Date Posted: 10/31/2012 10:23:32 AM
Posted By: Franco1989 Membership Level: Silver Total Points: 321
I joined the University of Nairobi with high hopes of getting the highest degree on land and achieving a First Class Honours in my studies and had promised myself to do so through perusing through all the books in our Jomo Kenyatta Memorial Library. I was so psyched up into doing some studies since I had stayed for more than a year at home waiting for selection just like other JAB or government sponsored students. The first week though was not as busy for me just like my other classmates and were getting acquainted with each other as everyone said his admiration and future plans. Most of them were waiting for the day they will start learning so as to enter the library and do what they could do best and that is studying."You know what Frank I came to this prestigious University to research and study", that was one of my friends who turned out to be rather a bookworm. As days went by the University turned to be a beehive of activities and we could as well get different assignments and now we thought that we could start doing what had brought us into the campus and that is studying. However to my dismay every time we had an assignment and given some of the references to use in our libraries, one could not get the book and this was so unlike what we expected and this led to us acquiring other methods to ensure that we have to finish the work and this is how the idea of Google was born to most of the student and incubated by the fact that most people could not access the books and latest periodicals from the libraries. All one could get are the classics where one has to read so much just to get a point.Since most of the students had at least gone through or done some computer lessons, that was not a very big problem and so you could at least a phrase or a topic of study and everything are there in front of you so the eyes do the work just like that. Assignments could now be done in the eve of submission day and even printed and binding done to the document.However as years went by the reading culture was highly eroded by the search engine and could hardly read anything apart from lecturers notes which in a way are so scrappy considering that most of the lecturers are old and somewhat disorganized. The reading culture as they say went to the dogs and the epitome of it is seen when some of the students enter examination rooms with expensive phones for fast internet access just to download answers and charts to back their ignorance up.However the Google phenomenon has some of it's advantages which include to proof check the answers given by other sources such as the print media and others. It is also a fast way of reading some quick information like biographies of people or sometimes the articles on some strong personalities. It also publishes recent articles and so one has the latest information if you really need any.There are so many factors however that may lead to Google gaining popularity and staying for sometime and that includes the way lecturers will conduct themselves and the level of information they will continue to give to the students. If the lecturers will start doing a great job then nobody will even think of Google otherwise it will be relevant. Universities should also try as much as possible to invest in books and other electronic sources which will go in handy to assist learners evade the Google phenomenon. For my case I still give the classic way of studying books a plus what about you?
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