Do you feel challenged in college?

TheVan

As nerdy as this may sound, the question still stands, do you feel challenged in college?

In other words, when you go to lectures, do you feel you are just wading your way through college and learning by rote or do you feel you're being challenged to learn and think for yourself?

Personally, in B&L I tend to get a lot more out of the law subjects, you can form your own opinions on the state of the law, interpretations and problems. In business we just seem to be given a few "facts" and told these are the right way of doing things (thank god I'm taking more law next year!)

Pythia

TheVan wrote:

As nerdy as this may sound, the question still stands, do you feel challenged in college?

I feel as challenged in college as I did in school, so I suppose not much.
My subjects aren't very 'think for yourself' type subjects ie maths, stats, business.
I feel I'm just going through the motions to get a degree.
I may not get a first, but thats down to me being lazy. If I did more work it wouldn't be too hard.
(I reserve the right to change my opinion in final year!)

BKtje

Not really challenged(in the way you mean) in any of the subjects. Its mainly learn our way and then do it.

Only major exception was the Software Engineering Project.

Blush_01

In some of my seminars and the M1 specific stuff, probably. But in general lectures, not really. It wasn't so much learning by rote or thinking for yourself as being aware of the political undercurrents within the courses and making sure you said what certain people wanted to hear.

Come to think of it, some of my courses were very challenging. Especially when there were no reference books to refer to, and you were really out on your own. Funnily enough, the fear of saying something really stupid in class doesn't lessen after secondary school!

Last year was probably more so. More OE, more research. This year had more transcription of a calligraphic nature than OE.

Chinafoot

Blush_01 wrote:

making sure you said what certain people wanted to hear.

Really sums up second semester English

I found history this year to be challenging and I think I did better this year than previous years because of that. (Hopefully)

scop

Personally I do at the moment with my English MA, its a step up for a BA for sure.

I never felt challenged during English undergrad, theres seems to be a desire due to the size of the subject not to push people too hard, seminars rarely generated any real or interesting subjects either. Philosophy was challenging though at times, depending on which area you were working on.

pretty*monster

English is rarely challenging I have to agree, though I wonder if that's because it's so easy to glance over the texts, spout out the usual feminist/post-colonial/po-mo/whatever theory you feel like today, and go back to sleep. Had to work my ass of doing T.S. Eliot this year. That was about it though.

Philosophy on the otherhand generally focuses on constructing original argument and the like (though even getting to first base, understanding what you're supposed to be arguning about, is pretty challenging some of the time) and generally requred at least twice the amount of mental effort as English... probably a lot more actually. We've got a handful of learn this stuff off and spew it back courses, but that's not the norm in the subject (and thank heaven's for that).

scop

pretty*monster wrote:

English is rarely challenging I have to agree, though I wonder if that's because it's so easy to glance over the texts, spout out the usual feminist/post-colonial/po-mo/whatever theory you feel like today, and go back to sleep. Had to work my ass of doing T.S. Eliot this year. That was about it though.
.

Theory is the problem, its far too easy to rely on theory and get good marks. Personally I think it has to go, given its own subject and English might have a chance of returning to actual criticism and god forbid, some engagement with a text. Most rewarding essays are the ones like the Eliot one you did by far.

Jookie

I think the first couple years are necessarily just rote memorization so to lay the groundwork for later more independent thought. Or at least I think that's the theory

pretty*monster

Jookie wrote:

I think the first couple years are necessarily just rote memorization so to lay the groundwork for later more independent thought. Or at least I think that's the theory

What course do you do?

Waltons

B-K-DzR wrote:

Only major exception was the Software Engineering Project.

Damn that project!
Not challenged, really, apart from above mentioned project. The only programming practical that made me think was one which most of the class failed, so I'm pretty happy with that. Information Studies was just a slog through, and I'd done economics since 4th year in school, so Micro, Macro and Quants were pretty easy; hell, I even enjoyed the quants exam.

I think one of the most important things I got out of programming courses was an decent interest in the course. I didn't find myself shirking those lectures half as much as others, and spent a good while working on the practicals before they were due in.

elmyra

Hmmm.....I don't find the courses challenging, so I challenge myself by skipping lectures and seeing how well I can do without them....it's great fun, I only had maybe two cardiac episodes this year.

