direct entry to third year of a course.

littlepinkstars44

Has anyone else been through this process?
I have just finished my HND at college, and going into third year at uni.

Have been at a summer school programme all week, which is designed to get us caught up with the second years, who are going into third year.

There is only one day left of summer school, and i really don't feel that i am ready to enter into third year yet.
I don't feel that it has actually taught me anything that i really need to know.

I just feel like i am really going to fail! We've been talking about refencing and plagerism all week. I had never even heard of refrencing before, so i am so nervous that i am going mess all that up.

I am also worried about what essays are going to be like, as in college our lecturer would "fix them" for us, give us them back and we would just re-write them. But have just found out that that doesn't happen in uni :eek:

I am also really shocked when we were told about the amount of books we will need to use as well, i have never used a book to write an essay in my life, nevermind using 20 for one essay!

Has anyone else been though direct entry and lived to tell the tale?
How did you find it, and how different is things to college?

The_One_Who

Can you go into second year instead? Might require you to pay your own fees for a year, but might mean you get a better result in the long run. Especially if you are going into third year without any grounding in academic work level at all.

My essays stopped getting marked for me when I was about sixteen, and was expected to start referencing from this age too. So university work is like second nature to me.

Oldernotwiser

As I've said to you before, this is the reason that many colleges shouldn't be offering HND courses. You ought to be able to move seamlessly into the third year of a degree with little adjustment.

I think you just have to accept that you've had a cushy ride up to now and buckle down to this year. I cannot believe that you've got done an HND without learning about referencing and asd for rewriting your essays - your former college should be reported!

Having said that, first year degree students have to learn these thing pretty rapidly and I'm sure that you can too. Good luck.

alyth

Hey littlepink, you were kind enough to offer me help, I'm do the same in return.

I totally agree with ONW- I only know about referencing through my OU courses, in 2 weeks of my access course it has never been mentioned - google Harvard Referencing and memorise it! Was it never brought up on your summer programme?

ONW, during my english lecture today, we have to provide the college with 3 drafts of a 1000 word essay in our "pack" and then submit the final essay - quite frankly I was fuming at that, I'll submit an essay knowing that I've done the best I can. The colleges up here are little more than hand-holding institutions, there is no way you can fail up here, as I've said before I've made a mistake in taking on my course, but it's good for me and my interpersonal skills, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Littlepink, I don't understand how you have got through an HND without using a book to write an essay - even on my course we've been giving a suggested reading list, especially for history and politics - you need to explain what sort of HND you did to get more advice. You will need to work like a trojan on your third year, you are going to find it difficult, did you not go to the uni induction days, did you not research on the uni websites what the reading lists were - I've got through the whole first year English degree of my chosen uni's list already!

Good luck, pm me if you need any advice, only because we're both in Scotland. You seriously need to get your head down, forget about having too much fun, read, study, find your way round the uni, if you want to succeed you will do it, but I agree that it is going to be very hard for you.

mumps

Try to relax, my son was in your position and ended the year with a First and the prize for the best science dissertation in his year. You will have to work hard, particularly in the first few weeks, but if you put the work in you can do this. My son phoned me many time in his first few weeks and then settled down and did really well. He also had a very good social life, drank too much and had a job to pay for the alcohol! Good luck.

littlepinkstars44

thanks, my hnd is in tourism.
so the classes we had were about tour guiding and geography, stuff like that. We even had a class called practical tourism visits. Were we had to go on 12 trips during the year, thats it! and we passed the class!

We never had any books, we had workbook type things for each class, made up by the SQA.

The induction is next week, during freshers week. The website doesn't have a reading list, and to be honest i never looked at it before applying. It was just sort of expected that we would get in there from our college. (our college and the uni have good links)
There are 30 of us going into 3rd year from different colleges. and 10 of them are all us from my college class

eklynne

When you register, tell your advisor about your worries over essays/referencing/plagiarism etc. Your Uni may do extra curricular classes on how to do this properly, I know my Uni does, I am at Strathy. It is imperative that you learn to do this, and fast. My uni takes off an immediate 10% for poor referencing, I assume Caley has a similar policy. I am quite stunned that you haven't been taught at HND level, that's not good at all. Which college did you do it at?

The_One_Who

The expected level of work in third year is a massive jump from that of second year, never mind not having done any work like it before. To be honest, your college or your lecturer should be reported.

redpete

littlepinkstars44 wrote: »

I am also worried about what essays are going to be like, as in college our lecturer would "fix them" for us, give us them back and we would just re-write them. But have just found out that that doesn't happen in uni :eek:

There were plenty of warnings in your previous threads that this doesn't happen on degree courses.

If you're still not sure about referencing then make sure you discuss it with your tutor as soon as you start so that you don't mess it up.

littlepinkstars44

eklynne wrote: »

When you register, tell your advisor about your worries over essays/referencing/plagiarism etc. Your Uni may do extra curricular classes on how to do this properly, I know my Uni does, I am at Strathy. It is imperative that you learn to do this, and fast. My uni takes off an immediate 10% for poor referencing, I assume Caley has a similar policy. I am quite stunned that you haven't been taught at HND level, that's not good at all. Which college did you do it at?

I was at central.
But it's not just us, there are people from the met, ayr college, cardonald college and stow all going straight into 3rd year too, and have never heard of refrencing either. Even the lecturers weren't all that suprised, so i'm sure it's fairly common not to deal with that kinda stuff in college.

I have no idea how cali mark essays yet. I guess i'll find out all that stuff when i start.
Apparently there is loads of stuff on blackboard about refrencing in the uni. Can'tget onto the computers there though till we start that actual course. And again, have never used blackboard before. so that could also be intresting.

Oldernotwiser

littlepinkstars44 wrote: »

I was at central.
But it's not just us, there are people from the met, ayr college, cardonald college and stow all going straight into 3rd year too, and have never heard of refrencing either. Even the lecturers weren't all that suprised, so i'm sure it's fairly common not to deal with that kinda stuff in college.

I have no idea how cali mark essays yet. I guess i'll find out all that stuff when i start.
Apparently there is loads of stuff on blackboard about refrencing in the uni. Can'tget onto the computers there though till we start that actual course. And again, have never used blackboard before. so that could also be intresting.

Whether you study an HND at college or university, the standards should still be the same. HND should be equivalent to the first 2 years of a degree (which is why you can go straight into the third year of the degree) with all that entails.

If there are so many people in the same situation as you, I wouldn't worry about it. It sounds to me as if Glasgow Caledonian (like so many new universities) has pretty low standards so I'm sure you'll be just fine.