Part-time courses during the day... useless

andrewire

I find it quite annoying that some universities in Dublin offer part-time courses during the day. I thought part-time courses were for people with other daytime commitments. Have anyone here come accross this issue?

ardmacha

Part-time means you don't have to attend full time, e.g. you might only attend 2 days a week. If the time doesn't suit you then don't go!

andrewire

ardmacha wrote: »

Part-time means you don't have to attend full time, e.g. you might only attend 2 days a week. If the time doesn't suit you then don't go!

Yeah but most people who attend part-time courses are working or have other daytime commitments... Universities should be more flexible to accommodate people that have time constraints. After all, you're paying for it.

Rosita

andrewire wrote: »

I find it quite annoying that some universities in Dublin offer part-time courses during the day. I thought part-time courses were for people with other daytime commitments. Have anyone here come accross this issue?

I couldn't agree more. I'm not sure how anyone with other commitments could commit to a part-time course during the day when they wouldn't know the timetable in advance or anything. It might suit someone with not much on their plate who don't really want to stretch themselves.

I remember looking at Masters' in UCD and in that particular faculty they said that they offered all their courses on a part-time basis as well, but it's a bit disingenuous to advertise it as a separate offering. It's exactly the same offering just that you take forever to complete it.

Luckily enough the other poster suggests the option of not going if the times don't suit - I hadn't thought of that.

graduate

I think people are confusing part-time and evening courses. There often aren't enough part-time students to warrant a separate evening offering.

Rosita

graduate wrote: »

I think people are confusing part-time and evening courses. There often aren't enough part-time students to warrant a separate evening offering.

We are quite clear on the distinction in this case, but the terms have been used synonymously in official circles in the past - for example (this is from the UCD website) this is a headline descriptor for the UCD part-time Arts degree: "DN022 BA Part-time (Evening)".

The difficulty is that there is now an attempt to separate two terms that have been synonymously used in the past to give the illusion that there are extra offerings going on. People can and will argue it 'til the cows come home on the semantics of the matter but the OP has a legitimate point.

If we can move away from the defining of what part-time means and consider the OP's core point in the title of the thread - "Part-time courses during the day... useless"; it is fair to say that the reason many people don't study full-time in the day is that they have jobs/other stuff on their plate and cannot attend/attend easily during the day. Having the course 'part-time' i.e. giving them longer to complete the course does not really solve that problem. It's maybe okay for people working part-time or for retirees who don't want the workload of the full-time course but it marginalises a huge amount of people.

Take for example TCD's MSc in Comparative European Politics (randomly googled by me) which is offered 'part-time' - this is what their website says: Note that courses meet during normal working hours (e.g. morning and afternoon seminars) and that the department will only be able to give final guidance about course meeting times in early September, a few weeks before the start of term. Note also that there is a substantial commitment to reading and other work outside the class and it may not be realistic to apply for a part-time MSc option while continuing with significant work requirements.

That seems like a long-winded way of underscoring the OP's point - that the part-time option is essentially useless as (a) they reckon the workload is too much and (b) even if it might suit they will give you the timetable so late as to make it very very awkward work-wise if arrangements need to be made. Not suggesting that it is practicable for them to provide timetables months in advance but that's not much use to the person who is left wondering until the last minute if they can actually do the course.

As for your remark "there often aren't enough part-time students to warrant a separate evening offering" - on what is this based? Have colleges 'often' offered evening courses and found no takers? With the amount of people doing past-grad study these days I'd be surprised if there was not quite a demand out there for evening post-grad courses.

Chilli Con Kearney

Rosita, I completely agree with what you are saying.

I recently contacted UCD about this part-time BA. The timetable is not set until September and even then, it can (sometimes) mirror the main BA timetable. In other words, a "Part-time student" could have a lecture in the morning and then one a few hours later.

I could not get my head around the reasoning here. It sounded just like a regular undergrad to me, with less subjects. I can only speak for myself here, but that completely negates the purpose of doing part-time study. I figured that it is supposed to be compact in terms of lecture time but longer in terms of duration (years).