Deferring a year / Repeating a year

pbsuxok1znja4r

Right, well, my august repeats are starting soon and I'm not very likely to pass 'em. Sad but true.

If I have to, I will of course repeat 2nd year (Eng). But I'm thinking I'd like to take a year out to work full-time before I go back. One good reason for this is that it's gonna cost more than a few quid to repeat the year (I don't think I'll be able to do it externally as the Horizons crap is in the year under me). Another reason is that I'd be doing myself a big favour if I sorted out car and/or accomodation for when I went back. Also I'd like to take the time to pursue the other things that really interest me; music, band, writing, reading etc etc etc.
I don't want to enter third year with these things distracting me as much as they are now/ have been. I've had little to no motivation to study or do well at college up 'till now, but I do want to come back to finish the degree, sooner or later; when I'm ready.

Anyway, I'm wondering does anyone have any wisdom to share regarding these things? Anyone deferred and/or repeated one of their years? Was it beneficial/disastrous?

Riamfada

My advice. And we all know its invaluable... Would be to try your best to pass your repeats and then defer third year. Take the time to do the things you want before sitting your final year. Personally Id finish the last year and then do what needs to be done without the hassle of saving money to go back to college you could be saving money for your band or travelling.
However if you fail your repeats i wouldnt think it would be wise to take a year out and then repeat second year. Would really be setting you back in the grand scheme of things.

Chose well young student and best of luck in the future because whatever you decide to do , its never the end of the world .. this coming from a 2nd year 23 year old .

Grimes

Jonny Arson

Grimes wrote:

However if you fail your repeats i wouldnt think it would be wise to take a year out and then repeat second year. Would really be setting you back in the grand scheme of things.

What the man said!

Firstly obvious advice: try your best to pass your repeat exams. Taking a year out before your repeat a year would be disasterous as you'll be lessening your prospects of passing the repeat year. If you pass your exams successfully it could well be a good idea to take a year out before 3rd year if you are disillusioned and/or bored with your course. You would be half way through your four years and I could not imagine taking a year out before your final year would be at all productive.

I repeated 1st year last year and I felt overall it waste of a year ever despite successfully passing the year. My negative feelings towards last year was mainly due to having a too much free time on my hands, I was able to work during the year which was a plus but I felt academically I was wasted by only having 2 lectures a week, I honestly would have prefered to have repeated the entire year as I would have been learning and progressing as a college student instead of becoming academically static like I am now. Remember if god forbid you did repeat the year you'll have to repeat what modules you failed so (depending on how bad you may do) you could repeat anything from the whole year to a couple of modules like I did.

It sounds to me that you need a time out of college. If your desires are to work, earn money, make music, discover new things etc. then it may well be a good idea to go for it now rather than later in life when you have a full time job and a billion euro mortgage to pay.

Best of luck

Dave!

ahh you put the idea back in my head......... lol

Riamfada

If you are young it would probably be wise to finish college as quickly as possible and then you are free to do whatever you want in your own time.

If you start to work and earn money its very difficult to give that up to go back. Also a full time job would distract you from doing the things you really want to do with your free time. Running a car in college is very expensive and loans and the rest are very difficult to organise when you are only working a few hours a week.

pbsuxok1znja4r

Thanks guys...I was starting to get that "everything is not going to be okay" feeling. I guess if I pass the repeats I'll defer before going into 3rd year. If I fail the repeats (and sadly this is infinitely more probable) I guess I'll just go right back into 2nd year.

wrote:

It sounds to me that you need a time out of college. If your desires are to work, earn money, make music, discover new things etc. then it may well be a good idea to go for it now rather than later in life when you have a full time job and a billion euro mortgage to pay.

Given that I would probably be repeating most of if not all of the modules over again, would you still recommend against taking this coming year out if I fail? I kind of agree, you see, about needing to go for these other things now rather than later. I'd rather be a 23 year old undergrad than a 23 year old fledgling musician/writer/whatever. UCD isn't going anywhere, the way I see it...

Guess I should worry about exams for now, though.

ferdi

i thought you couldnt deffer willy-nilly? i want to deffer!!!

Riamfada

ferdi wrote:

i thought you couldnt deffer willy-nilly? i want to deffer!!!

as far as i know you just head into the office and fire away. Knock yourself out!

panda100

I wouldnt agree with what grimes said about getting college out of the way and finishing quickly.

