'Classroom Study' Time On Full Time Course

Smickan

Hey

I'm starting a Full Time Foundation Degree in September in Early Childhood Studies. We're due to have some work done in the house in September too so I rang up today and asked when it was likely I'd be in the classroom. I was told that it's likely to just be Monday 5-9pm and Friday 9am-4pm with obviously some work based learning in between - so I have to find a placement, I know.

The 11ish hours doesn't seem like 'full time' that I thought (I was expecting a few more 'full days' in the college and I double checked repeatedly with her that they were the hours for the fulltime course. I know there'll be studying and researching in my own time.

Can anyone tell me a bit more about their course's 'classroom time' please? Is it about right or is it surprisingly lacking in hours?!

Thanks

Oldernotwiser

Smickan wrote: »

Hey

I'm starting a Full Time Foundation Degree in September in Early Childhood Studies. We're due to have some work done in the house in September too so I rang up today and asked when it was likely I'd be in the classroom. I was told that it's likely to just be Monday 5-9pm and Friday 9am-4pm with obviously some work based learning in between - so I have to find a placement, I know.

The 11ish hours doesn't seem like 'full time' that I thought (I was expecting a few more 'full days' in the college and I double checked repeatedly with her that they were the hours for the fulltime course. I know there'll be studying and researching in my own time.

Can anyone tell me a bit more about their course's 'classroom time' please? Is it about right or is it surprisingly lacking in hours?!

Thanks

A Foundation Degree is essentially a practical, workbased degree and won't have a large number of classroom hours. You could roughly draw a comparison between the number of classroom hours for someone doing an NVQ level 3 to someone studying for 2 A levels. In addition to this, there's also the fact that in HE, the emphasis is on the student learning independently, rather than being taught. As well, I think that you may be underestimating the amount of workbased learning that you'll be doing as this should be substantial.

From personal experience, when I was doing a BA in languages about 10 years ago we had about 14 hours of classroom activities in the first year; 20 years earlier when doing another BA I had 2 hours of classes in the third year! Don't worry about this; it's what HE's about.

Smickan

Thakn you very much To be honest I feel a bit underprepared - largely because the woman who 'interviewed' us wasn't the actual woman who'd be taking us so she couldn't really give us any info at all.

Esqulax

The classroom time may seem low, but you'll find ou dont really need it with on-the-job learning.
When i did mine (computery one) I found that the college resources were worth the tuition fees (careers service, tutors, meeting people wanting the same thing)
Dont ever feel underprepared... Jump in with two feet, and your arms swinging!

Oldernotwiser

Smickan wrote: »

Thakn you very much To be honest I feel a bit underprepared - largely because the woman who 'interviewed' us wasn't the actual woman who'd be taking us so she couldn't really give us any info at all.

I remember your post about your "interview"; it really shouldn't be like that. Could you email the course tutor for some further information and perhaps some suggestions of what you could be reading over the summer? Foundation degrees attract people from a variety of backgrounds and you should find lots of things are clearer after your induction programme.

There's quite lot of general information available on the internet; you might find https://www.findfoundationdegree.co.uk a useful starting point.