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URGENT!!- I hate my course!

analyse this

Ok guys, once again I have come to obtain your wonderful words of enlightenment. I have a little problem. Well, actually its a big problem that has been eating at me for the past week. I don't like my course. I'm a first year student studying Commerce with Chinese Studies and I find myself lacking any interest whatsoever in my course. While I find the chinese components of my course mildly entertaining I regret to say that my interest in the business component is non-existant. I find myself skipping lectures and tutorials which I would normally never do if I was in any way passionate with my course.

I realise I may be selfish and that there are other leaving cert students that would have killed to get into this course.But I cant change how i feel. I'm not going to stay in a course that does nothing for me for four years just to quell the "you selfish bastard" posts that are sure to follow this post.

So, my fellow UCD students, what should I do. I would like to change to arts (english, philosophy and politics). Is it too late to change courses right now? or, if it wasnt, would anyone advise against it seeing as the other students have a couple of weeks head-start? I have heard that if I opt out of my course before January of next year I am still admitted to the free fees scheme next year. is this true?

Your advise is much appreciated.

Brian.:D

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themole

Hmm, well if you really hate it you should change asap. Go into the programmes office and see what they say.

Vainglory

Changing course within the university is only possible if you have the sufficient points for the new course you want to do. However this is not the only factor taken into account and you should talk to the programme office, and also perhaps the programme office dealing with the course you want to switch to.

Regarding free fees: If you drop out before January of this year you will only have to pay HALF a year's full fees next year if you start a new course then.
If you drop out in, say, April, you would have to pay full fees for the whole year. As it stands I'd imagine you would have to pay at least half a year's full fees next year if you dropped out now and began again in September.

This is all to the best of my memory.

Try not to get too discouraged - it's only two weeks into the semester. Don't put off the decision and if you're sure you want to change then find out how to go about it as soon as possible.

Pythia

Did you not want to do Economics and Finance over the summer (ie maths, finance, stats, economics, etc).
You're doing BComm with Chinese (business, language).
Now you wanna do English, Philosophy, Politics.
Maybe you should take a year out and decide what exactly it is you wanna do, because your choices seem extremely different to each other.

EDIT:
Yes, here's your old thread. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055130407&referrerid=&highlight=ec+fi

Your Man

Im sort of in the same boat with engineering, but its partly due to the fact i havent a clue whats going on in about 2 of my lectures,

rain on

Pythia wrote:

Did you not want to do Economics and Finance over the summer (ie maths, finance, stats, economics, etc).
You're doing BComm with Chinese (business, language).
Now you wanna do English, Philosophy, Politics.
Maybe you should take a year out and decide what exactly it is you wanna do, because your choices seem extremely different to each other.

EDIT:
Yes, here's your old thread. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055130407&referrerid=&highlight=ec+fi

+1.

Correct me if I'm outdated (I never had to deal with this Horizons malarkey and the website is rather vague) but in My Day English and Politics were timetabled together so you couldn't do both. These days I'm sure you could do an English and Philosophy double major and some electives from Politics, or vice versa, but as far as I can tell you wouldn't have the option of continuing with English and Politics as majors together. And Philosophy is one of those love-hate subjects that you really wouldn't want to be stuck with if it turned out it wasn't your cup of tea.

Regardless of whether the above is still true in 2007 (I am constantly staggered at how much UCD has changed in the last two years, and by how much of that change seems to be having a negative impact on staff and students) the point still stands that by the sounds of things, a bit of research and some serious thinking are on the cards.

Alanstrainor

Your Man wrote:

Im sort of in the same boat with engineering, but its partly due to the fact i havent a clue whats going on in about 2 of my lectures,

I dont suppose mechanics is one of those, no one i've talked gets it, ah feck it, we'll learn:rolleyes:...eventually

CantGetNoSleep

I would say give it until October, I'm fairly sure October 31st is the deadline for free fees, if you still don't like it drop out

Your Man

Alanstrainor wrote:

I dont suppose mechanics is one of those, no one i've talked gets it, ah feck it, we'll learn:rolleyes:...eventually

yeah thats the one! the way it is in class though youd think everyone knows what shes goin on about! might say it to her on monday that no one has a ****in clue whats goin on:p

lizzyvera

Your Man wrote:

yeah thats the one! the way it is in class though youd think everyone knows what shes goin on about! might say it to her on monday that no one has a ****in clue whats goin on:p

You only need to pass it and there are LOADS of books, I'm sure they'll put it better than your lecturer.

yevveh

Even if you switch now you've already missed 2 weeks which is a good amount to miss if you've had no grounding in the subjects previously (bar English I guess, I dunno what that's like at uni level). If you could catch up in 2 weeks worth of 6 modules while keeping up with the stuff, especially now some of them will require you to start with your first essay, then you could try switching. On top of that I think English is very popular and is probably booked out - it happened for me a lot sooner in the year when I was choosing my 1st year modules.

I reckon Phythia is right, take a year out, work a bit and come back. If you can, take some time to make an effort and like your modules, but if you really, really hate it don't waste your free fees - if you're gonna be charged for it, drop out and save yourself / your parents the couple of grand.

Bubs101

Your in first year and your missing tutorials and electives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh god no.

