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Official Bitch about daily life in NUIG!

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    #1622
    Reillyman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 834 ✭✭✭Reillyman


    yer man! wrote: »
    It is brought up at examination meetings if you're close to a higher grade or whatever.

    This, is something completely unfair, and hopefully something which will be cleared up next year. Your grade in a module should be based on performance in exams and continuous assessment where applicable, not on the basis of whether or not your backside was on a seat.


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    #1623
    BhoscaCapall
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,940 ✭✭✭BhoscaCapall


    Reillyman wrote: »
    This, is something completely unfair, and hopefully something which will be cleared up next year. Your grade in a module should be based on performance in exams and continuous assessment where applicable, not on the basis of whether or not your backside was on a seat.
    If anything students attending but not doing well is surely a worse reflection on the college than students not showing up.

    Maybe lecturers get in a huff when students pass exams without going to their classes.


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    #1624
    keesa
    Registered Users Posts: 570 ✭✭✭keesa


    If I was a lecturer I'd see it as a waste of my time teaching a class where less than half showed up. Most of my courses didn't have attendance marks, and only in my masters was it used as a decider to break a borderline case. It was mainly language courses that have them because there is no amount of cramming that will get you to pass a language if you weren't in class. I think it might also be used to measure new lecturers' success


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    #1625
    Timmyctc
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,825 ✭✭✭Timmyctc


    keesa wrote: »
    If I was a lecturer I'd see it as a waste of my time teaching a class where less than half showed up. Most of my courses didn't have attendance marks, and only in my masters was it used as a decider to break a borderline case. It was mainly language courses that have them because there is no amount of cramming that will get you to pass a language if you weren't in class. I think it might also be used to measure new lecturers' success

    Yeah when you consider it from a lecturer's point of view you can see how giving lectures to an emptying lecture hall weekly would be annoying.


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    #1626
    Reillyman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 834 ✭✭✭Reillyman


    Timmyctc wrote: »
    Yeah when you consider it from a lecturer's point of view you can see how giving lectures to an emptying lecture hall weekly would be annoying.

    Yes but the lecturer must take a certain amount of responsibility for this, by having worthwhile and interesting lectures. As someone said, if they're just reading word for word off slides, what's the point?

    There was some modules throughout the last few years that I never attended more than a handful of times, and still managed to get >70%. In general the more useful and interesting the lecture is, the more likely it is that I'd attend, and I can't see that changing any time soon.


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    #1627
    BhoscaCapall
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,940 ✭✭✭BhoscaCapall


    Third level education is about independent learning. You're supposed to be mature enough to identify and make use of the resources you feel work best. If textbooks, journals, videos and websites are optional then so are lectures. Not everyone learns anything sat in a big hall while someone at the front rants on for an hour or two.

    If the college were strict on attendance I'd have been kicked out long ago, which is unfair as I've passed all my exams to date.


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    #1628
    Squeeonline
    Registered Users Posts: 2,554 ✭✭✭Squeeonline


    In a world where information is cheap and everywhere (i.e. internet) are universities just trying to justify their existence to undergrads by forcing lecture attendance? Obviously things like lab work can't be done at home (easily anyway), maybe they fear that people will just teach themselves and turn up for the exams twice a year.


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    #1629
    Timmyctc
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,825 ✭✭✭Timmyctc


    BhoscaCapall wrote: »
    Third level education is about independent learning. You're supposed to be mature enough to identify and make use of the resources you feel work best. If textbooks, journals, videos and websites are optional then so are lectures. Not everyone learns anything sat in a big hall while someone at the front rants on for an hour or two.

    If the college were strict on attendance I'd have been kicked out long ago, which is unfair as I've passed all my exams to date.
    Squeeonline wrote: »
    In a world where information is cheap and everywhere (i.e. internet) are universities just trying to justify their existence to undergrads by forcing lecture attendance? Obviously things like lab work can't be done at home (easily anyway), maybe they fear that people will just teach themselves and turn up for the exams twice a year.

