To think this is unacceptable from a university

[curaçao]

My dd us in the first year of a degree and every couple of weeks will have a timwtable clash.She us not doing a joint honours of 2 random subjects, but some of her modules will be with people from other courses.
It makes me really annoyed when she is paying so much and forced to have to miss lectures fairly regularly.
This is in a uni which is listed in the uk top 5

I don't think courses being mixed for a shared module is unusual, pretty sure DD had that last year. Presumably it gives all students more choice over modules but does then create schedule clashes. Was DD in control of timings/aware that picking certain modules would create a clash?

This happened to me at uni, I resolved it by skipping lectures and catching up with reading. I wasn’t the most conscientious lecture attender to be honest, so I don’t think anyone noticed….

DD2's experience of recorded lectures was that this was also a shambles - poor quality, incomplete, sometimes missing altogether.

DD2 had to work damn hard to get her degree. Having to sort timetable clashes every semester, trying to work out whether a lecture recording existed/was usable, constantly liasing between two different science schools which barely acknowledged the other existed.

Now looking back she wishes she had chosen a different subject which would have allowed her a less chaotic university experience.

At the end of her course the course leader did apologise to her, saying they had let her down.

Yes that's crap. I work in a uni and we would never allow this in our department.

Fewer students would give them less slots to choose from to structure their timetable around. You don't need as many classes for a reduced size student group, so it might not be an advantage. They need to be choosing their slots the day they open enrollment in them to get all the choice. If not, they'll have to pick from what's left over and hope it works out to a good timetable.

To those saying 'why did she choose classes that clash?' is that the student's choice? WHen I was there we had a timetabling officer (absolute genius) who made sure this didn't happen and I think if there were inevitable clashes, you couldn't't take certain modules.
DD shouldn't be missing classes when it isn't her fault!

Sounds like a failure of their timetable team tbh or their program director giving them the wrong information!

Or even this semester. Assuming courses in UK are taught as a block of 2 terms/1 semester like here, she might be able to take one of the subjects in the second half of this university year instead.

DD has timetable clashes too- she’s at one of the top Scottish universities. She follows a set curriculum this term so nothing to do with choices she’s made. She raised issue with uni (as did others) and the timetable was changed but she still had some clashes- was then told there was nothing more they could do….
Think it must be to do with the availability of staff/rooms as most of the clashes are lectures with smaller group stuff (practicals/tutorials).

Its not great but DD is managing- she knows to access the lecture material etc. The only good thing to come out of covid is she’s fairly good at self study!

Some students and parents seem to believe that the £9,250 they pay in England somehow covers the cost of the degree! 😂

We charge £9,250 per year for our degree courses (England), but they cost us around £12,500 p.a. to run. So, for each student, we lose over £3000 per year.

That's why we charge no less than £16,000 per year for our international students, and a lot higher for some subjects e.g., pharmacy, law, etc.

To balance the books, we also need to have contracts with awful regimes like China, Saudi Arabia, etc., so the true cost is in terms of human rights, too.

@ClairDeLaLune

Gone to two Russell group. Both had choices in the first year right the way through..

@Mariposista

Usually you have some core compulsory modules, about 60 - 90 credits.

Then you have a choice of modules to study for the remaining 30-60 credits to total 120.

The reason for this is to give students some experience in areas of interest, to widen their scope to change to a different degree program at a later point or to do a module that might be helpful when applying for postgrad/work placement/employment later.

Students are automatically enrolled and have a place on the modules that are compulsory for their degree.

It is then up to the student to log on, look at the choices for the remaining credits and enrol in a timely fashion.

Sometimes the optional courses book up quickly, either because they are compulsory for another course or because they are really popular (trendy topic, or a lecturer who is known to be a) good or b) to hand out top marks like sweets)

People can hit problems where they leave signing up to courses to the last minute or where they really want to do specific modules where the timetables clash.

