1st Year, 3rd term, no content?

[UniProblem]

DC at Uni - 1st year and 3rd term. No work, no lectures etc have been scheduled for term 3 so DC has nothing to do. DC is autistic and struggled with this lack of structure in term 3 so has now come home. (Uni know DC is autistic as adjustments needed to be made and support put in place - not always successful or effective, but that's another story!)

My issue is though is that DC and us as parents have nothing to show for the fees paid for this term.

Is this other people's experiences, that term 3 is effectively 'no work'?

Some universities have two long terms (and short holidays) with all the teaching. "Term 3" runs over the summer and is mainly for international students on certain courses. Students will have had roughly the same amount of teaching weeks (30-35) just divided up differently. If you mention the uni, I'm sure someone could have a little look?

Has he had exams in term 3 @UniProblem ?

When I was at Durham, albeit 30+ years ago, my term 3 in both 1st and final year had no teaching - it was purely for revision and examinations.

In 2nd year, all Science students had their exams directly after Easter break, with the rest of the term spent of field trips and project type work.

Third term is for writing assignments, revision, assessments and examinations. There is rarely much teaching in the third term unless Easter is really early.

My son has this - two semesters, one September to January, one January to May. He had a couple of exams in May, then finished. My sister also did this at Sheffield University thirty years ago!

I think this is fairly standard. Where I work, term 3 has some revision classes, exams and coursework deadlines.
Maybe some departmental social activities.

Dd has just had same at Durham. Exams finished last week and expected to stay in uni until 23rd june. Did sept to beginning of December, then jan to easter.

Unless his course actually runs across T3, there won't be anything going on. Does his accommodation run all year? Usually the halls of residence finish around now as almost all students head home. The exceptions are usually medicine/health + society.

DC - also ASD - finished year 1 by 10th May. Picked him up last week as there was no point in being there.

I have zero memory of being finished at uni this early.

Mine (also ASD) finished lectures at the end of April, having had short Christmas and Easter holidays the same as the school ones and started earlier than most in September. All assignments had to be in about a fortnight after that and he’s home for the summer now. He was a bit bored with the lack of structure in the last month and kept coming home and going back again, he did enjoy a bit of socialising but he is not a party animal.

I don’t look at it as paying fees per term, they are for the year however that is divided up.

No exams, no assignments, no society related stuff, no group get together or studying, nothing organised at all.

As a parent I wondered why we were paying accommodation for term 3 if there was nothing for DC and therefore no reason for them to be there.

There's been nothing at all.

That’s really odd - has he asked his tutors what he’s supposed to be doing? Like PPs I’d expect assessments of some kind depending on what he’s studying.

That seems really odd not having exams at all.

Sounds like he's in one of those unis that cram everything into two long terms. Agreed it's a pain about the extra rent, but it's better than the second year "pay for the whole year" thing.

DD was done and dusted about three weeks ago as "Term 3" didn't apply to her course. Some of her friends have stayed on a bit, but she came home to start a summer job.

That's strange that there are no assessments. When were they assessed?

I am a uni lecturer and after Easter we had 3 weeks of teaching followed by 3 weeks of assessment. Students completed their studies for this academic year last week.

DC had none of that. They could of course revise independently off their own back, but there was nothing organised at all.

If it's only two terms, why have we just had to pay another lot for accommodation? I can't quite see the point?

The term breaks have been a month a piece.

Summer Term is the examination term. We've only just finished marking, ready for the processing, checking, and double checking of every piece of student work, ready for External Examiners to read and survey in a week's time, ready for the Exam Boards in 2-3 weeks time.

Then they graduate in July.

Universities aren't school.

Surely id just depends which modules he has chosen? I always picked really heavy workload in the first 2 terms, then less in 3rd cause of any exams/assignments

Seems unusual that there's not even any exams in the third term.

Which university is it @UniProblem ?

Is it uni accommodation? Usually that's for ... example ...38 - 42 weeks because that's the length of the courses plus inter semester breaks.

Private accommodation is for the full year usually though

My son's runs exams within the trimester itself so 2 trimesters of work including exams, one trimester off.
.

At my university (Scotland so 4 year course and possibly different structure, I'm not sure) term 3 was only for Masters degrees and certain courses that required it. The rest of us had our exams or final assessments in May/June and then that was it until September. We'd just go home and come back after summer.

My kid is at Bristol has had very little
content full stop in their first year. Never mind last term. It’s a joke.

Lacklustre teaching. Very little opportunities to discuss or debate.
One exam this term which may not be marked. They were so excited and have been so uninspired by the year. There is only so much ‘independent reading’ you can do when your lecturers don’t give a shit.

They have paid £9k fees, £8k accommodation plus expenses, to make friends and have halls cooked breakfasts on occasion. Excellent.