cant understand why FULL TIME college courses, are not full time,.. not like in my day..

[slartybartfast]

ds has college 2 and a half days a week, this is a full time course. previously he was at another college with so many gaps in the day
it does not help with them at all imo. When they go out to work it will be such a shock to the system.
all this free time is meant to be study time, pah - they would have to be very motivated to spend this free time in the library.

why arent they full time anymore,?
even if they were say mornings at least it would be better than it seems to be. one of his friends goes to a full time college course 2 days a week [hshock]
]

[GoSakuramachi]

are you seriously complaining that its the colleges fault that your son won't do the required out of class study?

[TheHeirOfSlytherin]

I agree, dh is looking at college but the couse he wants to do is "full time" and so far the quotes we've had from various colleges have varied from between 2 - 4 days per week.

And there is no such thing as "night school" anymore apparently .

[TheHeirOfSlytherin]

Sorry, just to clarify - I'm looking at this in more of a "since when is full time the equivalent of half a week" way.

[mutny]

I want to respond, but its so ridiculous I can't think of what to say without offending the OP.

I shall return.

[Mrsjay]

DD is in her 2nd year she goes 18 hours or 'something' she has 1 long day and a short day sigh in my day it was 9 to 4 every day . TBF dd does to a lot of her stuff online and emails work in , she is doing a degree but in a college which is a new thing as well she has a job though I wasnt having her saying but I am at uni full time,

[NorbertDentressangle]

A friend of mine is doing a degree course and as well as it seeming to be minimum time spent at college it also seems that they don't receive a timetable until the very last minute and that they cancel lectures and move them around at very short notice.

Back in my day lecture times were set in stone and never changed, let alone changed on a weekly basis.

[Mrsjay]

I think it is so it is flexible that students could work as well as study and do independent work

[aldiwhore]

The time element of a course isn't just lectures, it's about study. You can choose not to study, but I chose TO study and put in more than full time working hours.

The college expects students to be grown up, manage their workload and allow time for them to study. They expect you to put in the hours.

It's not the colleges fault your son is possibly lazy (or can wing it on the bare minimum) and you really should be criticising your son for not putting in the hours, rather than the college for not babysitting him enough.

[froggies]

I did an honours degree 20 years ago at Glasgow University. In my first year my week went like this: Monday 3hrs, Tuesday 6hrs, Wednesday 3hrs, Thursday 6hrs, Friday 2hrs. (tues and thur were only that long because I did a science degree and had to go to labs) actual class times didn't change much throughout the 4 yr course, but I did spend slightly more time in the library and slightly less in the pub as I got towards my honours year.

I am now back at uni, working towards a different undergraduate degree (change of career post children), next year I will be full time as my youngest starts school, and I will be in 2 days 9.00 - 4.15, with the rest 'self directed study'. If the work I have had as a part time student so far from 1 day a week is anything to go by, I will need all of the other 3 days and probably some evenings to do what is needed to pass the course well.

If he is sitting around doing nothing, he may have a big surprise waiting for him when it comes to assignmnet deadlines/exams

I don't think much has changed time wise tbh, but I was surprised at how intensive my day at college is compared to the lectures of 20 yrs ago that I sat (slept) through.

[Mrsjay]

The time element of a course isn't just lectures, it's about study. You can choose not to study, but I chose TO study and put in more than full time working hours.

ypu are right aldi it is about the time you put in away from the actual building which i suppose is putting good use of your time IYSWIM. dd had an essay and an assesment due this week and she did it at home

[TheHeirOfSlytherin]

it also seems that they don't receive a timetable until the very last minute and that they cancel lectures and move them around at very short notice

[slartybartfast]

no this isnt university. and not about my ds.

i said to dd recently my college course was 5 days a week, 9 til, cant remember, she was surprised and asked when i studied. well i studied in the evening. same as at school.

my ds and his attitude aside.


why so much study time was my question - what about evengins and weekends.

[slartybartfast]

i cant see why so many of you seem to have got the wrong end of the stick [hhmm]

[GoSakuramachi]

Students need jobs as well, if they went to college all day and studied evenings and weekends, when would they earn money to do things like eat?

[TiggyD]

To give a full answer we would need to know exactly how old you are OP.

[mummytime]

Well when I did A'levels back in the dark ages we had free periods, in which we did study. My DS is doing A'levels and is expected to do at least 1 hour study for each hour taught.

You can do evening courses, Birkbeck even still does degrees in the evening.

[slartybartfast]

i take it tiggyD that this has been the case for some time.
i am 47
and i worked while at college

[SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter]

I think it depends what you study. I went to art college in the early 80s and classes and lectures only took up about 16 hours a week. The rest of the time we were expected to study and work on projects. DS2 went in the mid 00s, and attended for a similar number of hours.

My other sons did A'levels and academic courses and did attend full time - 9-4.

[ElectricMonk]

As others have said, the limited contact hours should prepare college students very well for university.

My college contact time was very similar to your son's, and I used some of the independent study time to do a full extra A-level, and do 3 challenging jobs (1 night each per week) which helped me to get an even more useful job in my university town. My attendance was piss-poor due to illness and the fact that I frequently went to the library to work because the class was moving too slowly for me.

As a result, when I started university I was well used to structuring my study time, making the most of all of the resources available (nearby libraries, the internet etc), and working until I felt satisfied that I understood everything rather instead of clocking off at 4pm. I'm pretty sure that my crap college attendance is the main reason I got 1st class marks for every module in first year (and carried on improving consistently throughout my degree) without any difficulty while other intelligent students were struggling to adjust.

TBH, if you have more than a couple of hours of "free time" per day while you're in FE or HE, you're doing it wrong. Your non-contact time is there for preparing for classes and building up your transferable skills through work and volunteering. We were told that for every hour in the classroom we should be doing a minimum of 10 hours at home, and it's easy to do that now that resources like Google Books and Google Scholar make so much study material accessible to everyone. Once you've done that, taken care of home/family responsibilities and added 1 or 2 useful (i.e. relevant to your field) extracurriculars into the mix, you don't have much time left over for yourself at all!

[TiggyD]

Wow! 47!
Must have been hard with rationing and the German threat constantly on your mind.
Damn that Kaiser!


I did the NNEB (Nursery Nursing) at college. That was really full time. We were always envious of the students who had study periods. We had absolutely none.

[slartybartfast]

no, i had none Tiggy. [hwink]

[Groovee]

I did nursery nursing. First year we had 3 weeks in college, 3 weeks in placement but on a Friday we had college in the morning until christmas then Fri pm too.

Second year was 2 weeks on placement 2 weeks in college with a friday off to study.

[Tailtwister]

When I was at uni (admittedly a loooong time ago!), most people didn't do full-time hours (as in 9-5, 5 days a week) unless they were doing the sciences. I had friends who were studying English and had a few hours a week with the rest self study.

[mummytime]

I did Science at Uni, and even we didn't do 9-5 5 days a week. We did 3 hours each afternoon, except Wednesday (2-5) and one morning (9-12) in the laboratory, then we had 12 hours of lectures spread over the rest of the weekday mornings (9-1). Then 3 tutorials.
The rest of the time was supposed to be study, except Wednesday afternoons which were free for sport. You were also expected to: write up labs, prepare for tutorials, write essays, and do background study. You were also expected to do extra-curricular activities, volunteer and have a part-time job.