I think it is a complete joke to let in international student's the way they are accepted into universities today. My father came to Australia at the age of 18 not speaking a word of English. He started high school, year 11 and 12 at the age of 20 and then went to university. The difference is he learnt how to become a part of Australian society, and made the effort to show he deserved a place in university. I’m sure a lot of international students do sit their HSC here (well actually I have no idea)?
When he was at university they weren't dumbing down his course to make it easier for him to pass. Anyone who say's that isn't the case is a fool. I've gone through three years of accounting, and have had one assignment that was written. In my economics major I haven't had a written assignment for 3 years - although the finals are predominately essay based. We have had entire sections in accounting that were language based readings, and the response of the lecturer's was to test all this content via multiple choice. Clearly, there are some time saving mechanism's here, but 40 percent of a final exam based on multiple choice is ridiculous. It serves to dumb down courses for students by putting the answer in front of them, rather than seeing if they were able to think of it themselves. Reading skills are a lot different from writing skills and many exams and assessments are designed to alleviate this problem.
Anyway back to my point, having to go to a course with so many international students has made a majority of my university experience unenjoyable. A lot of international students are rude, arrogant, spoilt and impossible to work with – whether this is a cultural clash could be true. A lot of international students work hard and are capable of doing a degree at the highest level. However, there is no reason to make any course easier. People always say 'why don’t you try studying a degree in a foreign language?' in defence of international students. The facts are that when international students come to UNSW they are aware that they will be assessed on their knowledge of the subject area in English, it was their choice – perhaps it makes it harder for them, but why should my education be diminished because someone willingly chose to study in another language. University is like a highway of knowledge and the changes that have been made are like setting the speed limit to 40.
That being said I don’t think it has affected me that much. Maybe like 5-10% of my course has been lost, but there are other factors involved such as short tutorials and poor (I mean lazy) teaching. But if it’s like that at UNSW I can only imagine other universities.