I repeated a year and one of my friends took a year out last year to go travelling. Both of us agree that it was the best thing we ever did. For me I wasnt sure if I was in the right course so decided to repeat externally and look into other options and do a bit of work experience.I spent the year working,getting a bit of money together and enjoying for the first time in 10 years having no consistent study to do. Deffering the year will give you a bit of time to do what you want in life and to sort yourself out study wise so you will go into second year with gusto in 2007/08.
I dont think its healthy for an individual to go to college at 17 and then start working at 21.You cant really know what you want to do with your life when your 17 and college is so hectic with essays and exams that you dont get any time to think if your life is on the right track for you.

College is going to be one of the most important stages in your life you will ever do so If you can afford to take a year out to clear your head,go travelling or do whatever you want I would really reccomend it.

Dave!

panda100 wrote:

I wouldnt agree with what grimes said about getting college out of the way and finishing quickly.

I repeated a year and one of my friends took a year out last year to go travelling. Both of us agree that it was the best thing we ever did. For me I wasnt sure if I was in the right course so decided to repeat externally and look into other options and do a bit of work experience.I spent the year working,getting a bit of money together and enjoying for the first time in 10 years having no consistent study to do. Deffering the year will give you a bit of time to do what you want in life and to sort yourself out study wise so you will go into second year with gusto in 2007/08.
I dont think its healthy for an individual to go to college at 17 and then start working at 21.You cant really know what you want to do with your life when your 17 and college is so hectic with essays and exams that you dont get any time to think if your life is on the right track for you.

College is going to be one of the most important stages in your life you will ever do so If you can afford to take a year out to clear your head,go travelling or do whatever you want I would really reccomend it.

That's why I'm thinking of doing it! Spot on

Riamfada

panda100 wrote:

I don't think its healthy for an individual to go to college at 17 and then start working at 21.
College is going to be one of the most important stages in your life you will ever do so If you can afford to take a year out to clear your head,go traveling or do whatever you want I would really recommend it.

I disagree. I never said he should get a job at 21 but I think it would be alot more prudent to finish college at 21 and then travel with no commitments of having to come back to the academic life rather than having to break his new lifestyle to go back to college.
College isn't the life for alot of people. Myself included and it sounds like the OP isn't that pushed either. But like the LC its a means to an end. Taking a year out doesn't necessarily mean that he will come back to second year with gusto. From his attitude a year out seems more like escapism and I wouldn't say he would come back at all.

Panda its pretty clear that you love college life and immerse yourself in the atmosphere and I respect that however many people just dislike it.

My advice , if you dont like it get it over with it now. Because if you dont like it now. You sure as hell arnt going to like it when your 23 and all your mates are pulling 800 euro a week jobs and buying houses. But thats just me being bitter :mad:

ferdi

grimes, that poxy mary robinson sig is puttig me off!!:mad:

my plan is to do my repeats to the best of my ability but after that....if i pass (unlikely) i will obviously go aead with my final year but if i fail (likely) i'm in two minds....i could repeat AGAIN (cost me a fortune) or i could go do something else...

my trouble is, i really dont like college all that much, obviously i enjoy the party lifestyle but other than that it holds very little appeal for me. i'd like to go out into the world and seek my fortune but my brain is condidtioned to believe that without a college degree i will end up flipping burgers. elsewhere in europe college is one of many equally valid options for school leavers but in Ireland it just seems to be absolulty essential to have a dergee to get any kind of decent job...

but then this gets me thinking...i dont want a job that employs people with arts degrees! i dont want to be in an office, i dont want to do research, i dont want to teach...i dread pushing pencils for the rest of my life.

rant over.

Sangre

Finishing college at 20 ftw, the world is my oyster baby.

Ever thought of a trade ferdi? Being an electrician is certainly a challenging, clean enough and well paid trade.

ferdi

yeah i have thought of a trade....i dont know i might have moral issues ripping people off so severly...

i'd like to be a game keeper in a nature reserve or work on a salvage ship....something outside anyway

Sangre

Alaskan crab fisherman!

pbsuxok1znja4r

I started college at 17, so if I pass all exams, don't have to repeat anything I'll finish at 21. If I were to say, repeat a year and defer a year I'd finish at 23. Meh.