Being serious....English isn't challenging at all. I skip lectures cos they're boring, read the texts, write whatever I happen to think and they're like 'oooh, very original', have a good mark. If anything I think I do well in English by not doing secondary reading or attending things, cos then I'm writing something I've come up with about the text rather than spouting some theory that the marker has seen 100 times dressed up 100 different ways.

History...challenging enough, but probably just because I don't work.

I dunno, this year surprised me when the exams came around. I guess I was still in the 'pfftt...it's easy' mode from 1st year cos I got away with so much (or rather, so little) then, but I've learned now.

I do hereby solemnly swear to work hard in 3rd year...mainly cos I can't face the prospect of leaving and must achieve sufficient marks to do an MA.

dajaffa

Well so far the course has been a case of learny learny with a little bit of massagey, but I've only done a year..... though trying to learn some parts o the anatomy.

As the course goes on I reckon it'll be sing what you learn to deduce stuff, though apparently the neurology and respiratory stuff thats waiting for me will be challenging alright, + then in final year we get to do a dissertation, which nerdily enough I'm already looking forward to *mentally plans dissertation 2 years early*

hullaballoo

I find my course reasonably challenging in certain areas. It probably wouldn't be so challenging if I actually lifted a finger between September and April though.

Stepherunie

To be honest i've been challenged by one or two things - mainly by anatomy which i find impossibly hard to learn but that's about it academically speaking.

The main challenges I face are trying to find the time to study whilst on clinical placement and dealing with patients - being in a dept. two days a weeks and at the moment full time means you have to learn to deal with all sorts of patients - anything from kids to terminally ill patients to those intubated and ventilated in ICU, and those who arrest like today, that's what makes my course challenging.

rainbow kirby

I will say that some of our courses this year have been quite challenging - some of the Data Structures and Algorithms practicals have required quite a significant amount of thought and reasoning to work out. Also another challenge has been time management, though the fact that I work probably has something to do with that.

Jonny Arson

So far I've found Arts to be glorified Leaving Cert. Learn this, learn that.... I dunno maybe I should be doing another course where I could actually learn skills instead of learning facts and theory. Looking at the modules of my subjects in 2nd year, my subjects will be more leaning to being skill based which should suit me and give more of a challenge.

In reality after 2 years the only challenge I've had is getting up off my arse to do some study.

the evil lime

Challange?

Not so much. Mind you, I have yet to discover how I did at summer, but I did so little study that the results will in no real way reflect the challange level of the course. Unless of course I get good grades in everything, in which case it will show them too easy.

Free thought?

I did thirteen modules (3 electives, seemed like a good idea at the time), and I had maybe 3 in which I found any room for free thought, and two of them were electives from outside my degree (I took them in Law, where at least one can be sure of a decent argument).

Oh, I do commerce by the way, but I think I've mentioned that before...

boneless

I think I might have challenged the lecturing staff....

Blowfish

Meh, it was pretty much just a slog through for most of it. There were a few times when I was challenged, but some of them was just me challenging myself more than anything.

boneless

Turning up drunk to tutorials had me 'horizonontly' (hic) challenged once or twice....

Dave!

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

So far I've found Arts to be glorified Leaving Cert. Learn this, learn that.... I dunno maybe I should be doing another course where I could actually learn skills instead of learning facts and theory. Looking at the modules of my subjects in 2nd year, my subjects will be more leaning to being skill based which should suit me and give more of a challenge.

In reality after 2 years the only challenge I've had is getting up off my arse to do some study.

Yeah I agree with this fella, even though he's supporting England!

C'mon Australia!!!

BKtje

ya know, i dont think it matters what challenges you but rather what you get challenged by. I know it seems like its one and the same but in reality what you care about is what ultimately is importamt to you and the challenges it brings.

Nothing like a few drinks to bring out the philisophical side

Chakar

I think the challenge in college is the day to day grind, which you're under stress to have essays in for a certain day by a certain time.Doing study for tests and and the reading for courses.That is the challenge everyone faces in college week by week.

