Why so many drop outs?

DB10

Seen statistics that the drop out rate at DCU is 20%. That seems very high and tbh doesn't seem like a positive for the college. Anyone care to reason why it is that high?

H2G2

Actually DCU is about average - across all courses. But some courses are much higher than others and there are many reasons for it. Personally I think much of the drop outs can be blamed on (a) bad / ill informed CAO choices (b) lack of commitment /study / work by student in year 1 (c) 3rd level is hard and very different to LC and this just catches ppl out.

lil_cain

DB10 wrote: »

Seen statistics that the drop out rate at DCU is 20%. That seems very high and tbh doesn't seem like a positive for the college. Anyone care to reason why it is that high?

From my understanding, DCU's drop out rate is higher than other colleges because it's easier to switch between courses (which counts as dropping out).

adamski8

lil_cain wrote: »

From my understanding, DCU's drop out rate is higher than other colleges because it's easier to switch between courses (which counts as dropping out).

yeah thats what i heard too.

manlad

Because its an average college with some very average lecturers

stringy

lil_cain wrote: »

From my understanding, DCU's drop out rate is higher than other colleges because it's easier to switch between courses (which counts as dropping out).

This is true, when DCU accommodates an internal transfer, this is seen as a drop-out, when in fact the student remains a DCU student and will complete their new course.

Some other reasons include the fact that you do generally have to work harder in DCU as a result of substantial continuous assessment, and people often indulge more into student life, forgetting that you cannot put off studying til April/May.

In general the drop out rate is fairly standard, but some courses do have substantial drop out rates, Computing/Engineering.

The most common reason is poorly thought out CAO choices and lack of research into what the course will entail.

sunnyjim

As is proved by every 3rd level forum on boards.ie every August...

"Hi I've put down Computer Applications as my 1st choice on my CAO and got it, whats on the course?"

Matthewthebig

People are retarded

Matthewthebig

Matthewthebig wrote: »

People are retarded

You are in the set of people, therefore you are retarded.

Hauk

sunnyjim wrote: »

As is proved by every 3rd level forum on boards.ie every August...

"Hi I've put down Computer Applications as my 1st choice on my CAO and got it, whats on the course?"

Also, when you're in school, "What course do you want to do? FILL OUT YOUR CAO! OMG! YOU LEFT AN EMPTY SPACE ON YOUR CAO! YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!"

CHOOSE CHOOSE CHOOSE

thecornflake

manlad wrote: »

Because its an average college with some very average lecturers

and thats the height of it , its usually much worse , it's not run very well at all.

Urizen

thecornflake wrote: »

and thats the height of it , its usually much worse , it's not run very well at all.

Are you speaking as a student or an observer? Because in my experience of 3 years there so far, I've only ever had a single lecturer that I would complain about.

onewing

DB10, just curious, where did you see that DCU has a 20 per cent drop out rate?

mickoneill30

onewing wrote: »

DB10, just curious, where did you see that DCU has a 20 per cent drop out rate?

Not the original poster but I'm an evening student so it may be totally different for the day students. In my second semester now. There's been a fair few drop outs from my course for the second semester.

I've had 4 lecturers so far.

One of them just read through the course material as his lectures. I could have presented it in the same format. The material was quite technical so the labs were important but the labs were unsupervised so it was no benefit to us. We just worked on our PCs at home. It would have been handier to have a supervisor in the labs because we frequently got stuck.
In another course one lecturer missed one of his 5 lectures as he was at a conference so sped up the 4 remaining ones.
The third was average.
The fourth was excellent, was interested in the subject and frequently asked us to replace our lab time with lecture time which we appreciated (for the first semester, lab time was mostly unsupervised and a waste of time).

These aren't just my observations. The head of our course has been involved (I say involved, I mean was notified by us and acknowledged us and then did little else).

Blome

IMO the immaturity of some students on campus and seeming bad feeling between different courses adds to the pressure on high achievers sticking it out to the end of courses. A descent to the level of name calling drags standards down further.
My bad experiences in the gym for example convinces me that bullying of students with no way of defending themselves is common at DCU

Grudaire

Blome wrote: »

IMO the immaturity of some students on campus and seeming bad feeling between different courses adds to the pressure on high achievers sticking it out to the end of courses. A descent to the level of name calling drags standards down further.
My bad experiences in the gym for example convinces me that bullying of students with no way of defending themselves is common at DCU

Ya know there's a reason you get bullied*



* Meant as a joke Mods , mind you I think the point was well made on the thread Blome started

Blome

There's always a reason, use as required;
'foreign' 'out of the loop' 'weirdee'

Name calling uses the least calories when you're trying to co-ordinate walking and speech.

MonaghanPenguin

Blome you really need to stop coming on here making claims like that and refusing when called on it to back up those claims. Or if they were true (which I sincerely doubt), you refuse to take the appropriate action. I don't know what chip you have on your shoulder but please go away and deal with it, don't bring it on here.

Blome

There goes the neighbourhood :pac:

crown

Two of my friends have dropped out because they had no other option , Like me they have been waiting for the grant approval , I got lucky because I live close to Dcu, These two girls had to pay for accommodation here, Drop out and head home

snowcrazie

Many drop outs are as a result of the CAO points system, demand & supply.

The points for many DCU courses are below that of their UCD, Trinity and UCC counter parts, this means that people who didn't work that hard/struggled in leaving cert get in on very little points to courses which require serious amounts of work i.e. Engineering and CA. These courses have ridiculous drop out rates for instance going from a couple of hundred to, no joke, single figures in final year!

In leaving cert everyone tells you its the biggest exam of your life, in actual fact once you hit second year in college, you'll be begging to go back there for an easy life

Dillonb3

snowcrazie wrote: »

Many drop outs are as a result of the CAO points system, demand & supply.

The points for many DCU courses are below that of their UCD, Trinity and UCC counter parts, this means that people who didn't work that hard/struggled in leaving cert get in on very little points to courses which require serious amounts of work i.e. Engineering and CA. These courses have ridiculous drop out rates for instance going from a couple of hundred to, no joke, single figures in final year!

In leaving cert everyone tells you its the biggest exam of your life, in actual fact once you hit second year in college, you'll be begging to go back there for an easy life

100% agree with you. When I started my science course there was a good 200 per lecture, including other science courses, that required T101 to accomodate us and the general attitude of the students was going out every night getting pissed and leaving most lab reports until the night before the due date. As soon as we hit 2nd year most of the courses halved in number and further reduced going into 3rd year.

Most interesting one is one of the physic's courses which only has a single person in it!

:|

Dillonb3 wrote: »

100% agree with you. When I started my science course there was a good 200 per lecture, including other science courses, that required T101 to accomodate us and the general attitude of the students was going out every night getting pissed and leaving most lab reports until the night before the due date. As soon as we hit 2nd year most of the courses halved in number and further reduced going into 3rd year.

Most interesting one is one of the physic's courses which only has a single person in it!

which one?

Dillonb3

wrote: »

which one?

I think PBM3

:|

How many people started it though? It's common enough to have one single person in the physics with a language course, if there were more to begin with they normally switch to AP rather than drop out totally.

At least that person can say they're top of their class

VinnyTGM

Dillonb3 wrote: »

I think PBM3

Ye, I heard that aswell, didn't think it was true though!!