advice for ds been put off course after 1st lecture!

muddyfox470

engineering is one of the hardest subjects you can do at university and therefore require a lot of contact time. it won't be 9-5.30 every day but it will be a lot of hours per week compared to a lot of the humanities/arts subjects where they are expected to do more work/reading of their own (whether this is ever the case is another thing...)

all engineering courses require dedication and a lot of time spent in lectures. you really are getting your monies worth compared to other courses, and normally the lecture quality is much higher too. when i was looking round i thought Loughborough had a well funded engineering department.

1 "inaugural" lecture is not enough to base your opinion on, i know for a fact that at my uni if you decide to "drop-out" before december you don't have to pay any fees, just the living expenses up to that date.

but as others have said all that work will not go wasted you are much more likely to get a better job at the end of it all, engineers are always in demand and you have so many skills to apply to so many jobs so try to make him reconsider, and attend a few lectures. and from experience i can only say about the importance of attending all/most lectures!

Mike1989

I'm a history student and during the first semester it can be hard because a lot of work can be thrown your way, a lot of lectures may seem boring and bland, and you may think why did I take this and want to swap. But like another poster I read above, the first semester is generally rather dull and about getting you up to speed for University level. So I would advise your son to stick with it, admittedly if he knows he doesn't want to do it anymore, I'm sure the university would allow him to switch to another course if he had the right entry requirements, and if there was space.

But I would tell him to stick with it as its probably worth seeing if it gets any better. If it doesn't he can always, not sure its the case at the uni he's at, but a lot of unis run a fresh start program were at the end of your first year if you're not enjoying it, you can switch. But I found in the second semester things got better, lectures got more interesting and it was more about learning. In the second year in my course you get more freedom in what you can pick, its no longer 3 or 4 modules you have to do, its now 2 compulsory and 4 of your personal choice so you can specialise in different areas.

So it might be worth telling him to stick it out, but if he is really that bored then maybe it would be worth seeing what he could switch to. Although as the above poster mentioned, one lecture is not enough to based a lasting opinion on the course you picked. And as a few posters have said, the course he's doing he will get a good job at the end of it and will have more opportunities. A lot of people take psychology so he'll probably be more in demand when he graduates. Stick with it is my advice, as the first semester is about breaking you in.

Voyager2002

I would add a note of caution to balance all the posters urging him to stick it out:

While I have a lot of respect for an Engineering degree as a qualification, I do not think that it is generally regarded as a particularly prestigeous degree. And Britain no longer has that much of an engineering industry, so there are not that many jobs that would use his skills directly (and many of these jobs are not very well paid, and do not command a great deal of status).

More to the point, an Engineering course builds on a certain set of aptitudes and develops a related skill-set, while other aptitudes, such as those relating to words and language, are pretty well irrelevant to it. Some one who has highly developed skills in using words and constructing verbal arguments would not be able to use these skills much in an Engineering course, nor would the course develop this aptitude in the many ways in which it could lead to a desirable job.

srichards

yup thats how it is, my first degree was in science. And the drop out rate is huge. We started with 200, lost 1/4 by Xmas alone. Was down to 50% ome graduation day, from drop outs and failures. Not many failures though. But jesus, its pretty hard to fail a degree even a science based one!!


Those that drop out; fail, do badly tend to be the !!!! head stoners.

leyo

Just another reply to say that sticking with it for a while can't do any harm. Like some of the above posters said it can take a while to settle into a course, and if he really doesn't like it then a gap year (albeit a short one) is still an option! When I was at school I always heard about gap year kids trying to find sponsors to pay for a volunteering trip abroad, which sounded awfully complicated. But I got a job and saved up and that was an experience in itself -- made me much keener to go back to university the year after! And I had 3.5 months travelling on the money I saved. Although I'm very academic and happily plugging away at a very challenging degree, I was pretty sick of school by the time I'd done my A Levels. There's no shame in needing a break for a while. I have a friend who started at uni but realised he really didn't like it, so he dropped out and came home to London, started his own company which he ran for two years and has started uni again in London now that he's ready for it and much happier! There's so many ways of doing this, the most important thing is not to feel trapped.

Although by the sounds of it your son just lacks confidence. I'm sure he'll be fine. And having a demanding degree does not necessarily ruin your social life -- as many students will testify, the harder you have to work the harder you play :beer:

leyo

Oh and on tutors' threats: in my first year we were told that the previous year 25% of the students failed their end of year exams -- we were all so bloody terrified that of course only one out of 20 did fail in the end! And there's always retakes.

Kmac_Edin

I did a drama degree at a well known drama school in london ( hence why I'm in debt!!) and on my very first day I'll always remember my dance tutor saying " warm ups at 7am to be ready to dance at 8am. You'll get a break when I set one and in addition to this class you have music and stage craft each day. Its a long 4 years, 50 hour weeks, rehearsal time and bleeding toes. Some will make it and some wont, thats the nature of any higher education institution. Deal with it or get out".... 5 students got up and left.

Its a scare tactic, deisgned to get the students thinking about what lies ahead. Encourage your son to stick it out. 2 of my best friends did engineering at Edinburgh and Glasgow University and both found it tough to start wtih but in the end they loved it and came through with some amazing relationships and friendships from others on the course.

Your son will get through the degree, its a great sign that hes taken on board what the tutor has said. xx

Gibsonuk

Heh just thought I'd put my thoughts in.

I'm currently a finalist doing systems engineering at loughborough and my best advice would be to stick it out. The deal wit the first year is not to stress too much about it it doesn't count for anything and is only to get into the swing of things. Also with any form of engineering degree your son will be highly employable.

He's probably still recovering from freshers week too!!

Emily_Hall08

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Firstly, degrees in science and engineering are highly structured, and there is a great deal of hard work involved. The workload is indeed like having a full-time job with some work for the evenings, and the tutor was right to spell out the reality.

Yeah I agree with this. Don't be so quick to assume the tutor is exaggerating! Foundation courses tend to be intense, with a 9-5 structure, so this seems perfectly true to me! Tell him to stick with it and put in the required hours!

Nenen

:beer::beer::beer: Thanks again everyone for all the kind and helpful posts... giving a whole range of opinions and options.... just what I was hoping for and I've managed to pass on a synopsis of your thoughts and options to ds.

He rang me today in a MUCH more positive frame of mind... apparently the lectures have been going well this week and he has actually found things relatively easy... certainly a lot easier than he was imagining last Friday! He has spoken to the psychology department and they've told him to stick it out for this year with the possibility of transfering to psychology and ergonomics next year if he still wants to. I think having a bit of a 'get out of jail free' option has made him feel a lot less anxious and actually increased his determination to carry on with engineering... hopefully this will continue although no doubt next week he (or one of my other two children) will present me with something else to worry about!
Thanks again :beer::beer::beer::beer::beer: