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Universities- too large to support students
studentphil
Posts: 37,640 Forumite
At my university they run workshops on Library skills, Essay skills, and IT skills, to name but a few. Yet they only offer a few places (20-30 max) but yet there are thousands and thousands of students. So many many students are not able to access any student at all. Universities must spend more on supporting students or must become smaller to provide a better ratio of students.
:beer:
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Have you tried to book yourself on one of these and not been able to? Is there a waiting list?
Only a small proportion of the 1000s of students will need that particular type of support. I know I have had no problem during my time at Birmingham Uni in in booking myself on the courses I wanted, even if each course only took 12-25 students at a time.0 -
Heth wrote:Have you tried to book yourself on one of these and not been able to? Is there a waiting list?
Only a small proportion of the 1000s of students will need that particular type of support. I know I have had no problem during my time at Birmingham Uni in in booking myself on the courses I wanted, even if each course only took 12-25 students at a time.
They are booked up in a matter of days of the start of term in most cases.
It just makes these things look piecemeal as the scale of them is so stupid compared to the number of students.:beer:0 -
prudryden wrote:Do you have a student union that can approach the faculty to get more concise numbers of the shortfall? Get the campus newspaper to do a complete analysis.
I doubt it would be headline stuff, but I suppose that is one answer, but they just say we dont have the staff or the rooms to offer more.
I find it worse that they run these things in a building with no disabled access, so people like me who do have trouble with steps, can not even go anyway.:beer:0 -
Is there a student-staff committee or something where you can voice your opinions? You may find that you are consistently say 31st to apply for the 30 places etc. So that while they are over-subscribed they aren't massively over-subscribed. If you ask them, they may be willing to hold extra workshops.~Diminutive0
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It is okay, I have phoned up this afternoon and got rather annoyed with them.
Now I have got on the things I wanted and in a room I can access!
It is just a shame that you have to get so annoyed and upset to get anywhere.:beer:0 -
but it does show how much you can do if you proactively go after things! they can't improve/change things until students actually complain to them directly!! I found that even with fully subscribed courses they can squeeze in an extra couple of people if you ring up and ask. the students who will 'miss out' are the ones who see a full course and don't do anything!!studentphil wrote:It is okay, I have phoned up this afternoon and got rather annoyed with them.
Now I have got on the things I wanted and in a room I can access!
It is just a shame that you have to get so annoyed and upset to get anywhere.:happyhear0 -
Hey, one tip I used to use all the time back at uni. If there is a course you want to go on but it's fully booked (we have a waiting list but I could never be bothered with that), find out where and when it is on and turn up. At least one other person will not have turned up (even though he/she booked) and frequently many won't turn up. I once gatecrashed a course that was fully booked (25 people) and only myself and two others turned up. I found the people taking the courses don't mind they are just happy people go to these things. Of course you are relying on the fact people don't turn up and everyone doesn't do the same as you but even so they can usually squeeze a few more in if for some crazy reason everyone does turn up.
Worked for me many times (note I was only doing courses because for some stupid reason my uni thought doing a PhD was not enough to keep us busy but personal development courses would be useful and therefore mandatory). Think about that for logistics, 20-30 places 100s of postgrads who MUST complete these courses. It all worked out in the end.
In a huge university with 1000s of students putting courses on for 20-30 is actually reasonable in my opinion. Most people don't want to go on them, and think about the logistics if the did offer 300 places I'd guess you wouldn't get as much out of the course. More chance of one-on-one in small groups.
While you say the courses are always fully booked many people would jump to the conclusion the course is in high demand because people want to do it (which may be a possibility) but from experience people just sign up to things especially nearer the start of the year and freshers like to sign up and not turn up.
One other poor alternative is get someone else who went and photocopy the information (not as good as going but a start, probably on par with going to the course with 300 others in usefullness).
Good luck.0
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