Any parents of Y12 DCs up for a support thread?

[cardibach]

to get us through AS and university Open Days etc.?

Snowy, my DS went to Bath today too. Hope you had a good day. He came back and said something along the lines of "yeah, looks alright". He's going to Birmingham tomorrow.

Oh, been away from this thread for a couple of days and missed saying well done to cardibach's DD!

It's certainly open day season for DD and all her friends. Big week coming up for various friends - Manchester tomorrow, Oxford mid week, Exeter last week and 800 mile round trips to Edinburgh last weekend!

For my DD, we had together decided London wasn't for her. Then she went to a taster day at Kings, and loved it! So rethinking the criteria for the list.....

In a hotel in Liverpool with DD for Open Day. We have had Thai for dinner and are now watching QI. Got upgraded to an executive room so living it up! :) hope it is a good day tomorrow - anyone else going?

Lucky you Cardi

Ds went to Imperial today but went out partying and havent seen him yet. Have to be up at 5.30 to go to Leeds tomorrow.
Im going with him to Brunel on thursday, abd Dh tajing him to Nottingham and Durham on Friday/Sat

Glad to find you lot/your DCs are going to a lot of Open Days -none of DDs friends are. As she says, how can you decide what to out on your UCAS lost if you have never been? Lovely night's sleep in my executive bed

Well done CardibachDD
DS went to Warwick yesterday and came home buzzing. He loved every bit of it and thinks it will be his 1st choice. Of course he hasn't been to any other open days yet.......
Durham on Monday and then he is going back to Warwick for a one day Maths thing.

Well, Liverpool is a strike. THey don't take the Welsh Bac (they're actually not allowed not to accept it, but they obviously think they are more important than everyone else
Still, she didn't like it as much as Coventry anyway!

thats a shame Cardibach.
Leeds was very good today. Ds liked everything about it, but its the first open day so might feel differently one hes seen a few more.
Thought yesterday was an open day but it was just some sort of lecture.

Cheltenham today and it currently lies top (has 250 applicants for 50 places :( ) bournemouth is second currently - that has a 15% offer rate. Falmouth is a non starter.

Kez I was talking to someone last week who is at the end of her first year at Bournemouth. Absolutely loves the town and the student life there, as well, of course as the fact it's at the seaside but she's really disappointed (and her parents are horrified) at the poor quality of the course. Don't know how subject dependent it is, but she's only had 5 - 6 hours of lectures / contact time a week, and that's been in big lectures of 200ish students, with the lecturers just reading their powerpoint slides. Even more stunningly bad - IMO - is that she hasn't had a single lecture since March. She had exams at the end of the first year, and there were a couple of revision sessions - literally, two - and that's all that has been offered by the university for the whole of this term. Of course they've had to pay accommodation up until July and a whole year's fees.
As I say, I don't know how course dependant it is, but it might be worth asking some probing questions.

BackForGood I have some reservations about those complaints. In the 80s I didn't have more than 7 or 8 hours of lectures and seminars any week. And revision sessions? And I think that for many courses that is right. Undergraduate work should be about your own development, reading and independent study and thought. There should be some seminars and tutorials as well as lectures but low hours are not necessarily inappropriate. I wouldn't expect an undergraduate to need revision sessions organised by someone else and I wouldn't expect them o stop working because there were no lectures.
This is what happens when you charge directly - people expect to be passive and have everything done for them. It's a sad situation. Far more worrying than alleged spoon feeding and dumbing down in schools.

Interesting point Cardibach. I think you are right. In some schools they seem to take a half way approach at A level, encouraging self study and research but others continue to spoon feed a la GCSE and that would leave them ill equipped for undergrad study.

DS was going to look at Bath but his friend went last week and hated it so he seems to have struck that off the list. That would have been an overnight trip as it's 4/5 hours each way. All of our DCs seem to be looking to go a long way from home. I think it may not be coincidence .

Thanks backtogood. Is that Bournemouth University, or Arts University Bournemouth? My daughter looked at AUB.

Her course is unusual in that, being Arts and impossibly competitive for real work, the students expect to need a huge amount of time working on lecture material in their own time. What matters with art is the access to equipment, industry links, opportunities, access to tutors for questions, tutorials - possibly very different than an academic degree.

Having chosen BTEC not A levels the self study is already embedded - during assignments, she usually spends 25+ hours a week on self study and practical work in addition to the 15 hours of her course.

The problem I am finding is, if they talk the talk - what happens if they are just good salesmen and those promises don't actually come to fruition?

Kez University.

