Mature Student Selection Process - Arts

Gadgie

I have to attend UCC in April to complete a written assessment for entry to the Arts degree course. The letter states that:

You will be required to answer two essay-type questions in the answer book provided. Question 1 is a compulsory short essay concerning subjects/areas of study of interest to you; Question 2, which is a longer essay, offers you a choice from four essay titles.

Has anyone here attended this assessment (particularly those who were successful) and could shed some more light on the essay questions (particularly the second essay)? How did you prepare for the assessment? It's been a long time since I wrote any essays and could do with some help on the matter!

wishingwell

Hi Gadgie,
glad to hear you've got this far. I am in first year (also mature) so went through it last year, it's a piece of cake!:) One essay will be about the subjects or the area you want to study and the other will be an easy option around something like education i.e do you think everyone should have access to a free education. They may change them, but if you can write reasonably well you will sail through. Bring a good dictionary with you. Hope this helps and best of luck. You can always check in with the mature student office on campus they are really helpful:cool:

Gadgie

Thanks for replying. I was concerned by the ambiguity of question 2, but as long as it is a sort of "general opinion" essay and not something that requires specialist knowledge of a subject then I should be OK. Do you have a certain amount of words to write for each essay?

I will contact the mature student office this week and see what they can tell me about it.

wishingwell

approx. two A4 pages. They will give you an answer book to write in.

Ekancone

Gadgie wrote: »

Thanks for replying. I was concerned by the ambiguity of question 2, but as long as it is a sort of "general opinion" essay and not something that requires specialist knowledge of a subject then I should be OK. Do you have a certain amount of words to write for each essay?

I will contact the mature student office this week and see what they can tell me about it.

I did it in 2005. The first question was the same as someone mentioned there, why you want to do the course and how it will help your career plans. So practice that one at home.

The second question tends to be a general mix, such as name a book/film/art, etc that inspired you and why. Things like that. The question i answered was:

'What do you believe to be the biggest challenge facing the earth today and why?

That question turned up in 2006 as well. I just harped on about Globalisation for a while and took most of my argument from a historical/political book i was reading at the time. If you have read anything like that recently, keep in in mind, it will come in handy.

Gadgie

Thanks. That's very helpful.

Xiangjiao

Same question came up again in 2007. Don't worry about it, you'll be grand.