    Maybe the results etc in general actually are of too low a level and they just want the best for us :P


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    #1630
    yer man!
    Registered Users Posts: 1,648 ✭✭✭yer man!


    Timmyctc wrote: »
    Maybe the results etc in general actually are of too low a level and they just want the best for us :P

    Well it's definitely a worry for some of the schools in Science, some of the failure rates are as high as 70% (as in 70% of an entire year failing)


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    #1631
    Celestial12
    Registered Users Posts: 346 ✭✭Celestial12


    yer man! wrote: »
    Well it's definitely a worry for some of the schools in Science, some of the failure rates are as high as 70% (as in 70% of an entire year failing)

    So I've heard... I just finished first science. Apparently Zoology has a fail rate of 80% next year, Chemistry is 70% etc. It makes no sense though, surely there wouldn't be many people progressing to third year if the failure rates were so high? I'd obviously like to do well, but by all accounts the prospects for next year will be daunting! :(


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    #1632
    Squeeonline
    Registered Users Posts: 2,554 ✭✭✭Squeeonline


    Celestial12 wrote: »
    So I've heard... I just finished first science. Apparently Zoology has a fail rate of 80% next year, Chemistry is 70% etc. It makes no sense though, surely there wouldn't be many people progressing to third year if the failure rates were so high? I'd obviously like to do well, but by all accounts the prospects for next year will be daunting! :(

    People finally buckle down and get work done over the summer for the repeats. Others pass that subject by compensation or don't need to pass the exam if they do well enough from continuous assessment.

    People fail exams all the time, and it's not the responsibility of the lecturers to hold our hands and walk us through exams/assignments. We are all (*cough*) big boys and girls now.

    The problem stems from the correlation between lecture attendance and passing exams. However I don't believe the inverse will apply i.e. forcing people to go to lectures will improve results. There are other factors not considered such as people who don't go to lectures are less likely to be ones who work hard.


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    #1633
    Lapin
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,184 ✭✭✭✭Lapin


    Can somebody please shut that fúcking alarm in the green corridor up :(


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    #1634
    ciano1
    Registered Users Posts: 2,138 ✭✭✭ciano1


    Celestial12 wrote: »
    So I've heard... I just finished first science. Apparently Zoology has a fail rate of 80% next year, Chemistry is 70% etc. It makes no sense though, surely there wouldn't be many people progressing to third year if the failure rates were so high? I'd obviously like to do well, but by all accounts the prospects for next year will be daunting! :(

    In Physical chemistry anyway the failure rate was ~73% in the written exam. The labs in the subject are pretty handy though and usually bump up your grade to close to the 40%.

    The majority of the people I talked to who are repeating 2nd year science said they failed because they didn't attend labs or hand up reports.
    Not handing up lab reports is pretty retarded IMO since your throwing away handy marks!


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    #1635
    isilidur1980
    Closed Accounts Posts: 120 ✭✭isilidur1980


    Some of the exam timetable scheduling in the university is ridiculous. I can't talk for other courses but the commerce ones can be shocking. If the college are really worried about results in exams, they should probably consider not having 4 exams in 2 days or 5 in three! Absolutely shocking!:(


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    #1636
    keesa
    Registered Users Posts: 570 ✭✭✭keesa


    How do you have 5 in 3 days!?


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    #1637
    isilidur1980
    Closed Accounts Posts: 120 ✭✭isilidur1980


    keesa wrote: »
    How do you have 5 in 3 days!?

    2,2,1!


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    #1638
    isilidur1980
    Closed Accounts Posts: 120 ✭✭isilidur1980


    keesa wrote: »
    How do you have 5 in 3 days!?

    And the last one on the 10th of May! Absolutely great timetabling by the university there. I heard a few of the union hopefuls say that they were going to bring this up when they were canvasing for elections. I really hope they do.


