Switching Labs

leavingcert.

So I'm in Biolab D on a friday afternoon and chem lab D on a friday morning! Is there anyone that would like to swap with me for any of the days other than friday? I have to travel 4 hours to get home on a Friday so its very inconvenient.

Lawliet

You can't just swap labs with someone, attendance is taken so if you're not at you're not at your assigned lab you'll be listed as absent and too any absences will get you a non-satisfactory.

You need to notify the science course office, they'll probably get you to fill out a form where you explain why you need another lab time and what other times you're available, there should be no problem changing the afternoon lab, they're fairly accommodating to people with long journeys home.

leavingcert.

Lawliet wrote: »

You can't just swap labs with someone, attendance is taken so if you're not at you're not at your assigned lab you'll be listed as absent and too any absences will get you a non-satisfactory.

You need to notify the science course office, they'll probably get you to fill out a form where you explain why you need another lab time and what other times you're available, there should be no problem changing the afternoon lab, they're fairly accommodating to people with long journeys home.

I know you can't just swap, but I went in today and the woman said that I'd have to find someone that would swap with me, even though i have a three hur journey home.

Lawliet

leavingcert. wrote: »

I know you can't just swap, but I went in today and the woman said that I'd have to find someone that would swap with me, even though i have a three hur journey home.

Ah SCO, because why do your job when you fob people off!

fishtastico

Lawliet wrote: »

Ah SCO, because why do your job when you fob people off!

To be fair, they did their job by assigning labs in the first place. It's not like the OP has a real emergency of a Friday evening. It's more of a preference thing. The most the office could do is send out an e-mail. I'm not a fan of admin within the college by any means, but the people in the BTC do a difficult job.

Hopefully OP will get a better slot for themselves, but I'd imagine Friday afternoon isn't the most popular

Lawliet

fishtastico wrote: »

To be fair, they did their job by assigning labs in the first place. It's not like the OP has a real emergency of a Friday evening. It's more of a preference thing. The most the office could do is send out an e-mail. I'm not a fan of admin within the college by any means, but the people in the BTC do a difficult job.

Hopefully OP will get a better slot for themselves, but I'd imagine Friday afternoon isn't the most popular

Other years if someone needed to switch labs, the office just made the switch. Like I said, they use to be very nice about changing a lab if you had a decent reason like a part time job and/or a long journey home.
Expecting a first year who probably doesn't know many people yet, to try and track down other labs groups and convince them to switch, when they have the lists in front of them? Just sounds like they don't want to deal with it and are brushing people off.

fishtastico

Lawliet wrote: »

Other years if someone needed to switch labs, the office just made the switch. Like I said, they use to be very nice about changing a lab if you had a decent reason like a part time job and/or a long journey home.
Expecting a first year who probably doesn't know many people yet, to try and track down other labs groups and convince them to switch, when they have the lists in front of them? Just sounds like they don't want to deal with it and are brushing people off.

All I'm saying is that it's very easy to complain about the way it's run when you don't know the full story. The reason the course is 500+ points this year is that it was hugely oversubscribed. Since the OP's reason for wanting to switch labs is wanting to get home earlier on a Friday and not something that would prevent them from attending afternoon labs, it's not necessarily their job to accommodate.

Also, from what I recall, the lab class lists are hung up in the East End, are they not? I'm sure OP could put an e-mail together using peoplefinder

fishtastico

fishtastico wrote: »

...it's not necessarily their job to accommodate.

Exactly. It's not their job at all. Asking to switch labs is asking for a favour, it's not the same as applying for a service you're entitled to. It's the responsibility of students to attend the labs they're assigned.

There are people in the Friday lab that have a very long journey home ahead of them, it's only common sense to try to switch labs. There's nothing wrong with trying. But it's not a failure on the part of the course admin that they need a swap rather than a transfer; it's not fair if they swap two random students just because one of them wants to. It makes far more sense for them to ask the student in question to provide them with a viable swap.

I only live a half hour from the college, I wouldn't mind at all swapping (not that I'm offering OP, I'm in 4th year) if someone in the course explained their situation and asked me, but if I got an email from the course office saying I was being kept in on Friday afternoons in order to accommodate (an anonymous) someone getting an earlier train home, I'd be pretty miffed.

OP you're going the right way about it, boards.ie, the class facebook page, and word of mouth, and I'm sure you'll find someone to swap with.

Gae

Lawliet wrote: »

Other years if someone needed to switch labs, the office just made the switch.

In other years there may have been vacancies in other labs, and this year maybe they're full and so require a swap.

Lawliet

Gae wrote: »

In other years there may have been vacancies in other labs, and this year maybe they're full and so require a swap.

The labs last year were at capacity and people still switched. I have asked to move labs and done so with no problems, and been moved to accommodate others -you don't get an email about it, they just change your timetable.
I guess I'm just a bit skeptical over their reasons for doing it other years but not this one.

bscm

Maybe it's because of even numbers/lab partners. It would be a bit awkward to start off with say 60 per lab, and change it to 59 and 61.

NeuroCat

It really isn't as difficult to mediate lab swaps as they make it out. This seems to be the prevailing opinion.