Advice wanted about uni problem.

Oldernotwiser

welf_man wrote: »

I work at a '94 Group, research-based, top-20 University and still students have an accepted right to pre-submission assistance if they want it.

.

I don't think that anyone's talking about not getting assistance before submitting a piece of work; just that the work should be your own and not an amalgamation of your work and the tutor's.

In my experience, if you have to resubmit work, the grade you can get is capped, otherwise you could improve your grade substantially by resubmitting assignments, which would hardly be fair to students who did well the first time round!

I thought Mellymeep was talking about resubmitting work with a low grade in order to improve it, rather than resubmitting work which had failed.

The_One_Who

welf_man wrote: »

Many Universities / courses require you to pass every assessment and give you an automatic resubmission if you fail the first time.

I work at a '94 Group, research-based, top-20 University and still students have an accepted right to pre-submission assistance if they want it.

I'm fascinated to know where some of you study that this isn't the case!

Mel.

At my university any resit is capped at a D grade, so unless you've totally failed doing a resit isn't going to help improve your grade by much.

Yes, students can get help, but not of the sort which will disadvantage students who have worked by themselves. A tutor could advise you about referencing, or maybe some journals to look at. They could also clarify or discuss points with you if you wanted, but you need to work to when they're free or do it via very polite e-mails. I wouldn't expect them to read my essay, tell me where I'm going wrong and then fix it.

Blacksheep1979

same here - if you failed exams or coursework if you got the chance to retake it was capped at 40%.

Oldernotwiser

Mine was capped at a bare pass.

bestpud

Capped at a D- here too, which is the minimum pass rate and it is only on offer to people who have failed, not those who haven't done as well as they may have liked!

Students can submit a mit circs claim if they feel their performance was affected but they will only usually accept claims before grades/feedback, and resubmissions are usually a new question to prevent the student obtaining an unfair advantage.

Blacksheep1979

I think it was 40% - but yes whatever it was, was a pass.

squirrelchops

At my Uni you can apporach the module tutor if you are really struggling on an assignement but they won't read drafts of the assignment as this would be deemed unfair and hence would have to state they would read everyones for it to be fair!

We have personal tutors throughout all 3 years at Uni which I aware is usually just given to the first year students. However, the nature of the course I am studying for can be more 'emotionally' draining than most hence we receive extra support. I find that I will approach my personal tutor to talk things through but I stress the point here- I will approach them with ideas not expect to be spoon fed and for them to provide me with the answers!

As alas, there are students on the course who do expect hand holding all the way. These are usually the same students who gripe and moan about failing an assignment but are the most regualr non-attenders to lectures or don't do their reading pre-lecture.

Sorry, am aware that this isn't really any help to the OP! Good rant though!

bestpud

squirrelchops wrote: »

At my Uni you can apporach the module tutor if you are really struggling on an assignement but they won't read drafts of the assignment as this would be deemed unfair and hence would have to state they would read everyones for it to be fair!

We have personal tutors throughout all 3 years at Uni which I aware is usually just given to the first year students. However, the nature of the course I am studying for can be more 'emotionally' draining than most hence we receive extra support. I find that I will approach my personal tutor to talk things through but I stress the point here- I will approach them with ideas not expect to be spoon fed and for them to provide me with the answers!

As alas, there are students on the course who do expect hand holding all the way. These are usually the same students who gripe and moan about failing an assignment but are the most regualr non-attenders to lectures or don't do their reading pre-lecture.

Sorry, am aware that this isn't really any help to the OP! Good rant though!

Everyone has a personal tutor for the length of their course at my uni.

I might add the weaker students are often the ones who have never made an effort to meet their personal tutor.

Plus they are more likely to be the ones who have never found the careers service, or worked out who their subject librarian is.

In short, it is obvious why certain students don't do well but they cannot see it themselves.

It's frustrating for fellow students, especially when you get lumbered with them for group work :mad:, but it must be doubly so for lecturers...

mellymeep

I consider myself to be quite an active student, I'm not expected to be spoon fed and have my lecturers write my assignments for me like some of you are probably thinking. I know its all about independent study, but what some of you can't seem to grasp what I'm complaining about is that we're not even given the basic information to build on ourselves! I understand that lecturers are busy people, but surely even if part of their job is to teach undergraduates they should do it properly? That's like saying part of my job at Sainsburys was to serve customers and take their money, so I can just ignore giving any sort of good customer service because the most important thing is to get the money. If I !!!! off the customers they aren't going to come back, which means no money. (Loose example there but I'm trying to make sense of what your all implying)

I do make use of the library facilities, that's another complaint I have though (and have actually made comment about this to the Uni) The amount of books and journals available to for Education students is ridiculous. We're given wider reading lists at the beginning of modules and we have to literally be in the library 5 seconds after this if we have any chance of seeing the books/journals we need for the rest of the year! I don't understand why there aren't more copies of them, there's about 300 people on my course alone and the University does a lot more courses related to Education, I've tried the city library but most of the time they never have the text I'm requiring, and I definitely don't have enough money to buy my own, especially when they're costing in excess of £50 each. I will take some of your advice though, and make more regular contact with my personal tutor, he was really helpful to me last year although mostly just with helping me get my head around the Harvard Referencing system, he's not actually got anything to do with my course, or even my faculty.. he teaches Computing or something which is baffling.

And my comment about re-submitting assignments wasn't very clear sorry, It's what someone else said my course requires me to pass all my assignments in the module in order to get credits to pass the year. If I hand in a sub-standard piece of work because I've no clue what im writing about and it fails I can't "learn from it" because I'll have to re-submit in order to get the capped mark of 40% which will be a complete disaster because my course is all assignments, I don't have any exams so its pretty intense with work all the time.

All I want to do is do well and graduate with a good degree, I completely understand that this is nothing like College any more, It just annoys me that its a complete up hill struggle all the time because of the lack of even the most basic support I'm supposed to receive.

Fire_Fox

It's unfair to criticise students study skills unless you know of the conditions at their university and on their course. I have both worked with students and studied at degree level at an old polytechnic, worked in research labs at a redbrick university and now study to degree level at a college. Each system has been very different, and has undoubtedly suited different learning styles.

I had excellent support - not spoonfeeding - at the ex-Poly and reasonable library facilities. I was a hardworking student and came out with an award for student of the year. The students themselves varied widely, from part-time mature students working in labs already to single mothers (almost always got a First!) to kids that virtually failed their A levels and slacked through the entire course.

The students had the redbrick were universally bright and committed but, frankly, my boss could not have cared less about the students. Her lecturing duties impinged upon her research work and she clearly resented that. The library facilities were, of course, first class. These students may not need much direction, but they do deserve a little enthusiasm.

The college I attend now is different again, with some parts of the course being spoonfed - how many times have we gone over Harvard referencing?! - at the expense of any direction in the more academic areas. Modules on management theory are completely self taught, for example. The library was completely unprepared for degree level students in my first year, full of books for A level and access to few relevant journals. The reading lists provided are very out of date, with numerous texts from the 90s (my field is very fast moving) and many not in our library at all. This was something poo poo'd by the course tutor at the time: this year we have a new librarian who stated publically we had the worst facilities of any department!