Changing Course But No Finance

slummymummyof3

TheLostProphet wrote: »

Lol.

To slummy mummy, well put it this way... Practically everyone who got in has 4 A's at A-Level. But the average % marks at the end is about 54%. That means they must be doing something fishy for everyone to be getting such low marks, since they start out with well qualified candidates.

Of those people who do very well, it comes with a lot of sacrifices. Apart from the stuff listed above (extra reading etc.) they also come in at 7am and leave around 9pm to do extra lab hours. Quite a lot of people start out on a 4 year course, but I don't know a single person who didn't change to 3 years because it's so hellish.

I couldn't get in to 2nd year because of 2 factors: massively increased application numbers and places being cut. That made this year incredibly hard to get in compared to previous years.

I would suggest to you that a degree should involve extra reading as a matter of course. If you are not demonstrating that, then your marks will be inherently lower as you are not demonstrating as required by upper marking criteria that you have read widely.

You mention 'average marks' being at 54% - what were the top marks? You fail to mention this. Students should refer to the marking criteria grids provided in the course handbook to ensure they are covering all elements.

If a student was only providing references from 3-4 sources and none of them were primary sources or academic texts, then this would prevent progression to the higher end as you are not demonstrating working at level 5. Citing articles from Wikipedia or Google are not considered as 'academic'. Many students do not reference adequately despite clear expectations for Harvard referencing in their handbooks.

Marks of 80% + are unrealistic to expect in the first year of study and would be equivalent to work that could be published. Many employers will have a preference over what university a candidate has qualified from - it is a good thing that a university has high standards; it sorts the men from the boys so to speak.

Additionally, many students make sweeping statements which are not backed up by evidence or quotations to support their claims and will be marked down accordingly.

melancholly

there are plenty of students who can do very well at a levels by regurgitating facts. at degree level, this is not sufficient and you have to demonstrate logic and argue for own point of view, with evidence. big difference!

bestpud

melancholly wrote: »

there are plenty of students who can do very well at a levels by regurgitating facts. at degree level, this is not sufficient and you have to demonstrate logic and argue for own point of view, with evidence. big difference!

Quite, so I can't understand how someone can get a 2:1 by regurgitating lecture notes...?

I wasn't at a top uni by any stretch of the imagination but can say for sure anyone writing essays from lecture notes alone would at best have scraped a lower third (by the seat of their pants)!

After the first year, no indpendent reading/referencing = a fail.

You surely can't graduate from Cambridge (it was Cambridge you went to, wasn't it?) by using lecture notes only???

I rarely disagree with you but that cannot be right! :eek:

melancholly

bestpud wrote: »

Quite, so I can't understand how someone can get a 2:1 by regurgitating lecture notes...?

I wasn't at a top uni by any stretch of the imagination but can say for sure anyone writing essays from lecture notes alone would at best have scraped a lower third (by the seat of their pants)!

After the first year, no indpendent reading/referencing = a fail.

You surely can't graduate from Cambridge (it was Cambridge you went to, wasn't it?) by using lecture notes only???

I rarely disagree with you but that cannot be right! :eek:

i should say that i'm talking about exams, not coursework. if you write a well structured essay with supporting arguments that were all papers from the lectures, yes, you can get a 2:1. if you write a list of facts with no structure, you would do very poorly regardless of where the facts come from! to get a good 2:1 or 1st you'd need the good structure with points from extra reading, saying something interesting.

i think there's a difference between regurgitating lecture notes and writing a good/sensible/appropriate/balanced essay where you sum up different opinions and justify a conclusion. both can be done on basic taught info. my experience was that questions were very broad... you had to manipulate and use the information from lectures in different ways - that's what the hardest part was - with essay titles that weren't obviously 'tell me the facts from lecture 3', it's a different way of teaching - more about how you think than what facts you can cram.

i said you 'might get a 2:1' and i think that's true - a good argument with data from a variety of sources that were all covered, might just get you into a bottom 2:1. a whole load of extra reading that was shoe horned into the essay wouldn't help. my point was that just covering the core content isn't enough for top grades - which everyone agrees with, but i wouldn't say that knowing only covered content means a fail (perhaps if it was coursework, yes, but we didn't do essays that counted - it was all on exams, when remembering the authors and years and titles of lots of extra papers is less expected there).

also, with up to 20 papers per lecture, most of the important ones were given in the reading list - finding a non-referenced paper that was important wasn't always an option. when you throw in the supervision system where some extra content will always be covered, it's not an easy thing to compare.

hmm... a bit of a ramble already but i'm trying to think of an example.... maybe something very biological like 'what do mitochondria do' could be asked along the lines of 'how does the structure of a mitochondria lead to its function'. at every point where you list a fact, you have to explain why. it's asking about thought process and requiring you to think about the facts in a sensible way. this is a bad example - but i hope it makes a bit of sense in terms of what i'm trying to say...... facts on their own, however unusual they are, and even if you're the only student to have read about them, mean nothing if you don't hang it together in a good way. using them intelligently is what should be valued.