You've only been doing it for 2 weeks, give it time

jack da Lad

Its definitely not too late to change. UCD operate a system known as internal transfer and you basically just need the points requirements and the approval of your programme office. I transferred from medicine to law in late November of first year. UCD could not have been any more helpful; its definitely one of the best decisions I made. However do make sure you research the course you want to study; my programme office set up a meeting with a senior lecturer in the law faculty which was really helpful and confirmed me in my choice to change.
Good Luck!

tywy

Alanstrainor wrote:

I dont suppose mechanics is one of those, no one i've talked gets it, ah feck it, we'll learn:rolleyes:...eventually

Get the book recommended, I think it's called Mechanics for A Levels. It's helpful and has questions at the end of chapters. They have it in Hodges Figgis in town, I saw it the other day. I think it was only €25 when I was in first year.

Did you do Physics/Applied Maths for the leaving?

What other subject are you have trouble with? I know Fluid Mech was a tough one, I think 37% failed the midterm. Thermodynamics can be hard too.

What denomiation are you in/hoping to do?

mac123

im doing commerce too, i felt the same way last year but seen as it was my second attempt at college i said id stick it out and get the degree. it is a good degree after all! anyway i still dont like it and i still miss lectures fairly regularly but at least iv found a few subjects that i like!
if i was you id probably stick it for a few weeks and see if it gets better, if not take a year out and think seriously about what you want to do when you finnish!

stereoroid

If you're talking about Mechanic for Engineers (MEEN10050), there's something very wrong with the materials, I think. (Kips? What the hell are Kips?) Good thing we have WikiBooks e.g. Statics.

I mean, don't lecturers talk to each other, don't programme directors compare what's being taught in the various courses in a programme? I have a Physics course that assumes a lot of Calculus that we're yet to do in one of my Maths courses... and a Mechanics course that expects us to know Matrix Determinants, that we're yet to do in another Maths course... and two different courses teaching me two different ways to do Vector Products, which (as we're about to find out) can be done in a 3rd way: by Matrix Determinants! :eek:

Must be some kind of hazing ritual, but you know what? I'm doing a Divide & Conquer job on this Semester. The homework etc. is there so that we actually do examples of the work, and don't see it for the first time at the RDS in December...

Your Man

yeah theres clearly no communication between lecturers. Example in one maths lecture yesterday we were told a negative by a negative equals a positive, and then were in mechanics where theres about 30 lines coming out of what looks like a potato(youll know what i mean if your doing mech) and at least 75per cent of the class dont have a clue whats going on

stereoroid

That's a potato? I thought it was an asteroid...

You'll note that I didn't say anything about the lecturer, because I think nothing good could come of that. In general, I think all the lecturers I have have varying degrees of "over-familiarity", as I would call it. They know that one subject in depth, and may not remember or understand what it's like being an undergraduate seeing that material for the first time... and that their pet subject is just one of the six we're doing in any semester i.e. they have to fight five other lecturers for our limited "bandwidth". :rolleyes:

tywy

Your Man wrote:

yeah theres clearly no communication between lecturers. Example in one maths lecture yesterday we were told a negative by a negative equals a positive, and then were in mechanics where theres about 30 lines coming out of what looks like a potato(youll know what i mean if your doing mech) and at least 75per cent of the class dont have a clue whats going on because the lecturer cant speak english

If you're in Mech Eng, go complain, they actually listen, unlike Elec Eng.

There's no point in bitching about it on boards, either email the lecturer, talk to him/her after class or go and talk to your go to person in Engineering.

Do you have a head of year you can talk to?

The Mech dept are good enough for getting stuff done. We had a bad lecturer for maths last year so they got extra classes sorted out for the whole of class (ie not just Mechs)

stereoroid

tywy wrote:

If you're in Mech Eng, go complain, they actually listen, unlike Elec Eng.

Well, the queues lining up to speak to the lecturer are getting longer after each lecture, and she put together a new summary slide this week, so she appears to be getting the message that something is not quite right.

Note also that we only have a couple more weeks of this lecturer, the 2nd half of the semester will have a different lecturer. So I'm happy to fill in the gaps with books and other materials. I need to sit down and think of nothing else for several hours, and stay away from those Damned Yankee slides we have been given, until I find a better explanation of the basics.

Your Man

yeah im the exact same but the rate of her moving on is faster than me catching up, at this stage its not the exam thats bothering me but the need to have a strong grasp of the subject for the future.

tywy

Well you'll realise when you look at the past exam papers, that the best way to master that subject and most engineering subjects is to do questions. You'll soon find what you need to know and what you don't. Not everything she does on the slides is neccesarily essential for the exam.

If you need some help, ask some 2nd, 3rd or 4th years who appear to be smart. They might be able to help you or have better notes from a different lecture. I might have my 1st year notes actually. As far as I remember, the leaving cert book covered enough.

Pythia

Most lecturers are really helpful. I missed a lot of class last term due to illness and had to catch up on a lot. I only did 4 classes luckily enough but all the lecturers gave me a few hours in their office going over stuff and telling me what to read, etc.

Lecturers want to see people do well. Ask them, or email them, anything!
Also, if a lot of people are having trouble, do mention this. We had a problem last term where almost the whole class didn't understand things. The lecturer did slow things down and gave us extra tutorials.

Just don't be afraid to ask.

RosemaryMcC

Anyone start mech eng this year and already hate it? My sons tutors seem to assume that he already knows things that he can't possibly know having never done engineering before. Hes doing a 2 year foundation degree in NI which equates to level 7 here.

looksee

Rosemary, if your son is old enough to do a degree course he is old enough to sort himself out. He is probably feeling confused and unsure, this is a new experience for him. Allow him to vent, but don't fuss or get involved, just be cheerful and supportive, but let him get on with it. If he has problems there are people he can go to in the college, its up to him to contact and use the services on offer. Don't worry - most of it will settled down.