DD doesn't have a uni Term 3

[Globules]

Just that really.

She chose modules this year, her first year, that all completed in terms 1 & 2.

She has no lectures and no assignments, nothing, until October 2025.

£9250 academic fees, plus 39 week let fees.

Surely this can't be considered ok?!

Universities do not get everything right, and different courses will be best taught (and examined) in different ways. I wonder to what extent the problem is around student expectation. University is not school. As in the workplace where bosses prefer staff to come to them with a proposed solution as well as a problem, University is about taking ownership of your learning.

Wise words @Needmoresleep

Although I'd amend your statement to:

Universities do not get everything right for every student as all students are different

@Needmoresleep DD is one of the mosre confident students on her masters course when it comes to asking teaching staff questions and engaging with them.

I think having a two year break from education and working in a pharmacy where she dealt with people all day, many of whom were quite difficult and demanding, gave her the confidence to be able to do this.

Also a much smaller cohort and having approachable staff has helped.

In their first session using an MRI scanner she was the first student to volunteer to use it as everyone else was too timid to be first.

Again, DD did not expect university to be like school but she did not expect to not know any of the teaching staff apart from her dissertation tutor. Lockdown didn't help of course. 18 months of her degree was online only.

@RampantIvy I am not arguing with you. DD was lucky to spend a year of lockdown at Imperial rather than at Bristol, and with a responsive tutor.

I also agree about benefit of confidence, responsibility and self-starting. On the endless discussions about private schools people usually claim parents want to buy networks and privilege for their DC. Our priority was to buy "education", something DH realised he was lacking when he went from his bog standard comp (no setting or streaming in those ideological days) to Oxford - the only one in his class to go to University.

Not just for University but for the work places afterwards.

Observation suggests that DS and his peers were well prepared for University. They were interested and knew how to pursue those interests. Grades and degree classifications are outputs, a good education is the outcome. A surprising number have gone on to PhDs or are working in innovative STEM environments. Targets have been useful in ensuring schools meet minimum standards, but getting kids through to RG or Oxbridge should not be the aim. The aim should be to prepare students to thrive at the appropriate next stage, whether it be an apprenticeship, a vocational degree, or something academic.

@Needmoresleep I think you are right about privately educated students being more confident. DD took a gap year after A levels and worked and volunteered. It was the making of her.

She was badly bullied at school, who were useless at dealing with it, and it turned her into an anxious mess. However, it is behind her now, and I am just delighted that she is so much more resilient now.

@RampantIvy Absolutely DH's experience. It is so much easier for bright, academic, kids to be in an environment where it is cool to be clever. It not need to be private or grammar. There are some great comps, and the specialist sixths forms including the maths schools, are a good step forward. University lecturers are not the only ones complaining. My builder has a lot to say about the inability of current school leaves to take responsibility and their lack of personal motivation.

Education, particularly at University level, should be on learning and enquiry. University staff are there to guide, not to spoon feed.

University staff are there to guide, not to spoon feed.

Yes. DD's cohort were told this at one of the introductory lectures. It was reiterated when a student asked what they should be revising for in the December exams. The lecturer basically said "this isn't school".

I do wonder, though, if schools make this point to year 13s sufficiently enough, especially if lecturers are saying that too many students are ill prepared for self motivated independent study.

DD is very competitive academically and realised that she needed to read around her subject to achieve a first, which she duly did. She said that the students who didn't achieved a lower degree classification.

@RampantIvy I do wonder if some dc just are not very mature. Even if they are told what to expect, it doesn’t mean they have the skills needed to do the work as required at university. However the truth is for many it won’t matter. Hardly anyone gets a 2:2. Does a third even exist? They don’t need to get a first either. They just want a job and many won’t be looking at a very competitive one so being just about good enough is ok.

Doesn't that depend on whether you see a degree education as an output or outcome.

The output is a 2.1. The outcome is an education that includes knowledge and skills as the ability to think critically and to take ownership of your education.

The problem may be that some parents do not understand the difference.

I would say most people rather than some parents.

DD isn't in the (some may say) privileged position of education for educational sake. However, she has found her calling with a masters that will practically guarantee her a job - doing what she wants to do.

My point was not education for education's sake, but that some, including Tizer, seem to assume that you go to University to get your 2.1, which then gets you your job.

Tizer is right in that if you do just about enough you will probably get your 2.1. And if you don't you probably blame the University.

The alternative is to go to University (or vocational course or apprenticeship), choose your course and teaching style carefully and then fully engage. Read round where appropriate, ask questions of whoever is teaching/supervising you, discuss course content with peers, attend voluntary lectures or take up language learning options etc, you will have learnt more and will be better educated. There will also be scope for other life skills around tackling problems with your course or with your tenancy. DD had a lot of group working so learned quickly that most times she would end up doing more than her share if she wanted the learning. The student who properly engages will end up with a raft of key employability skills. These are outcomes.

