Is the Arts course a burden to UCD

Blush_01

Are you speaking from personal experience? Almost all the people I know in college are very interested in their courses. A minority dislike one of their two subjects out of the Arts students. But look at it realistically - I enjoy the social and monetary parts of my part-time job, but I hate the work bit. Yet I choose to stay there. Sure, there are things I dislike about the attitudes within the department in which I learn (and therefore work) in UCD, but they're nothing by comparison to the things I love about it. That's just my opinion.

m1ke wrote:

However, fewer, higher quality students would have a really positive effect for UCD and Ireland. It would mean less pass degrees and a better reputation in Ireland and abroad. More funding, time for research, less stress on teachers/lecturers, less time spent marking exams and essays etc... Less time having to teach remedials who shouldn't be there. The fewer, higher quality students will get more attention from lecturers and tutors and find it easier to socialise among themselves. This will drive up standards even further and increase excellence.

Universities are elitest places to be honest, they're not day care centres for rich children. Staff are just plain not interested in people without the brains and ability to achieve excellence their subject area. If you're not interested you should be somewhere else... it's a privilege not right etc...

By the way, I accept that it is completely unfair to suggest that people with high LC points will be more intelligent etc... I know many, many examples to suggest that the opposite is true. Especially considering how the LC is mostly a memory test. However, the law of averages applies

I think you're being incredibly unfair here, especially when you refer to universities as "day care centres for rich children". Money has nothing to do with it - I'm sure plenty of "rich children" can afford the grinds and private tuition it requires to help them learn things off in order to do well in the leaving cert as they regurgitate all the knowledge their skulls have been packed with, as sure, in fact, as I am sure that plenty of "rich children" are as smart as "poor" ones. Financial discrimination, in this case, adds nothing to the discussion.

As you already said, college is elitist. Beanyb also pointed out that the average in the leaving cert (since the law of averages applies here also) is around the 300 point mark. I didn't do terrifically well in the leaving cert in my personal estimations, but I know plenty of people I went to school with who would have killed to get my points. I had well over what I needed for Arts. I also know people who got well in excess of 500 points who entered the ordinary Arts course. I'd love to know what the average points for Arts are, as the 375 (or whatever it currently is) entry level is a very minimum, something that has been neglected so far in the discussion. From what I've noticed, Arts doesn't go too many rounds lower than 375!

To call anyone who got the basic entry points for the Arts course in UCD remedial is a misnomer, and is unfair on those who struggle with settling into a college atmosphere as well as potential moves from home et al. It takes many students until christmas, or even until the beginning of second year, to settle into the "whole college thing". Those people shouldn't be denied the opportunity to settle in and make something of themselves because they had difficulties initially. They're often the most intelligent people of all.

And as Humbert has repeatedly pointed out, entry level general Science has a requirement of around 300 points - well below Arts. This may be a contributing factor in the fact that (until recently anyway) Physics had a first year fail-rate of 54%. I've never heard that of the Arts faculty in any department/school/whatever they're calling it this week. Does that make Science a burden on UCD? Should it be whittled down to 500 too? I'm not being sarcastic. I'd genuinely like to know why Arts is continually singled out as the UCD problem child when, if you looked at, for example, The Observer's Successful Previous Graduate Profile that was run during the year, the majority of the profiles were on previous Arts students.

Also, back to the "remedials" comment that popped up at least twice, M1ke, I think that's very unfair. I commend anyone who will approach a lecturer for help when they think they're struggling, rather than say nothing or ignore the problem and drop out as a result. That kind of attitude is simply unfair to people who deserve the help they look for. It's part of your job as an educator to educate those you are being paid to educate, especially if they want to learn! Nobody will turn up at a lecturer's door asking for help just for kicks!

singingstranger

Blush_01 wrote:

I'd love to know what the average points for Arts are, as the 375 (or whatever it currently is) entry level is a very minimum, something that has been neglected so far in the discussion. From what I've noticed, Arts doesn't go too many rounds lower than 375!

According to a pdf I found on the CAO website the final points for Arts in 2005 were 360 with the median points score of people gaining entry into Arts coming in at exactly 400 points.

dajaffa

How many points u need to get into a course has feck-all to do with it. U can't really call arts low, science was 330 last year and has been pretty low for a few years now, but nobody seems to be giving out about it because u "only need 330 to do it".

The LC dosen't matter a damn when u get to college, and it shouldn't be used as a way of measuring the intelligence of the people in one course or another. Yeah u have to be pretty clever to do really wel, but u could still be useless at a subject like philosophy. U can do a good leaving if u just memorise loads if stuff basically and in college u need to do more than that.

snickerpuss

I wasn't very interested in the Leaving cert subjects but i still got enough to get into UCD and i'm pretty damn good at my subjects here, and interested in them.

I don't think had i gotten 500 i'd have been any better at art history you know?

LC points are a useful way of getting in but don't tell you that the students will be any better/more intellectual/more interested in their subjects then students (like me) who didn't get a billion points.

So i don't think higher points would really solve the disinterested/unmotivated students problem as pointed out by that lecturer.

rainbow kirby

I don't think points are really an indicator at all of how difficult a course is. The points for my course were 310 last year, but I could imagine someone coming in on those points seriously struggling, unless they'd either done a lot of programming before or just weren't suited to a Leaving Cert-style of assessment. Science has been as low as 280 in recent years - and if I remember correctly it was 325 last year. And it goes without say that it's a difficult course.

Blowfish

rainbow kirby wrote:

I don't think points are really an indicator at all of how difficult a course is. The points for my course were 310 last year, but I could imagine someone coming in on those points seriously struggling, unless they'd either done a lot of programming before or just weren't suited to a Leaving Cert-style of assessment. Science has been as low as 280 in recent years - and if I remember correctly it was 325 last year. And it goes without say that it's a difficult course.

:eek: 310 that's insane. In 2000 it was 440, and the course hasn't gotten any easier, it's just 2000 was part of the IT boom, which has dropped off.
From the looks of it here on boards, it seems to me that arts needs a hell of a lot of work put in, more so than mine and RK's course. I've never had more than a single exam for a subject, and even then, no exam has been longer than 2 hours.
When I was doing my leaving, anybody who was considering doing arts, wanted to do it in UCD, because it was the best place for it. It definitely didn't seem like it was dragging UCD down. I don't know if perceptions of it has changed in the last couple of years, but in reality it is still the same.