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    #1639
    murrak123
    Registered Users Posts: 74 ✭✭murrak123


    Celestial12 wrote: »
    So I've heard... I just finished first science. Apparently Zoology has a fail rate of 80% next year, Chemistry is 70% etc. It makes no sense though, surely there wouldn't be many people progressing to third year if the failure rates were so high? I'd obviously like to do well, but by all accounts the prospects for next year will be daunting! :(

    As a second year science student atm. 2nd chem is brutal, Semester 1 is particulary heavy. In my class 17 out of the 18 failed ....... Summer wrecked right their.


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    #1640
    shruikan2553
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭shruikan2553


    isilidur1980 wrote: »
    Some of the exam timetable scheduling in the university is ridiculous. I can't talk for other courses but the commerce ones can be shocking. If the college are really worried about results in exams, they should probably consider not having 4 exams in 2 days or 5 in three! Absolutely shocking!:(

    I remember hearing about a group of 4th year engineers had 6 exams in 3 days and the dean had to get involved. Dont know if they got it changed in the end.

    There really should be a limit of 1 exam a day for people or at least max 2 hours per exam when there are 2. I have 2 tomorrow and of them is 3 hours :(


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    #1641
    yer man!
    Registered Users Posts: 1,648 ✭✭✭yer man!


    murrak123 wrote: »
    As a second year science student atm. 2nd chem is brutal, Semester 1 is particulary heavy. In my class 17 out of the 18 failed ....... Summer wrecked right their.

    Jesus, that's not good, I know science are having quite a lot of problems this year as some of the external examiners have stayed on for another year which took them by surprise. They demanded a change to quite a lot of the exam questions making past papers a bit useless.


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    #1642
    murrak123
    Registered Users Posts: 74 ✭✭murrak123


    yer man! wrote: »
    Jesus, that's not good, I know science are having quite a lot of problems this year as some of the external examiners have stayed on for another year which took them by surprise. They demanded a change to quite a lot of the exam questions making past papers a bit useless.

    Its not that. First year is realistically lc chem + a touch, where as 2nd its a case of ram as much as possible into the two lectures a week per module and expect you to know it. Fair enough that college is go out and find the answer yourself but it doesnt help that certain individuals have their heads firmly lodged up their......... The exam timetable 4 in 4 days 1,2,1 . The timetable needs sortin out


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    #1643
    ciano1
    Registered Users Posts: 2,138 ✭✭✭ciano1


    yer man! wrote: »
    Jesus, that's not good, I know science are having quite a lot of problems this year as some of the external examiners have stayed on for another year which took them by surprise. They demanded a change to quite a lot of the exam questions making past papers a bit useless.

    Is this why a lot of this years papers have strayed from the patterns from the past few years ? :(


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    #1644
    yer man!
    Registered Users Posts: 1,648 ✭✭✭yer man!


    murrak123 wrote: »
    Its not that. First year is realistically lc chem + a touch, where as 2nd its a case of ram as much as possible into the two lectures a week per module and expect you to know it. Fair enough that college is go out and find the answer yourself but it doesnt help that certain individuals have their heads firmly lodged up their......... The exam timetable 4 in 4 days 1,2,1 . The timetable needs sortin out

    Ah now, I'm in fourth year science and most of us found first and second year grand. Fair enough the timetable is not great, this seems to mostly be a problem for first and second year, from what I have seen in science anyway. I can understand how difficult it is to timetable the exams as nearly everyone in my year in second and third were all doing different subjects so some people had some exams a little too close and others had a perfect timetable.


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    #1645
    reap-a-rat
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭reap-a-rat


    If you've a small enough class size it's not hard to get exams moved - our timetable had scheduled three 3-hour exams over 2 days as morning-afternoon-morning. These are final year exams and so we didn't want that, so we asked our year coordinator to ask Exams if they could switch one of em. They had no problem, and now we have one of them moved back a week and a morning-morning exam situation for the other too, which is much more doable!