The alternative is to go to University (or vocational course or apprenticeship), choose your course and teaching style carefully and then fully engage. Read round where appropriate, ask questions of whoever is teaching/supervising you, discuss course content with peers, attend voluntary lectures or take up language learning options etc, you will have learnt more and will be better educated.

And get involved with extra-curricular activities that give you further skills, friends, a network, application of skills, a way to develop yourself to be an interesting person, a passion, expertise beyond just your discipline/job ...

Don’t any of these students do stuff outside their courses? My DD has only one exam in about two weeks, but this week has had revision lecture, two essays due, a seminar, plus a load of stuff to do with her roles outside her course (an editor on the student newspaper, she’s also the student volunteer coordinator and secretary for another society etc). Plus socials. Fairly full on for May at least, less in June (though she starts a university related internship then). I’m not picking her up til the end of June.

For my DD last teaching was 1st April. Dissertation and two essays submitted by 25th April (no exams).

In final year now so has had 4×4 month gaps (4-year degree).

Does do society things and political work, goes on holiday, ups her hours at term time job, did two internships (penultimate year), did a couple of early career experience things, reads more widely, watches more films, did a couple of short courses. So keeps busy. However if she had the choice she would have preferred a shorter more intensive course to save money. I get that this is not for everyone but could be popular. I think 2 of my 3 would have preferred this. One who did vocational degree happy as is (he worked in jobs relevant to degree each summer from 2nd year on) and liked a break from uni.

@Needmoresleep Utter rubbish! It’s against everything I stand for. I have never ever advocated dc just get a degree and that’s enough. I’ve seen the problems insufficient work ethic brings so I don’t believe a degree is enough for one minute. I’ve said time and time again - get a job, be an intern, volunteer, run a society, learn extra skills. Loads of activities can enhance a cv and dc absolutely need to do them. Especially anything that lends itself towards the job dc want. So use time wisely.

Does do society things and political work, goes on holiday, ups her hours at term time job, did two internships (penultimate year), did a couple of early career experience things, reads more widely, watches more films, did a couple of short courses.

And these are the things which, together with her degree, will make her sand out from the crowd in graduate job applications. They show initiative, interest, self-starting, and discipline. Apart from making her a much more interesting person.

I don't like it either. Where else in life would you only accept 2/3 of anything : a meal, a holiday, a flight, your salary, anything else. What are students paying for, they are paying for the course, to be taught. By a teacher. Not an online course, because anyone can pay for that elsewhere. I just don't think it's ok.

What makes you think students are paying for 2/3s of the 'product'?

It has been explained in this forum many many many times that
a) the UK resident undergrad tuition fee doesn't cover the full cost of their tuition
b) there are a range of fixed costs that universities must cover in order for students to study, which are 12 months of the year. Te tuition fee does not simply devolve into an "hourly rate" for teaching hours. THe universities must pay for lighting, heating, library, estates costs, etc etc etc
c) university is not school; academics are not "teachers.'

@LittleBigHead universities cannot sell students short by pleading poverty. Employers can already see grads are not what they expect at times. Undoubtedly universities waste money and haven’t responded quickly enough to a contracting student body. Universities should say degrees are compromised by lack of funds. Of course they don’t say that and the consumer believes they are getting what they signed up for. In effect they are being lied to. What the university does with their money should not impinge on the degree quality. If universities cannot pay for what they do, don’t do it.

@TizerorFizz you seem to be confusing and conflating a number of issues here. Not to mention making a number of unsubstantiated statements.

If a student feels they have been mis sold their degree there are a ways and means for them to challenge this with the university and the Office for Students.

The previous poster suggested that by having 'no term 3'. Students were only receiving 2/3s of the product. Which is incorrect.
When a student enrols at a university it is made very clear how many credits they are studying and the modules they will undertake. Module specifications state the number of hours that will be spent on lectures, seminars and tutorials. It will even state what term the module will be taught in and the assessment methods. All of this information is available to the students at the start of their degree.

Universities are pleading poverty because they are currently trying to deliver a product in 2025 while being forced to charge 2012 prices. Regardless of your views on higher education surely you can understand that that will cause issues?

It’s the absolute norm not to have any teaching in term three. What is unusual is her not having exams. Typically term three you are frantically revising for and then taking your end of year exams.

The problem is not only the fee level but the degree of admin/bureaucracy caused by universities competing with each other. I think when the student number caps were removed and the fee per student was made equal to the (then) cost of provision people thought that competition would increase quality of education - it didn't - it just forced wasteful spending on consultants and university managers being forced to do things that they are very much unsuited for. The death spiral that many unis are in is resulting in even more spending on outside groups.

Undoubtedly universities waste money and haven’t responded quickly enough to a contracting student body.

Tell me you know nothing about how universities work, without telling me you know nothing ...

@LittleBigHead Are you always so patronising? I think what I wrote is self evident to anyone in business.

@TizerorFizz
But it is very obvious that you don't know how universities operate. Or you refuse to acknowledge the regulatory restrictions that universities operate under.
Probably a bit of both ...

You also make sweeping assumptions about the views of students and employers which are not accurate.