What to do about disaster of a course?

Corruptedmorals

I'm 3rd year Irish Studies, the first year of the course. It's interdisciplinary, which means we deal with the Irish, English, History and Geography departments and not one of them know how to deal with us. We have to fight to get onto class email lists and have suffered from not being informed of room changes or classes being cancelled; essays lost or never handed back and then mislaid. Essay clashes are run of the mill, only because we never know about the date until about a month away- the handbook is always wrong. After choosing broad curriculm psychology and getting it, discovering a Hilary term Irish class clash because the Irish department did not release timetables in time for BC to be aware of a clash. After constantly being informed that it was our problem and that Irish comes first and that we should pick another BC course- we were eventually dropped from the irish tutorial and told it wouldn't affect credits.

The irish tutorial in particular, is early Irish, which my friend and I dropped modern Irish in favour of. There are 2 other classes that we attend. Because we are 3rd years and the rest of the class are 1st years, our exam is on the 26th April and theirs isn't until the 14th May. Not only do they have an extra tutorial AND a fortnight odd extra revision time, they have the option of repeating if they fail, which we don't and the lecturer has said that well since they've finished all their essays ages ago they should be well into their revision, which they are. But we have 2 essays due next week, and a major essay and presentation the week after. Seems a bit unfair, at a serious disadvantage, especially since the subject is so hard anyway we're in serious danger of failing. I wouldn't mind if I was guaranteed even 50%! We also assumed (since the handbook this year did not say otherwise as early irish was a last minute thing) that doing a dead language that is not spoken in Ireland would mean we don't have to do the modern Irish requirement of going to the gaeltacht for 2 months. But we've been told recently that we still have to, as its a blanket requirement. (Early Irish does not exist on its own for anyone else, it's a course with modern irish). Is there any way of fighting that?

The point that our early irish exam has to be earlier because it counts towards our degree doesn't make much sense- we have one history exam a few days later and the other history exam on the last day of exams. That's a second year course- if we have to do early irish so early, why is there no problem with us doing history so late? Another course we're doing, which is mainly georaphy, is the one with the major essay and presentation due week after next. We've been told that we also have an exam in it, which doesn make sense as it isn't enough credits. True to form, it does not appear on the exam timetable. The lecturer said he'll look into it but surely we can't be registered for ane xam at his late stage anyway, the course co-ordinator already said he doesn't think there's an exam for it.

We have no clue about what our options are for next year, what we can take up, what we can drop, or anything about our thesis. I actually do enjoy the course and the fact that it's so many disclipines- but it's an administrative nightmare and we're ignored by most departments because we're not their core single-honour or TSM students. Our tutor (irish department) might be alright with personal issues, but doesn't have a clue about the course. Is never available anyway. The irish secretary is on maternity leave, her replacement is part-time and knows nothing about our course, understandably though. The course co-ordinator is from the history department and is great but he holds no sway over the irish department which is where nearly all of the problems stem from. At the moment we're trying to sort out a meeting with the lecturers concerned with the course to iron out some of the issues, but I don't think it's going to be enough.

Is it wort going to the SU's education officer? Sorry for the length of this:)

TheRiddler

Jesus

I'm an ex-education officer and I can give my biased answer - yes, it's worthwhile going to see the SU about this. Sounds like no-one really cares about you guys to be frank.

Let the Education Officer know what's happening, ask him to set up a meeting with your class and your department and get him to sit in on it too. If you don't wish to raise the problems with the course yourself, get him or a rep to do that for you. Get them to set deadlines for answers to your problems (particularly about the options for next year, I'd imagine that's the most urgent problem, but I just skimmed over your post so I might have missed something).

If you don't want to go the SU route you could go to the Senior Tutor's Office, as they can represent you either way instead of your own tutor who you said is useless. But really it sounds as if someone needs to slap whoever is in charge of the course.

Silly question but have any of these problems been raised in forums with the relevant college people before? Like on department/school committees, that type of thing. I assume you have a class rep?

Miacc

Hi OP

wow that's truely awful! I cant believe that. How many are on your course in the position you described there?

You should get as many people together to bring this up with the people running the show- maybe start with the education officer to figure out who to bring this to, as the problem seems to be that no one has taken responsibility for running it properly.