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    #1646
    Celestial12
    Registered Users Posts: 346 ✭✭Celestial12


    Squeeonline wrote: »
    People finally buckle down and get work done over the summer for the repeats. Others pass that subject by compensation or don't need to pass the exam if they do well enough from continuous assessment.

    People fail exams all the time, and it's not the responsibility of the lecturers to hold our hands and walk us through exams/assignments. We are all (*cough*) big boys and girls now.

    The problem stems from the correlation between lecture attendance and passing exams. However I don't believe the inverse will apply i.e. forcing people to go to lectures will improve results. There are other factors not considered such as people who don't go to lectures are less likely to be ones who work hard.

    I know people fail all the time, but it seems absurd to think that the fail rate is so high. I was just wondering if it was down to laziness, the difficulty of the subjects, or perhaps both. First year chemistry wasn't too difficult at all, I'm pretty sure I got an A and that was taking it up from scratch. I didn't think it was as demanding as some of the other subjects either to be honest.
    ciano1 wrote: »
    In Physical chemistry anyway the failure rate was ~73% in the written exam. The labs in the subject are pretty handy though and usually bump up your grade to close to the 40%.

    The majority of the people I talked to who are repeating 2nd year science said they failed because they didn't attend labs or hand up reports.
    Not handing up lab reports is pretty retarded IMO since your throwing away handy marks!
    When do the lab reports have to be handed in? The first year lab course was changed this year, we had a lab book and all of our work was to be completed within the book. We didn't have to complete any separate reports, we had templates for everything the only exception were a few excel graphs/spreadsheets that we had to do. They gave us good guidelines to make it easy, and each lab write up was corrected the following week... It kind of made me feel like I was back in primary school when we used to have workbooks. :D

    I actually quite like physical chemistry, parts of it are quite difficult but it's doable. I haven't studied chemistry before now and I'm surprised by how much I do like it. I hated it at the start, but once you get your head around it you just get it. Organic chemistry is my weakest section, mainly because I just didn't put the work into it...
    murrak123 wrote: »
    As a second year science student atm. 2nd chem is brutal, Semester 1 is particulary heavy. In my class 17 out of the 18 failed ....... Summer wrecked right their.

    I did earth and ocean this year instead of physics so my options for next year are limited. I think I'd regret not doing chemistry more than if I were to do it only to discover it is as difficult as I've heard. I saw some of the notes online and it doesn't look too bad, having said that glancing through the slides isn't the same as studying them. :p

    Can anyone tell me what second year botany and microbiology are like? I'm going to do both of them along with chemistry, not entirely sure of what to expect. I don't think first year biology goes into enough detail to give you an accurate scope of the subjects. I really hope the botany labs aren't so dull next year... The first year botany labs were all diagram based. :(


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    #1647
    Hibbeler
    Registered Users Posts: 541 ✭✭✭Hibbeler


    shruikan2553 wrote: »
    I remember hearing about a group of 4th year engineers had 6 exams in 3 days and the dean had to get involved. Dont know if they got it changed in the end.

    Yes we were changed. my 7 exams are now spread over 9 days. Not great, but miles better considering the scenario mentioned. Final year engineers shouldn't have that many exams though. most of my friends in mechanical engineering have 3 max depending on their module choices


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    #1648
    charlie_says
    Registered Users Posts: 1,666 ✭✭✭charlie_says


    Yes, another exams related comment.

    Timetabling is often a nightmare. From Sept 2013 we have the academic simplification rules (lets save some money on exams rules) coming in. Now 3 exam sessions per day so there will be less days (tighter timetables) and much more likely to get 2 exams in one day which is a nightmare to study for. I'm convinced this is to save money for the exams office.

    I'm doing engineering and I have never ever passed all my exams when we have a evil timetable. One week in second year semester 1 we had the week study leave and then one exam on M,T,W and Friday AND two of the feckers on Thursday. This was of course the first week of a possible two week exam period. Soul destroying, needless to say many people did very poorly and or had to repeat some of them.

    The study period for Christmas is just too short for people who have many exams, I had 8 to study for one Christmas session.

