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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

81 replies

slartybartfast · 24/10/2012 17:10

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]
]

OP posts:

Dordeydoo · 24/10/2012 20:44

Left college this year in June. My course was 5 days a week. 2 at a placement then 3 in college.

WildWorld2004 · 24/10/2012 20:46

It isnt all college courses. My sis was at college & they were in 4 days a week but also had to be logged into the college system a certain amount of hours a day aswell.

PrideOfChanur · 24/10/2012 21:13

DD has just started at college,I was expecting her to be out of the house and yet here she still is...she is studying ICT,says they have been told they will have work given,but not yet,and she is adamant that she understands everything covered so far.
My degree course,science based and in the 70's was properly full time,with evening stuff as well,and I find it very hard to get my head round 2 1/2 dats a week.

geegee888 · 24/10/2012 21:45

It is full-time OP. Students are supposed to go to the library or wherever and study there outwith class contact times. The only courses I think that are full-time taught are practical ones like medicine and dentistry.

FunBagFreddie · 24/10/2012 21:53

I did an HND many years ago and it was far more intensive than the degree. We had to be in pretty much 9 to 5 every day and stay late once a week. Then I went and topped up to a degree, talk about culture shock.

Loveweekends10 · 25/10/2012 00:52

Most of my students are gratefull they are not on timetable 2 days a week as they need to work. Some also have gcse classes and functional skill classes to fit in ( others don't). We advise all student now to get voluntary work experience so they need additional time for this. Also we expect them to write assignments which are about 2000-3000 words and they quite often cannot do this with 24 other students around them.
If certain students are not using their time effectively for private study or to gain valuable work experience when not in class at age 16 or 17 then it's worrying that they will ever have the capacity to go onto HE or indeed work in a more professional capacity.
I would stop blaming the college for not chaining your ds to a chair 9-5 five days a week and have a talk about self- motivation and how to gain wider skills to ready him for the world of work.

Lueji · 25/10/2012 01:13

It's full time, because they are expected to do class work and independent work.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 25/10/2012 06:49

It sounds very well-organised to me!

When I did my A Levels I had to go in every single day, even the day I had one 35-minute lesson and the rest free periods. It was such a waste of my time and transport costs. At least they have sensibly put all his contact hours across the same period so he can work out how to use the rest of his time.

I would think an employer wants people who're motivated, btw - if someone can't be bothered to study independently for two and a half days (which is all it'd need to make a full five-day week), frankly, they are unlikely to be very employable.

greenbananas · 25/10/2012 06:58

What is the course? I do think that is relevant.

On my degree course in English (many years ago) we only had 10-12 hours of actual lectures each week, but our reading list was horrendous. I spent a lot of time in bed, with piles of Elizabethan literature overflowing all around me.

My friends on science courses had 25-30 hours of lectures and contact time each week, but far less 'homework'.

OldCatLady · 25/10/2012 07:49

College is not the same as school. You are not spoonfed and then do a few hours homework. In your lessons you are taught and you do your work in your own time. You are supposed to do a lot of reading, a lot of research and a lot of essays (all dependant on subject of course).

Wait till they go to uni, I had 7 hours of lectures a week, but put in well over 30 hours of my own study a week, usually around 40, making it a 47 hour week, plus worked 16 hours part time. Go figure.

Penelope1980 · 25/10/2012 08:13

When I was at uni I only had about 10 contact hours a week, but would have been in for a nasty shock if I hadn't still studied and read the assigned readings each day. In some courses - esp the arts - the real learning isn't when you listen to someone lecture, it's being able to read books and craft essays on your own

Boomerwang · 25/10/2012 08:18

I would have loved that. When I was at college I had to go in every day but I could spend as little as two hours at a lecture.

Would have been nice to squash it into a couple of days so that I could work regular hours as well.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 25/10/2012 08:19

I suspect that funding and staffing cuts in HE have a lot to do with it. Lecturers are really stretched in some institutions these days.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 25/10/2012 08:31

But of course it works well for the students as a lot of them have jobs. A lecturing friend of mine says its a nightmare trying to organise a time for his tutorials as he has to work round everyone's jobs! Uni isn't what it used to be and I suspect it will change even more if you read the item in the news today about worries that the government has underestimated tuition fees that unis will charge and grossly overestimated the amount that graduates will earn in terms of them recouping student loans - 75 grand per annum!!!! I don't know of any of my graduate frriends who earn that or have any hope of ever earning that and I'm talking mid 90s graduates so not just newly graduated and getting their faces known.

H.E. as we have known it for a number of years will have to change radically. I personally think it will goback to the old days. Russell group unis only for graduate entry-only careers like law, medicine etc. with most ordinary families unable to afford to send their children there. Very sad.

EdithWeston · 25/10/2012 08:36

"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"

Well, I'm old and it was definitely like that in my day - 8-14 contact hours a week, and only those who had the self motivation went to college or university, because the ability to do the work without someone spoon-feeding it to you was necessary.

