college

ninty9er wrote: »

Kemmy is also the first Business School in the country to have one of its courses (BBS) ECTS acredited. It's a big deal, but you'll need an academic to tell you why as it's a little complicated and I can just about grasp the concept.

I'm not an academic (or a dentist[1]) but for the uninitiated, the European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System (ECTS, apparently accumulation isn't all that important) is a standard for comparing the academic achievement of higher education students across the EU and a number of other European countries to effectively allow a transcript from one university to be translated into a scale used by another university. It makes the different local and national grading scales interchangeable with each other. It guarantees transparency, it guarantees flexibility and it guarantees transferability (as long as you're not the only one using it, obviously, in which case it would guarantee nothing until the others do).

The latter is part of the ECTS grading scale, which will be listed on student transcripts alongside the local grade (the A, B, C...). Unfortunately what it doesn't disallow is grade fudging, which still exists (by which I mean "could theoretically still exist in any European university"). In other words, it's not a guarantee of any particular grade of quality. Hence, while the Faculty of business surely see it as an achievement to have the Business degree defined under the ECTS system (and it is), it doesn't make the degree any better or worse than it was before it that process was completed. It's tied in with the Bologna process, which from the Bergen declaration in 2005 defines the level of a degree based on the number of ECTS credits completed by the students on a particular course. This in turn defines teaching/contact time (in a simplistic sense) but again makes no guarantee of quality.

So it's a good process to go through, it can make a difference to students, especially students applying for further education in other EU countries, as well as at times jobs in other EU countries but in my understanding of the ECTS grading standard itself, it effectively puts everything on a class curve when it comes to grading, at least in the top 70% of students in any particular module/course, which isn't what I'd see as progress (grading curves make it easier to pass courses but don't guarantee class members actually know much, which is intended to be the point of the lecturer giving lectures). But I'm sure it took a lot of meetings to get the course in line with the standards, though I'd expect all the others to follow suit in the next 18 months.

ninty9er may know things about the triumvirate of ECTS/ECTS grading/Bologna that I don't so if there's anything incorrect above, correction would be good. Odds are good that it's as clear a layman's explanation as you'll see, though your mileage may vary.

"Too long; didn't read" version: They'll all do it pretty soon and I wouldn't see it as anywhere near as big a deal as the shiny new rooms in the Kemmy Business School - use them in the sales pitch instead.


[1] Old advert, old joke

cickimc wrote: »

How demanding is this course?

Does it have much hours and tough to get through

Business doesnt have many hours.
Afaik its 6 modules with 2 hours lectures and a 1 hour tutorial per module = 18 hours minimum...
I'm not sure if there are labs for some modules on the new course..

BBS with French has a few more hours a week, but not more than 24 hours a week.

The course covers you a wide scope of business modules in 1st and 2nd year, and you choose a major option in 2nd semester 2nd year...
Thats when it becomes more specific to your interests and imo, a lot more interseting as a whole.

Its as intense a course as you want to make it tbh.

As has been said in this thread, some people dont go to any lectures, and come out with excellent results, and others go to everything and can struggle through it.
I feel that with so few hours a week, there really isnt much excuse for missing lectures.

The language side of it generally only adds on about 4hrs a week but there's always a fair bit more work to be done outside lectures when compared to business modules.