Summer terms at uni - Is there any tuition?!!!

[bamboowarrior]

Am hearing reports that the third term doesn't really exist - that it's just reading week and exams- is this your experience/ understanding?

When did it change?....

I think it's great for them to have time to spare. They are just leaving home, growing up, making new friends and connections - often finding the person they might spend the rest of their life with...

They are learning a whole new set of skills, topics and ideas, which can be quite intense and technically challenging - it's great there is some breathing space.

I did the law conversion course in a year - followed by LPC - I did it all okay, but nothing much else for those years socially or in any other way really. So intense. But I had already done a three year degree. It would have been sad for my experience of higher education to be as intense as those law years - I'd have missed out on a lot of experience.

Do take the costs pov, though - my own experiences were thirty years ago!

@CorsicaDreaming That is pretty much it - a question on a certain theme which appears across several texts to varying degrees.

Depending on which text / extract they are given the answer will be quite different, and harder to answer, but there is plenty that can be prepped in advance.

You can do 2 year degrees. But then your first year counts towards final mark. Do more suitable for grads-ie senior status law.

Precisely, young people develop a lot over the three years, in fact my son is doing a 4 year course (common in music where your skills have to develop over time).

A 3 year degree allows you to find your feet at that level academically. Modules are not all the same level. The A level/Btec courses most will have done are Level 3 then the frist year of a degree are Level 4. Jumping straight into Level 5 modules in the first year plus having to have the marks count would be incredibly difficult.

My university offers some condensed degrees and they only really appeal to mature students. Your typical 18 year old undergraduate is still opting for a traditional 3/4 year degree.

Buckingham has always offered 2 year degrees. However they are near the bottom of league tables, so be careful what you wish for.

I don’t really understand why students cannot go to lectures, do the other work required, and have a bit of downtime! It’s all experience of life and the canny ones make it count! Applying for internships keeps plenty busy. Or planning their summers. There are societies and other activities to give breadth to the university experience too. Even chatting to other students adds to knowledge. Plus cooking and general shopping.

DD did GDL too. Managed to find time to spend hours at the local CABs. They were encouraged to do more than just study. However I don’t see anything wrong with building up to a higher workload. You spend years at work after all. Have a bit of fun whilst you can.

I teach in a medical school. I know I have a lot of teaching in the second week of May, and students have their last teaching on 19 May and then several revision sessions the following week. I know it's different for some other, non-healthcare, courses across the university. Exams are in last week of May and first week of June. These have to be marked and all marks pulled together in time for an exam board meeting in the first week of July. We work on two 18-week semesters, but there is a 3-week vacation within each (Christmas and Easter), so it's 15 weeks of teaching/assessments in each semester.

So what do students do between midmay and September??....

It's up to them. I'd say most of them get jobs and/or travel. Some don't do very much, but of course if they're not working they don't have any money (unless parents subsidise them).

Universities aren't schools. The staff who teach undergraduates also have other things they need to do: supervision of postgraduate students, research, course development, updating of teaching & assessment materials, etc., and these take up a bigger proportion of their time when the undergraduates aren't there. Many will also have significant roles with external organisations: industry, NGOs, government departments, etc.

Seems to be the case with my SD- one week of lectures and now that's it - she's working a job back in her home town while revising for the few exams she has and these exams are done online!!

Universities aren't schools. The staff who teach undergraduates also have other things they need to do: supervision of postgraduate students, research, course development, updating of teaching & assessment materials, etc., and these take up a bigger proportion of their time when the undergraduates aren't there. Many will also have significant roles with external organisations: industry, NGOs, government departments, etc

Then stop charging these irrelevant undergrads 9k a year.

Nursing isn’t like this. On my (recent) nursing degree we went from the first week of September to the last week in July. Anyone who flunked a placement/exam had to retake it in the 6 week gap, meaning that you didn’t really get a summer. I was always surprised how much holiday all the other students got.

Then stop charging these irrelevant undergrads 9k a year.

If they didn't charge £9k a year they wouldn't be able to run undergraduate programmes. UGs are 9 month long programme-years. They have never been 12 months long - hence a year is 120 credits compared to a Masters year which is 180 credits for 12 months.

Then stop charging these irrelevant undergrads 9k a year.

Nobody said they are irrelevant. They are an important part of universities' work, but they are not all of it.

I forgot to mention resit exams, which usually run in August.

That's not what she said.

Teaching is supposedly 40% of my job. It's a very important part, and my favourite in truth, but it's only one component.

Don't know about you, but we had so many sitting August exams last year that we seemed to go directly from the summer exams and exam board into August into the new year. Hoping we'll be able to catch our breath this year!

I'm sure we finished really early when I was at uni, back in the 90s. I just got a summer job!

Then stop charging these irrelevant undergrads 9k a year.

Nobody said they were irrelevant. Just that their fees don't mean academics are solely focussed on them.
Their fees cover so much more than classroom teaching.

Then stop charging these irrelevant undergrads 9k a year.

Undergrads are not irrelevant and the £9k tuition fee doesn’t actually cover the costs of their education.

The costs of teaching Domestic/Home undergrads are subsidised by staff unpaid overtime, postgrad fees, international student fees, and other university income streams (such as research funding).

It’s surely important that lecturers actually do research to inform and develop their knowledge which they can then impart to students. No lecturing job is just teaching. It’s worth pointing out that students are consumers. Check out the value of the degree before you sign up. Is it what you think it will be? How is it assessed? Degrees with a work element, such as nursing, are always different in terms of semesters.

Plus some degrees, eg medicine, cost the taxpayer way more than £9000 pa charged to the student.

It’s surely important that lecturers actually do research to inform and develop their knowledge which they can then impart to students.

Exactly. I have protected research time in my contract for that reason.

I think the 2 semester organisation at lots of universities makes them different from school. I don’t quite see why parents don’t understand this and the need to be taught by experts in their field. If we stand still how do we teach innovation and a broader width within the subject? That’s surely partly what a university is about.

There are things students can do whilst making use of their paid for accommodation at university. Especially in cities with employment/volunteering opportunities.

My daughter's got a summer internship running from the beginning of June to mid-August. Her uni is still on 3 terms so in fact she's going to be starting her internship then ducking back to uni for a couple of days the following week when she has group presentations to do. She has had a significant amount of teaching this term I think; her course is predominantly coursework assessed.

Yup! DS is doing Drama (Yr2) , had practical exam work last term (end March) then essays due 5 May and then 'nothing' until new term in Sept. It would be perfectly possible for students to leave/ do nothing now, but a lot of his course are involved in producing shows and student films and seeking summer internships etc.
DS is busy rehearsing a show for the Edinburgh festival in August.