Well Cardibach - my degree ('85-88), my sister's (85-89) my dh's ('93-97) all had full days of attendance of college - well, full "school hour" type days ... 9 - 3.30 / 9.30 - 4 type hours) - with one afternoon out for sports I think was the idea.

We still had to do independent study, reading, research etc., but it was expected that you did that in the rest of the afternoon, the evenings and at weekends, in addition to the lectures, classes and seminars you had to attend. It's not about "being passive and expecting to have everything done for them", it's about expecting the teaching staff at the university to actually teach. I know some courses have/had fewer contact hours, but there's a big difference between 5-6 hours and 25-30 hours. I don't expect anyone to organise revision sessions either, but I do expect them to teach for the full academic year.
I understand that some people think that's fine to have so little teaching and guidance each week, but I can't believe anyone thinks it's OK for the course to finish in March. Really ??
I know quite a few youngsters who are at / recently finished universities, and the fewer hours seems common, but I've never heard of another college just not giving any lectures, seminars, teaching in any form, for half the year.

BackForGood I think it depends on the course. My brother in law read pharmacy and had full days. I did English and Social Policy and didn't. It really depends on the course what is appropriate. It is poor if the academic year finishes so early - but has it? Or is there work still to do? We were given 20 essay titles in October and they all had to be in by May, with no further mention of them from tutors. They were our work, so, even when lectures finished before exams we had loads to do.

If you didn't expect them to organise revision sessions, but you criticised them for not having many in your first post...
If there are no seminars/tutorials only lectures and no work set for the end of the year then I agree it is bad, but I do think people now expect University to be like school. It isn't, and shouldn't be.

Oh, no - I can see how you've mis-read what I meant - sorry
I meant, that all there was were the 2 revision session, meaning to say there was nothing for her to attend / do / work on between March and July, rather than there were only 2 sessions. Sorry! I don't think it's the university's responsibility to organise their revision. I do think it's their responsibility to teach and to challenge the students though, otherwise we could all just sit ant home and get degrees without any guidance, surely ?
She hadn't got work set / essays or dissertations or projects to hand in. I mean, I know in theory you could spend a lot of time 'reading around the subject', but I think they've had plenty of time for that in the first half of the year, and actually do need something to be working on.
I agree it is (and should be) a completely different thing from school, but I do think it ought to be 33+ weeks long over a year.

Anyway, I do think it might be course dependent rather than institution dependent, but it's a question that I will be asking / getting ds to ask when we eventually get to his Open Days. Just interesting to hear what students already on courses think of their Universities.
If it helps, I was talking to someone at St Andrews who LOVES it there, if that helps anyone ?

If anyone has any questions about Bristol I am currently studying there and would be happy to answer any qs.

My course probably has 8/9 hours of contact a week and we finished in about May and then had exams but I know the Vets/Dentists are in 8-6 some days. Having said that although I have fairly few contact hours it's not like I don't have things to do and if you want to go speak to the academic staff they are more than happy to talk/debate things with you. I think that's wehre it lies really, how much the student is willing to put in. I know some people on my course who've come in just for the lectures and left whereas I tend to talk to the lecturers and get the help fi I need it.

Thanks Earl

Thanks Earl.

I see BackForGood! That does sound a bit rubbish.

Finished in May. Well, I know it would be unpopular with staff but faced with £9k a year fees plus nearly the same again to live on I wonder how many students would prefer to have their course condensed into two years. Five weeks holiday a year is enough for the rest of the world .

Anyone's DC gone to Durham today?

secretscwirrels not Durham today, but DD is going on Saturday. It involves a very early start (I don't think she realised quite how far away it is). Has you DS gone today? Would be interested to know what he thinks.

DS is going to Durham on Saturday as well, but they are going to Nottingham on Friday and staying overnight in Darlington. Poor little car will have probably added a 1000 miles in open days

Leeds ticked so many of the right boxes.

DS really like the course (mechanical engineering with nuclear)
Good contacts with industry
Brilliant sports centre with a climbing wall (big +) He will have worked at our local sports centre by then for nearly 3 years as a lifeguard/casual officer, so good chance of work.
Knows someone there already who is giving good reports back about student life.
Residence seemed nice and not too expensive.

Yes he went on a coach from school. Not heard yet, they are due back after 7pm.
It will be interesting to see how he compares it with Warwick where he went last week. I don't think he's impressed by historic buildings and architecture and I gather Warwick is a modern campus. Durham will be very different from that point of view. His main interest is in what the Maths department say and they sold it to him at Warwick.
It's odd how they form ideas sometimes. Apparently, before last week, DS had the idea that all the Maths students would be housed together if he went to a campus uni . He was not keen on that as was hoping to meet some none Mathsy girls.