Id advise you as a group to put all your concerns about the administrative inefficiencies of the course including past 'mishaps' that have put you all in a position where youre education is affected by this and to bring this to the head of the courses or maybe best to whoever is above them (if the problem lies with them and it seems to from what you said there in your post).

From your post it sounds like you will be well able to put those concerns across very well, but I would advise you to do this as a group, not by yourself.

You might want to wait until after the stress of exams? - and try to just get through these first. Lazy ****s!

Best of luck, and good luck with the exams.;)

claire h

Definitely worth going to SU education officer about.

Do be careful about what to focus on, though. Having essay deadlines clash is fairly standard (happens in TSM and various interdisciplinary courses - to point where the line is 'prepare yourself well in advance'), so concentrate on lack of notice and conflicting information being given. Same with talking about subjects being so hard or grumbling about first years getting to repeat while you don't - these kinds of things turn up in a lot of courses. Have you been told that the reason your exam is so early is because it counts towards your degree, or are you just assuming? Because, again, concentrating your energy on 'crappy exam timetables' is not going to get you anywhere - happens in a lot of courses and there's not much that can be done about it. Being adequately informed about how you're being assessed for things, or what criteria you need to fulfil in order to complete the year - those are the things that really need to be sorted out, and I know that sometimes when there's SO much crap happening, all of it can seem equally frustrating and important and needing-to-be-dealt-with, but some of the things you're saying seem to stemming from your assumptions and expectations, which may not be realistic or reasonable. (e.g. I'm just glancing at that Irish Studies handbook now, re: the Gaeltacht requirement, and unless you were told explicitly by the course co-ordinator that you were exempt from that... well, it looks pretty clear that it is a standard requirement, so the staff could quite reasonably make that point to you. If the issue is that the handbook and the staff are almost always in disagreement re: requirements, then you might have a case, but do take some time to figure out what exactly are the points where things have been really screwed up and what are the parts where departmental screw-ups have led you to make assumptions or decisions that might not have been the best - the latter is more the kind of stuff that maybe your personal tutor can help out with, but not something that should be dealt with at the course-wide level.)

H-esperanza

How did I know when I saw the title this might be or similar to my course...

I'm in second year Irish studies, we're having similar issues, esspecially with not recieving emails about lecture changes. Because the course is so new, (third years were the first year of it) everything constantly changes and even the stuff we're doing this year is different from what the present third years did last year.
The issues do need to be talked through, everything is all over the place at the moment and stuff can't really continue like that.
Ironically you guys are missing exams on your timetable and we've had extra exams put on our exam timetable for no apparent reason.
If it was brought up with the education officer the second years would definetly be happy to support you guys and try sort things out.

Corruptedmorals

Nope, we don't have a class rep. We did until second year, she dropped out. There are only 7 of us and no-one's either arsed to do it or has the time. I would, but it would majorly interfere with my job.

Yeah I'd agree that some of the problems are not a course-wide issue and some is just unfortunate but it's no better organised than it was in 1st year, in fact it's getting worse, sick of it at this stage. We were told that was the reason why Irish is so early, which was fine until we saw history being so late.

Yeah we're never given any information about the gaeltacht. It is in the handbook and always has been. Irish has a major problem in that funding for it has been slashed really badly- you only really get a place if you've never been before. I do think that even if we are unique in that we do not do Modern Irish whatsoever, it isn't fair to expect people to go to the gaeltacht at their own expense and speak a language not applicable to their studies anymore. Might be a bitch to fight that one, but we will anyway.

Thanks for all the help, will deffo get a group together to go to the SU first on Monday- 4/5 of us anyway:) Would have thought issues we faced would be ironed out a bit more for those coming behind us, that'd be too much to ask..

Aoibheann

Just a heads up - I'd go before Monday if possible, USI Congress is on next week and afaik most of the Sabbats are going to it. Best of luck with everything, the Education Officer will definitely be able to help I'm sure.

Denerick

Wow. Guess you'll never make the mistake of doing Irish in unversity again.

phlegms

Denerick wrote: »

Wow. Guess you'll never make the mistake of doing Irish in unversity again.

Inb4 Denerick somehow linking it to SU hackery regardless of the context