator and teacher less relevant?

In the sciences at least, people mainly go into academia because they want to do research rather than because they want to teach. Some will really enjoy (and put more effort into) undergrad teaching, while others will find it a burden - its totally variable and really depends on the person. As an undergraduate, its usually quite obvious when a lecturer has put effort into their teaching, and when theyre just going through the motions.

Hiring at top universities in the sciences is mainly based on research ability, although there is a basic minimum of lecturing ability required (you cant be completely terrible). So the quality of lecturers at Oxbridge wont necessarily be better than elsewhere, other than in the general sense that people who are very good at one thing tend to be good at everything (anecdotally, good researchers tend to be good lecturers*, although there are many exception). However, being at a university which is strong in research can be a big advantage when it comes to (eg) undergraduate projects, and getting letters of references for postgraduate study. Also at Oxbridge, as distinct from other top universities, there is the tutorial system which means that undergraduates have contact with academic staff in a small group setting, outside of lectures.


* In general the relationship between research ability and lecturing ability is complex and hard to quantify. Roughly speaking, if someone is teaching a subject that they know inside out (due to doing research in it) then they are perhaps less likely to be satisfied with a standard textbook treatment and might be more inclined to create their own notes instead, possibly incorporating some of their own work, and so on. And if someone is just really insanely clever Richard Feynman-style, they will often have a different/deeper perspective compared to even a typical top university academic.

We have good lectures when the subject is interesting, bad lectures when the subject is boring.

My theory was always that the interesting, and therefore typically "good" lecturers, get involved in interesting things and do good lectures, and the boring ones, the boring subjects, and give bad lectures.

I watched lectures online and they were so boring they damn near put me to sleep. Why do the lecturers suck? It's like they were pulled from the grave to teach.

But what if you only find a subject boring because it's being taught badly?

The quality of lecturers should be roughly identical across all good universities since lecturers are mainly hired based on their research rather than teaching abilities. The advantages of Oxbridge come from the fact that more material gets covered in lectures (since having more academically capable students means that the classes can move faster), the signalling effect, and the general benefits of being surrounded by really smart and hard working people. Not because the lecturers are any better at lecturing.

In the sciences at least, people mainly go into academia because they want to do research rather than because they want to teach.

Gonna try and hijack the thread away from this obvious attempt at trolling.

I've been lucky to have had some truly inspirational teachers in my time and I always assumed that professors at Oxford were just as good.

But is it the case that they are just the experts in their subject and are there to do further research, not to teach undergrads? Unlike at school students can learn independently and so is being a communicator and teacher less relevant?

So who were these boring online lectures taught by, and on what subjects?

Links please, partly because I doubt you watched any, and partly because I would like to if you truly had.

I have to study it myself afterwards, and I don't really learn that well from any lecture process anyway (despite learning via sound mostly, damn unpredictable memorizing patterns!). The subjects I don't like learning on my own correlate very well to the ones with bad lecturers.