The latter happened to me a few times, you have to prioritise which is more important and take a different class that fits with the timetable. Or you negotiate being on both classes and deal with it that you won’t be able to attend all lectures.

I know people who did both, most opted to change from their initial choices to have a workable time table.

The problem isn't just timetable clashes. The problem is how poor the solutions are.

Poor quality, missing or incomplete lecture recordings is down to a lack of management supervision of lecturers and the technology being used.

Students are being accepted onto courses which effectively don't exist. This was my DD's experience. She was the only student on her course by the end. She had to give up the masters element of her degree because the organisation (or rather lack of it) actually managed to get worse.

Poor quality, missing or incomplete lecture recordings is down to a lack of management supervision of lecturers and the technology being used.

Yes, the bog-standard Lecture Capture recordings only really work if the lecturer stands at the lectern throughout (for passable audio) and even then, you only get sound + slides. I have separate home-recorded versions of lectures for all mine, which I make available after the lecture slot for catch-up/revision purposes.

Blimey that sounds complicated ,so glad I didn’t have to do that. I’d have been
in a right mess.
But here isn’t the OPs daughter having issues with core modules? She should be able to attend those.

My first thought @curaçao was - has she made some optional choices which clash? At my place, we just don't permit students to choose options that clash on their timetables.

But if it's all compulsory modules, then that is not great of the university. I suppose they think that it's OK as she can catch up via recordings. It's not good enough - can she get her Student Union or Guild involved?

However, university timetables break computer systems. They are a nightmare. Our teaching week is 08:30 Monday to 1830 Friday to try to accommodate all the demands - for appropriate spaces as much as fitting it all in.

I know parents see all the building & think universities are splashing the cash about, but actually, a lot of university building is to replace or expand teaching spaces - fixed seating in rows all facing the front just doesn't accommodate more current teaching approaches. And the tuition fee barely covers the cost of teaching each student ...

There's a lot of ignorance on this thread from people who attended uni years ago.

At a lot of unis (including mine) students submit their option choices without knowing for sure when they will take place. So they can't prevent clashes themselves, it's down to the software to work out and sometimes it doesn't work

I don't know any uni that does first come, first served for module registration. There's a deadline to submit your choices then everyone is treated the same.

So no, the DD is probably not to blame

It can happen. Lectures are optional though. Also usually the lecturers have written a book. Often easier to just buy the book and learn it that way.

Mine does and I'm currently attending uni, not one who you refer to as having 'attended uni years ago'.

Lectures are not optional!! We have very strict attendance monitoring systems in place.
Not all lecturers have written books either and we aren't just teaching our own research. Also, some lecturers might be on a teaching only contract so research and writing isn't required!

Optional! So no development on from a book which was written 5/10 years ago?

Many subjects are constantly evolving - both my DDs are scientists and have seen huge changes in their subjects in a few years.

Saying 'read the book' is a lazy cop out.

Also .... why pay £9k fees to just 'read the book'
Ridiculous 🙄

That's really unfortunate and surprising, it's not considered good practice these days.

It isn't unfortunate for me. I have to arrange childcare. Therefore I register as soon as the portal opens and immediately select all the classes I'd hoped to do. There has yet to be a clash that I couldn't change to a different class, but if there was, I'd change module. I don't feel in any way disadvantaged. I was given plenty of notice as to when the portal opened. If people don't want to log on promptly it matters not to me.

Until recently, I was a programme manager at a university for over a decade.

We coordinated at a faculty level to make sure there were no clashes of core subjects, no matter which combination of subjects someone chose. That meant lectures or workshops, which ran once a week. Tutorials could end up clashing with a lecture but students were well warned to sign up asap to get a slot that worked for their timetable.

No matter what, I’d have a handful of people come to me every semester to complain about timetable clashes (caused solely by their dilly dallying in signing up). I’d be forced to add them to an already full tutorial class or even create/arrange staffing for an extra group if the room was above capacity 🙄