EDIT: Well thats true isn't it?

Easygainer

You can be challenged if you want to, or you can take the easy way out.

I'm in law, and I prefer to understand the concepts, as well as knowing the basic law. Everyone has to know the cases but it's what they say and what is said about them that matters.

This leaves 2 options:

1. You get the basic concepts down and then read further into subject so that you could argue both sides of a question or at least fully understand it. Ie, if it came up in a conversation, nerdy as it would be, you could negotiate your way through it with a lecturer. I prefer this.

2. You gather up what you can - lecture notes, books etc, look at past papers and do answers using all these materials. Then, you learn this off.

It's hard to believe it but most people in my year, well, a good few, learn off essays as answers. I thought this would be left behind at the LC but people manage to still do it. Many have no clue what they are writing down, but as long as the question has no twists, they will do well based on the references.

This of course is no help in the real world, but the real world also looks at grades when hiring. It's such a joke that you can still just learn off at this level, there needs to be a system to ensure comprehension and assimilation, possibly incorporating oral exams like they do in Medicine?

Easygainer

Chakar wrote:

I think the challenge in college is the day to day grind, which you're under stress to have essays in for a certain day by a certain time.Doing study for tests and and the reading for courses.That is the challenge everyone faces in college week by week.

EDIT: Well thats true isn't it?

College isn't stressful. Exams etc are only stressful if you have procrastinated or obsess about a certain mark. Either way, the consequences of not achieving that mark aren't dire. Rather be here in college than at War or worrying about my next meal...

mloc

have to agree with easygainer, i think true comprehension and assimilation of subject material should be the ultimate goal of a college education and exams should be more focussed on assessing the level of comprehension of a subject.

AFAIK, next year, in 4th year pharmacology, I will be subject to oral examination and dissertation at the end of the year. I look forward to it, as I almost feel cheated when people who learn off answers without understanding perform well in exams.

Sangre

Its all about the essay learning! Pick a topic, predict a question then go off and read your various articles, journals, cases and texts and prepare an excellent question. Make it longer than normal covering most areas so you can mix it up if needed. Then bang it out in the exam.
Best thing about them is because you don't have to sit and think up an answer you can write much more than normal.

Poor Student

Sangre wrote:

Its all about the essay learning! Pick a topic, predict a question then go off and read your various articles, journals, cases and texts and prepare an excellent question. Make it longer than normal covering most areas so you can mix it up if needed. Then bang it out in the exam.
Best thing about them is because you don't have to sit and think up an answer you can write much more than normal.

The problem is when people belt out a long learned off answer veering on a slightly different tangent to the question and end up with little marks for no effort. A lot of students forget the "mix it up if needed bit".

Julesie

meh....really didnt find Economics and Finance all that challenging. It's not exactly the type of course that allows you room for free thought and innovation but you sign up for that once you decide you want to do maths/stats/economics. The thing that got me was that the level of difficulty of courses actually decreased year by year. For example i had to do an option course this year, finance....it used the exact same lectures notes as the previous year minus a few of the more difficult topics and coupled that with a piss easy exam. It seems like a bit of a joke that it was one of my "Finals". Having said that i did have one toughie this year in the form of Financial Economics... it was tricky on a conceptual level but the main challenge was answering 9 full questions in 3 hours, Surely understanding and assimilation (as someone said earlier) should be the main goal not just how fast you can write.
But even with that subject i would be really pissed off if i didnt get a first overall and i certainly wouldnt have been burning the midnight oil in the library every night so that might indicate they are handing out firsts a little too readily.

Samos

My course is certainly very challenging, not only in terms of understanding the material, but in the huge workload required throughout the year: detailed reports almost every week, 20+ hours of lectures, lab work for most each term.

I agree with what Easygainer said: achieving full understanding of the subject is the desirable option, but is often overlooked when it is easier to pass by rote learning. I think some subject areas are far too broad and complex, and time too short to permit full comprehesion of every fact and nuance, and the predictable structure of exams as a means of testing this does not help the situation. Thankfully, a greater emphasis in coming years on continuous assessment will help rectify this imbalance and makes the challenges more rewarding.