(in much the same way as maths questions were marked on how 'beautiful' your solution was, not on whether or not you got to the right answer. my ugly solutions got lower marks than other people's elegant attempts!)

bestpud

melancholly wrote: »

i should say that i'm talking about exams, not coursework. if you write a well structured essay with supporting arguments that were all papers from the lectures, yes, you can get a 2:1. if you write a list of facts with no structure, you would do very poorly regardless of where the facts come from! to get a good 2:1 or 1st you'd need the good structure with points from extra reading, saying something interesting.

i think there's a difference between regurgitating lecture notes and writing a good/sensible/appropriate/balanced essay where you sum up different opinions and justify a conclusion. both can be done on basic taught info. my experience was that questions were very broad... you had to manipulate and use the information from lectures in different ways - that's what the hardest part was - with essay titles that weren't obviously 'tell me the facts from lecture 3', it's a different way of teaching - more about how you think than what facts you can cram.

i said you 'might get a 2:1' and i think that's true - a good argument with data from a variety of sources that were all covered, might just get you into a bottom 2:1. a whole load of extra reading that was shoe horned into the essay wouldn't help. my point was that just covering the core content isn't enough for top grades - which everyone agrees with, but i wouldn't say that knowing only covered content means a fail (perhaps if it was coursework, yes, but we didn't do essays that counted - it was all on exams, when remembering the authors and years and titles of lots of extra papers is less expected there).

also, with up to 20 papers per lecture, most of the important ones were given in the reading list - finding a non-referenced paper that was important wasn't always an option. when you throw in the supervision system where some extra content will always be covered, it's not an easy thing to compare.

hmm... a bit of a ramble already but i'm trying to think of an example.... maybe something very biological like 'what do mitochondria do' could be asked along the lines of 'how does the structure of a mitochondria lead to its function'. at every point where you list a fact, you have to explain why. it's asking about thought process and requiring you to think about the facts in a sensible way. this is a bad example - but i hope it makes a bit of sense in terms of what i'm trying to say...... facts on their own, however unusual they are, and even if you're the only student to have read about them, mean nothing if you don't hang it together in a good way. using them intelligently is what should be valued.

(in much the same way as maths questions were marked on how 'beautiful' your solution was, not on whether or not you got to the right answer. my ugly solutions got lower marks than other people's elegant attempts!)

Ah, ok, I was thinking of coursework. Exams are obviously marked differently.

And, for lecture notes, I was thinking of the bare bones the lecturer delivers and any handouts they may have given out. I wasn't including the reading list iyswim? So, no reading at all - just the information delivered by the lecturer and/or discussed in a seminar.

I imagine it would be possible to get a reasonable grade using the lecture material and reading list well but indepdendent thought was needed for a 2:1 or higher.

melancholly

bestpud wrote: »

Ah, ok, I was thinking of coursework. Exams are obviously marked differently.

And, for lecture notes, I was thinking of the bare bones the lecturer delivers and any handouts they may have given out. I wasn't including the reading list iyswim? So, no reading at all - just the information delivered by the lecturer and/or discussed in a seminar.

I imagine it would be possible to get a reasonable grade using the lecture material and reading list well but indepdendent thought was needed for a 2:1 or higher.

talking at crossed purposes then!

i didn't really have the luxury of coursework - one project for 20% and the rest on exams.... no contribution from the first two years either!

TheLostProphet

Well for my old place you were marked pretty randomly, it was awful. Not sure if I mentioned any details about my new place but it's awesome, I actually enjoy my course now. I could go into details why, but if we're still assuming that they just hand A's out at A-Level then why bother.

Anyway - wrote a 2 page covering letter to Student Finance. Enclosed a medical certificate to back up some of my claims. It took them like 2 months to do anything, but I've just been told that I'll be getting everything this year. So it can be done.

Taiko

SFE really should not have caved in on this. I fail to see, based on the information here, why you warrant an additional year.

TheLostProphet

They also gave me a bigger grant than the usual maximum since they took so long processing it. free money!

Taiko

Might want to stop talking complete !!!!!!!!, as current legislation does not allow SFE to pay more than the maximum.