I think maybe Grimes was right. College is just a means to an end for me and if I deferred a year it'd probably just be escapism. Absence probably wouldn't make the heart grow any fonder, etc. *Sigh*

Stepherunie

You kinda need to have a definate plan if you are going to take a year out - a friend of mine dropped out of a course she was doing after her leaving cert - she then did noting for ages and never reapplied ot the cao, now she's just after finishing her leaving cert again and expects to get less points than she got the first time because she became so disjointed about the necessity of going to school to learn. She ended up being told by her school that'd she be better off now coming in anymore in march, that was after never really going in the first place.

So as well all head into our 3rd years of college she'll only just be starting. To know what you want is important, yes you want to enjoy things, all of us do, but at least know where you want to be in a few years time so you can plan the best way to get there and still achieve the other things you want to achieve.

Riamfada

scouser.tommy wrote:

I think maybe Grimes was right.

in your faces !


Tommy . If you dont want to be an engineer dont do it. Whatever makes you happy make that your carreer. We are all going into the gound at some point. Its how you look back on that life on your death bed and knoiw you did your best . There is plenty of time left to make plenty of mistakes.

Hope you end up happy whatever you decide

Dave!

Grimes wrote:

in your faces !


Tommy . If you dont want to be an engineer dont do it. Whatever makes you happy make that your carreer. We are all going into the gound at some point. Its how you look back on that life on your death bed and knoiw you did your best . There is plenty of time left to make plenty of mistakes.

Hope you end up happy whatever you decide

Goddamn that was profound!



Ahh here lads, I don't know what to do!

Riamfada

DaveMcG wrote:

Ahh here lads, I don't know what to do!

Dave , what you want do be when you grow up?

Dave!

I dunno An archaeologist! No. lol.

But for the past couple of years the only careers I've had in my mind are (a) Gardaí, or (b) Army

So the translation is, I dunno (since that's probably what most people say when they don't want a desk job)...

Cén fáth?

ps. Anyone know if there's a deadline for telling the college about deferral? The programme office would probably be the best people to ask, I'll give them an email tomorrow.

InFront

Are you me?
Ive just formally quit my course. Well, not quite, technically Ive deferred my failed year. I failed the year last May and I got so fed up with repeating Summer (I had genuinely worked hard through the year) that I just decided that I wasnt attempting Autumn and quit. Apparently the door is open for me to repeat in 2007 but tbh Im not even considering that as an option.
Instead Im doing exactly what youre planning on OP, Im working for a few months then going to Pakistan in October for a month, and doing stuff like travelling in eastern Europe after that, basically being a waster/hippy/ college dropout type. Stepherunie is right though, if youre taking a year out, make sure you do something constructive with it (or have a plan).
I do intend to apply to college again and in 2007 I'll be a fresher in Trinity (I know). My point is that for some people, this is the right choice. OP you are correct, UCD will still be here when you get back. You will probably be better off apporaching your third level education as a "mature student!". Crikey.

Anyway, I know Im not one to preach on this, but you probably should at least attempt Autumn, If you do fail talk to your student advisor, theyre not there to keep you on the course, they really are just trying to look out for your best interests wthether that means staing in college or backpacking across Guatamala or something! Good luck with whatever happens.

InFront

DaveMcG wrote:

ps. Anyone know if there's a deadline for telling the college about deferral?

Not that I know of, I think they'll accept a deferral up to anytime before the end of January tbh

ferdi

word to you, In Front, my man.

Scraggs

Can anybody tell me offhand if you fail repeats can you repeat externally what with this Horizons malarky? (don't worry folks I will research properly if it happens:o)

Stepherunie

Quite simple: No

There's no external repeating anymore, you just have to pay for the modules you repeat and your registration fee.

ferdi

can someone tell me this:

i am doing a traditional non-modularised course at the moment, if i fail my repeats, will i have to repeat the year in modularised form (ie: start from scratch with a completely new course?:eek: )

Stepherunie

yep but you'll only have to take the courses you failed in the new system - oh and probably the option modules too.

Check with youre dept though - they'll know best, i just know the rough deal

ferdi

"yep but you'll only have to take the courses you failed in the new system - oh and probably the option modules too." <- i have no idea what you mean by that! please explain..


i passed all my summer exams, its just poor/lack of course work that will cause me to fail, so i didnt fail any one part of the course per say...

dajaffa

Basically you'll be able to get exemptions from modules that were the same as whatever subjects u passed. You'd have to repeat modules of the subjects u failed + do 2 modules outside your core ones

ferdi

thanks for the explaination but i dont really understand the who modularised system so i dont really get what your saying....me stupido