Exams before Christmas?

What are people's general views on this? I was talking recently to someone in UL where the exams were after Christmas for his first 2 years there and before for his second. He reckoned that it was much better to get them done before the break and get the results before the semester started...so what do ye think?

irish_boy90

Must we do this every year?

ironictoaster

Would have preferred before Christmas myself. I reckon everything would be still fresh in my head. I have to play catch up now.

Attol

With the amount of coursework due around week 11/12 I find myself so burnt out by the time we finish that there is not a chance I'd be able to fully focus on study on top of that. Having the exams on after the break gives me some time to recharge my batteries before hitting the books. I reckon I'd do way worse if the exams were before the break.

tomar-re

TBH attol, the workloads would be redistributed so that the minimum people would fail so projects & CA would be moved to week 9ish or reading week if you are going to work in mcdonalds.

It kinda doesn't matter what you think about it at this stage, the exams are moving before christmas either next year or the year after.

Why should it be different ammounts of time to study for 1st and second semesters? It only serves to allow those who dossed around for 12 weeks to pull off a grade that they wouldn't have gotten if they had been in any other university.
The reason we're going this way is that we can standardise the ways colleges run which is good for transfer students and for numerous acedemic collaborations, but is also serves as a means to better compare the way students preform in colleges at certain courses and types of courses. Which will be of massive benefit to improving colleges that have fallen behind.

ldxo15wus6fpgm

tomar-re wrote: »

It kinda doesn't matter what you think about it at this stage, the exams are moving before christmas either next year or the year after.

Where did you hear/read this?
If they are I'll be so happy... means I won't have to celebrate my birthdays during exams!!

johnmcdnl

tomar-re wrote: »

It only serves to allow those who dossed around for 12 weeks to pull off a grade that they wouldn't have gotten if they had been in any other university.

if you doss for 12 weeks and cram in the week or two before exams in januray surely your just gonna doss and try to cram the week or two before exams in December..

I'd rather them before christmas because the stuff would be way fresher on my mind - having a 3-4 week break away from what I've being doing really has wiped my mind so much... Straight after the 12 weeks in December my mind would have been so much more set on what I was actually doing.. I'd be able to just enjoy christmas as a holiday break then and when I come back start into new stuff without having to be bogged down for another 2-3 weeks trying to get back into stuff I've half forgotten over the holidays...

sooner the exams are before christmas the better so they can just be out of the way...

Urizen

Attol is right about CA. I mean, the sciences have labs, which are pretty heavy, doesn't leave much room for other study. We really wouldn't have the time to properly prepare before Christmas.

That said, there was a proposed plan last year to start about a month earlier, can't remember if it's going ahead or not. If it did, there should be about 2 weeks study period before exams, then the holiday. That wouldn't be bad.

bren2001

One of my lecturers, Mechatronic Engineering, told us the Engineering Board have put forward the proposal of exams before Christmas to the DCU board. They are reviewing the timing of exams for the 2012/2013 academic year, suposidly.

Personally I would like 2 weeks study and then into exams. We manage to do it in the summer so why not Christmas?