    The general theme in engineering seems to be do bugger all in the first half of the semester and pile all the complicated material along with homework/assignments/projects into the last 2-3 weeks of the course so doing study is nigh on impossible during term time without sacrificing CA marks due to 24 hours in one day. Pile a shedload exams on in the shortest and earliest time possible so studying is essentially a big memory test not actually testing ones mastery and understanding of the subject, but more of a time management/compensation/memory exercise gamble.

    Maybe it's just me, maybe I hate my course, maybe I hate sitting through several 50 minutes lectures of someone reading out a powerpoint slide word for word, maybe the division of ECTS points to lecture slots is mad, maybe I'm getting stressed even thinking about it.


    /rant


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    #1649
    dropping_bombs
    Registered Users Posts: 235 ✭✭dropping_bombs


    charlie_says wrote: »
    Yes, another exams related comment.

    Timetabling is often a nightmare. From Sept 2013 we have the academic simplification rules (lets save some money on exams rules) coming in. Now 3 exam sessions per day so there will be less days (tighter timetables) and much more likely to get 2 exams in one day which is a nightmare to study for. I'm convinced this is to save money for the exams office.

    I'm doing engineering and I have never ever passed all my exams when we have a evil timetable. One week in second year semester 1 we had the week study leave and then one exam on M,T,W and Friday AND two of the feckers on Thursday. This was of course the first week of a possible two week exam period. Soul destroying, needless to say many people did very poorly and or had to repeat some of them.

    The study period for Christmas is just too short for people who have many exams, I had 8 to study for one Christmas session.

    The general theme in engineering seems to be do bugger all in the first half of the semester and pile all the complicated material along with homework/assignments/projects into the last 2-3 weeks of the course so doing study is nigh on impossible during term time without sacrificing CA marks due to 24 hours in one day. Pile a shedload exams on in the shortest and earliest time possible so studying is essentially a big memory test not actually testing ones mastery and understanding of the subject, but more of a time management/compensation/memory exercise gamble.

    Maybe it's just me, maybe I hate my course, maybe I hate sitting through several 50 minutes lectures of someone reading out a powerpoint slide word for word, maybe the division of ECTS points to lecture slots is mad, maybe I'm getting stressed even thinking about it.


    /rant

    Do you have a source or any more information about this academic simplification? I've heard a little about it but would like to know more.


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    #1650
    Celestial12
    Registered Users Posts: 346 ✭✭Celestial12


    I'm pretty sure academic simplification was already in effect for first years this year. It wasn't so bad. There's three exam sittings per day 09:30, 13:00 and 16:30. Exam times have been reduced to two hours, and you won't sit any back-to-back exams.

    Also, I'm pretty sure you don't have to pass the exams to pass the year. The only requirements being that you achieve 40% overall and at least 35% in the continuous assessment. I guess there's good and bad points to that. If true, it will take the pressure away from performing well in exams, but at the same time it lowers standards. It would hypothetically be possible to pass the year even if you failed the summer and christmas exams.
    http://www.nuigalway.ie/science/documents/college_of_science_regs__submodule_components.pdf
    http://www.nuigalway.ie/academic_records/documents/ms_fulltime_ug_degree_progs_cd_12_m3_4_1_1_edit26nov12.pdf

    I'm not really sure if that will be the case for second year, but I guess we'll find out soon enough. They changed the modules for second science due to academic simplification, and I think the new system is much better. It's not change for the sake of change, I think they're genuinely trying to make improvements.


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    #1651
    the keen edge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,533 ✭✭✭the keen edge


    Celestial12 wrote: »
    Also, I'm pretty sure you don't have to pass the exams to pass the year. The only requirements being that you achieve 40% overall and at least 35% in the continuous assessment. I guess there's good and bad points to that. If true, it will take the pressure away from performing well in exams, but at the same time it lowers standards. It would hypothetically be possible to pass the year even if you failed the summer and christmas exams.

    Says it all really.


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