Christmas Opening times

Landa2

DCU's Christmas opening schedule is a complete disgrace IMO,

The fact that nothing opens up again till the 4th of january and in some cases the 5th.. For a third level institution recently ranked in the top 500 in the world to lock their doors for 2 weeks with examiniations starting in the middle of January is rediculous. Not all students will mind this, but for a student nearing the end of college where all the work they do is reflected on their certificate, and not being able to access the library or their labs till the 5th of January...

Complete Joke!!

JoePie

You can do the exact same work at home.

robby^5

Doesn't like every university close for two weeks at Christmas? At a glance Trinity and Harvard both do and they're a lot higher up than DCU.

tbh as Joe said most study can be done from home these days and the number of people who would want to go into college to study this or next week would be very low and not worth the costs of opening the college.

Diarmaid07

JoePie wrote: »

You can do the exact same work at home.

Do you have the collection of the DCU library, relevent to your course, at home? Do you have somewhere that is quiet for eight hours straight with no distractions at home?


If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be interested in the Hermit Support Group.

robby^5

Diarmaid07 wrote: »

Do you have the collection of the DCU library, relevent to your course, at home? Do you have somewhere that is quiet for eight hours straight with no distractions at home?


If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be interested in the Hermit Support Group.

But surely most students have access to online notes these days (CA students do have access to notes online, complete or not which is what course both joe and landa were/are in) and should have their own notes anyway that they can use to study for the paltry two weeks DCU is closed over Christmas.

gizmo

robby^5 wrote: »

Doesn't like every university close for two weeks at Christmas? At a glance Trinity and Harvard both do and they're a lot higher up than DCU.

Well our place is open Monday-Thursday this week. The Library helpdesk is unstaffed but you can check in and out books electronically and have full access to the IT facilities. Kind of surprising it's closed all week to be honest.

Carri

Forstly, don't know about anyone else, but there's children in my house and it's near impossible to study from home.

Secondly, DCU closing till Jan 4th, I find perfectly acceptable. I can understand the staff wanting a break. It may shorten my studying time but as Mr.S has said in reference to the library, "Should have gotten the books out before the end of semester.", the same should go for study.. It should've been planned out and started before the end of semester.

(Hopefully that makes sense, I'm still sleepy.)

OneArt

In fairness the library is a pretty distracting place. I only use it do my AVE work (flat doesn't have Internet) and borrow books.

--LOS--

the university is closed 24th DEC- Jan 1st, the library only opens on the 4th but the university buildings could be opened the weekend before that.

JoePie

Diarmaid07 wrote: »

Do you have the collection of the DCU library, relevent to your course, at home?

I can't think of any reason whatsoever that would cause me to get a book from the lobrary for an exam.

JoePie

JoePie wrote: »

I can't think of any reason whatsoever that would cause me to get a book from the lobrary for an exam.

I spent about two weeks straight in the library this semester and got more work done than I could have possibly imagined; far more than had I stayed at home or gone to a lab. I also had to reference about ten different books to do this work, and there are a few books which are highly recommended for certain exams (Compiler Construction comes to mind).

For people who want to do well, the library is invaluable.

adamski8

It is ridiculus that its not open regardless if alot of people dont "need" it.
So what if trinity etc librarys are closed the same days. THEY dont have exams in January so not as much need for the library.
Do some people not realise some students dont't have laptops/internet access!

From living on campus, I didnt have a computer so how could i access the internet? Plus it was cold for many an hour of the day as DCU decide when its heated (which is only for about 4 hrs a day as far as i remember)
Why should DCU library staff have 2 weeks holidays in the winter?! It should at least be open like it is on sundays with the security guard there.
Its semester weekend opening hours are terrrible also.
IMO it should be open 24hrs as well.

For the people saying you should plan what books you need etc: people dont know always know what books they need, as the semester finishes and then you start studying and the library is then closed so as you study you realise you need more/different books than you have but guess what you have to wait 2 weeks because a vital facility is closed for some bizzare reason.

Fiftysix

Landa2 wrote: »

DCU's Christmas opening schedule is a complete disgrace IMO,

The fact that nothing opens up again till the 4th of january and in some cases the 5th.. For a third level institution recently ranked in the top 500 in the world to lock their doors for 2 weeks with examiniations starting in the middle of January is rediculous. Not all students will mind this, but for a student nearing the end of college where all the work they do is reflected on their certificate, and not being able to access the library or their labs till the 5th of January...

Complete Joke!!

To be honest, who actually studies for those two weeks?

Landa, your point of them being in the top 500, actually DCU is in the top 300 and as far as i can tell the youngest university there,however correct me if i am wrong.

The university got there while closing for two weeks at christmas so your point in irrelevant.

I am positive that you do not need the library for absolutely every piece of study that you need to do. However you are in final year so you must be in the university for at least three years, which means that you knew that DCU did this and you could have taken the relevant books out.

Stop bitching and go get drunk

JoePie

Y'all need to chill out. I finished CA last year and did all my study in the labs or at home. Didn't need any books. If its not in the notes, then its probably not essential to an answer. Just fluff. I'm doing a masters now and I'm not too pushed with the study yet. Two weeks is plenty.

robby^5

adamski8 wrote: »

For the people saying you should plan what books you need etc: people dont know always know what books they need, as the semester finishes and then you start studying and the library is then closed so as you study you realise you need more/different books than you have but guess what you have to wait 2 weeks because a vital facility is closed for some bizzare reason.

Absoultely ridiculous. We have nearly a week before the university closes and modules finish to pick up books. The semester is finished and all the material has been covered so you pick up books relevant to that material before Dec 24th, it's that simple. As for internet access, you go to an internet café, pay a few euro and print out notes. We're college stduents not children who cant study because school is closed.

--LOS-- wrote: »

the university is closed 24th DEC- Jan 1st, the library only opens on the 4th but the university buildings could be opened the weekend before that.

If this is the reality I dont think anyone has anything to complain about, I dont think it'd be fair on staff to expect them to staff empty buildings...because they would be empty.

Even if the college is closed for 14 days straight then about 9 of those days the college is entirely correct in closing its doors. 4 of them being a Sat/Sun which would see a low attendance at college during semester and would be substantially lower at Christmas time. 5 more of those days are days that the vast majority of students would not be studying whatsoever (christmas day/eve, stephens day and new years eve/day) and staff wouldnt be expected to work those days either.

So whats really being complained about here is the lack of access to DCU facilities for 5 weekdays where a small proportion of students might be studying. (I'm very sceptical that there'd be enough students actually needing access to DCU in the run up to new years to warrant staffing and opening it)

I feel for people in final year etc. who have massive work loads, it being their final year and all, but in all fairness this is the only year you'll ever had cared DCU was closed over Christmas because you're under pressure this time. If you've been legitmately studying every day in the run up and over the Christmas break and will doing a full days study every day this week, you're in a tiny minority and damnit you're committed!