Oddly enough, employers love it too: streams like "motivated" and "self starter" anoint in job descriptions, and from an HR point of view the candidate who appeared to know that work was about understanding the task and getting it done would always rank much more highly than the candidate who appeared to require constant direction.

fluffyraggies · 25/10/2012 09:05

Eldest DD has finished college now - that was 9 till 4, 4 days per week, one study day, weekend off. I thought that was pretty part time ish. I was expecting 5 days a week like school

DD 2 is now at college (different college) She seems to be hardly there! The max is 3 and a half days. The full days are only 9 till 2ish. The half day gets dropped on a regular basis because of all kinds of bizare reasons. This week DD has been told not to bother going in tomorrow because there's nothing to do !?!? She's up to date with her work (indeed has redone some of it from scratch) and has time on her hands. We're rural here so the job situation is dire. I'd rather they worked harder and got the course done in half the time tbh.

then she could be out there earning me some housekeeping

As a gereral point i know where you're coming from OP. I get a bit annoyed with DDs BF keep expecting her to spend half the week round at his because he too is on a 'full time' college course which seems to take up about 10 minutes a week, and he's bored

I started full time work at 17 and would have loved time to be bored ...

Mrsjay · 25/10/2012 09:10

MY dd starts a training/internship in March so I guess the 18ish hours means she will be able to do that along side her course so getting practical experience (and be paid)

geegee888 · 25/10/2012 10:03

I can actually contrast it quite well because I am doing a Higher evening class at a local college. So I guess the OP would agree the course was full time if what was done there occasionally happened - the lecturer teacher hovers around the classroom while the students pupils work away on questions on their own, rather than going off to the library to do them alone or in their spare time.

I don't like it, and I can't see the point of arranging class contact time for it, when its something students have to learn to do themselve at university or when they go into the workplace. For under 16s it has a point - to teach them how to concentrate and focus and good study habits - beyond that age, students should be developing the skills and techniques to work on their own and self motivate.

Loveweekends10 · 25/10/2012 12:36

Personally I think it's more to do with parents wanting them out of their hair. Why don't you arrange some voluntary work for them then that will enhance their CV.

complexnumber · 25/10/2012 12:54

I think a time will come soon when students will object to paying the fees for what constitutes as very little in return, apert from 10 hours' lectures and the use of the library.

Universities, imo, will start to offer 2 year 'concentrated' degrees with far more hours spent in the lecture hall, thus saving students (or parents) around £9000.

They may well miss out on the 'uni experience', but it will be a heck of a lot cheaper.

Loveweekends10 · 25/10/2012 13:01

I think it's sad that people view uni life as 10 hours of lectures and use of computers. Everything comes down to cost. Input/ output. What a dull world we now live in.

complexnumber · 25/10/2012 13:22

I agree entirely Loveweekends, it's just that how can the average student afford that for 3 years?

Something will have to give, hopefully before my DDs are uni age (that is if they want to go)

LRDtheFeministDragon · 25/10/2012 13:27

Ten hours' lectures and use of the library?

That's all, is it?

Oh, that's good! I shan't bother marking essays, and no-one need set or mark exams, and we can all stop designing courses to teach or preparing for lessons. And while we're at it, we can give up on lab space, pastoral care, IT support .... goodness, what a lot of things we won't have to bother to do if students and their parents think they're paying 9k for 'ten hours' lectures and use of the library'.

I would like to go back to the old system of fewer, good student going to university and getting their costs paid, don't get me wrong. But there is a lot more being paid for that ten hours of contact time and 'use' of a library.

Loveweekends10 · 25/10/2012 13:32

The fact is and it is happening right now. Unless your children get A or Bs at A level they will not be going to uni in the future. Unis now have no cap on how many of these type of students they can take. They don't want those with C or D anymore. I teach Level 3 courses and the Ucas points for courses are rising by 20 to 30 points each year. This government are looking for unis to be elite organisations once again. Why do you think they suddenly changed the GCSE English grade boundaries.
Most of my time is being spent at the moment helping disillusioned 17 year olds who are not wonderfully academic yet still have their hopes up that they can get to university. So god help the ones that we must force to do some private study. They don't stand a bloody chance.

domesticgodless · 25/10/2012 13:34

It's astonishing isn't it LRD that people now measure the 'value' of a degree in 'contact time'.

I actually think students love lectures and seminars- since they get to sit down passively looking like they give a sh* while dozing off/zoning out. :D

In seminars I prod mine to talk including giving presentations etc and you would think I were asking them to justify themselves to a police officer. They giggle, snort, roll eyes etc.

I gave a pretty complicated lecture this morning for 1hour and left deliberate time for questions. It's a topic that's always either avoided or badly answered.

I got precisely one question from the entire group. The rest just slumped.

I told them all to READ over the slides and the rest of the topic then make sure they UNDERSTOOD it and if not please email me for clarifications needed. Silence.

I said something to one of my seminar groups the other day when they were complaining about 'too much reading' jokingly (sort of) ie 'do you think you are ready for a 10 hour day as a solicitor' and they all laughed uproariously. :D They are third years!

As if being on a job is going to involve being 'managed' and sitting snoozing for 2 hours of the day and chatting and having coffee for the rest of it!

No wonder the legal profession are complaining they just can't recruit trainee solicitors who have any idea about work.

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