Are we being over-assessed this year?

Vainglory

This is mainly directed at final year arts students as I'm not sure of the situation in other areas of the college. Would be interested to hear, though.

If I had been a final year student last year, I would have been required to do 4 Philosophy essays and 8 History - a total of 12 all year.

This year, I am required to do 6 Philosophy essays and 10 History - a total of 16.

In some of the modules, the essay is required to be 1000 words, as opposed to the usual 2500. This is obviously some sort of effort to make it easier for us. However, I don't think it's particularly fair to train us to write longer essays for the past two years and then suddenly switch in final year.

This problem is compounded by the fact that although some schools have changed the word count of essays, they haven't really changed the questions in light of that. For example, last year the core course essay in History asked for "the contributions of FOUR historians to the historical debate on X". This year, the essay question asks for the contribution of THREE historians. Although they have only knocked one historian out of the question, they have reduced our available word count by 1500 (over half).

I also don't think the length of an essay has any particular impact on how long you need to spend researching and reading in order to get a good grasp of the subject matter and be able to answer the question given. If anything, this may require us to spend more time on our essays, cutting down the word count, chopping out paragraphs, thinking of shorter ways to say things etc.

To me, 1000 words is basically three good length paragraphs. It's unbelievable to ask us to answer a complex final year essay question with that sort of word count available to us. An introduction and conclusion together would take up about 400 words before you even begin.

16 essays on 16 distinct subject areas is too much by anyone's standards, no matter if those essays are 1000 words or 3000. We were promised that the way we are assessed wouldn't change for final year; the opposite seems to be true.

Are any other final years who weren't previously modularised experiencing increases in assessment levels?

If you are, what do you think of the way they are doing it?

PS Grrr...Boards ate my thread...had to retype..grrrr.

beanyb

The workload has definitely increased. A good chunk of that can be attributed to the fact that we're in final year, but a lot of it is also down to modularisation. There wasnt really an opportunity to settle back into college before the workload hit as we had last year and the year before and that is definitely down to modularisation.

For one of my politics courses we have to hand in a first draft of our essay which isnt due until the end of the semester next thursday. It only has to be a short summary of our argument, but in order to do it most of the research for the essay has to be done. It's impossible to write a summary of your argument without an idea of what your argument will be!

A lot of my essays arent due until the end of the semester, but thanks to the genius of the history department they're all due in the space of a 3 weeks or so. 3 of the 4 history essays I have to do this semester are due in the same week. It's an absolute joke. It's only the 3rd week of the year and I've already sat down and planned out the time I'm going to spend on essays for the rest of the semester. I've figured out that if I spend one week on each essay (which is what you need to do at least really) I'll only be left with 2 weeks before the exams to start studying. This problem is only added to by the politics departments new found policy that we cant reuse material from our essays in the exams!

I totally agree with you on the shorter word count aspect Vainglory. I've never had to do an essay that was less that 1500-2000 words and writing a shorter one calls for a totally different writing style. It also needs the same amount of research as a longer essay would, but it will be difficult to write a convincing argument in such a short amount.

pretty*monster

We still have only 4 philosophy essays a year (I know it looks like 6 but I've checked and double checked with the dept secratary). English has gone from 4 essays to 6.

English seems to be trying up the workload on the sly; we have two core courses a semester instead of last years one. The core courses have half as many lecture hours as previous years so at first it didn't look like there'd be much more work. But of course there's an extra essay, and extra tutorial, and a whole lot more reading.

Though the most irritating thing about English is that the same year that they doubled the ammount of tutorials we're taking they doubled the size of tutorial groups. It's just how blatant the cost cutting is that annoys me.

elmyra

More agreement here.

The core history essay will take a lot of work regardless of length because it's a completely new style for us. I seriously doubt decreasing the word count makes things any easier at all, we still need background knowledge and basically the same information and argumentation as a longer essay but have the added workload of making it more concise to fit into a smaller space.

I have 8 essays due before Christmas between History and English. I'm told the History department have set the dates for the essays so that the 3 essays...core, option and doing history/med are due the same week and then the second three essays for the same courses are again due in the same week...along with my 3 English essays of course. Thank God one of my lecturers in her wisdom has decided to give us one 2,000 word essay for her course. The English department, however, to the best of my knowledge have not decreased work counts despite, like History, having laid on an extra lecture course compared to last year.

My hours this year are 1 and a half times what they were last year and I still feel like I'm achieving nothing because it's already utterly impossible to find books on two of the essays I want to work on.

I am altogether wholly unimpressed, but I should probably save my energy for my dash from my Science block lecture to my seminar in Engineering....due to the wonders of timetabling. I haven't had to step outside the Arts block in the past two years and I resent having to now. I didn't come to UCD for Horizons and it shouldn't affect me. I don't want two 9 am lectures in 3rd year to accomodate the timetable of some 4th year zoological pharmacology student taking my course as an option.


These first weeks back have been a nightmare with constant room changes and a laughable situation with tutorials in the English dept (not the fault of the department, who were lovely). UCD makes the little baby Jesus cry. :mad:

Pythia

I don't really find so at all. But then I'm not doing a course where I do essays.
I'm in final year and I have the odd bit of homework to hand up and some labs to attend but most of my classes are between 60 - 100% on exam, where the rest is in class tests.

Vainglory

pretty*monster wrote:

We still have only 4 philosophy essays a year (I know it looks like 6 but I've checked and double checked with the dept secratary).

Someone seriously needs to inform the lecturers of this fact then, because they all seem to think that we are doing an essay for them. I've also heard that some lecturers have said the essay for their course is definitely not optional.

snickerpuss

Yeah the essays i'm getting for art history this year are the same length as the ones i got in first year, and i had trouble keeping it down to 3,000 last year. I have more assaignments and an exam at Xmas (which is fair enough cos they changed it to a 2nd year course and let us pick it) But all our essays are due at once.

We've also had problems with rooms being double-booked. Our Irish lecturers just keep giving out about UCD and tell us to ignore them, and the online enrolling system, which still doesn't have enough courses up. Argh.

Vainglory

Would people be interested in actually trying to do something about this? The more I think about it and talk to other people about it the more unfair it seems.

It would be an idea to put together a few "before and after" case studies; say if you could put down on paper what would have been expected of you in each subject as a 2005/2006 final year and what is expected of you as a 2006/2007 final year.

At the very least we should try and get them to change the bloody submission dates; three in the same week is off the wall crazy.

hullaballoo

As far as I'm concerned, I'm in college to be educated.

As a result, the more assessment I get during the year, the better because it keeps you working at a constant level.

Het-Field

Glad im gone. Too much assessment is a really bad thing !

beanyb

hullaballoo wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, I'm in college to be educated.

As a result, the more assessment I get during the year, the better because it keeps you working at a constant level.

To a certain extent this is true. However, there is a difference between having enough to keep you consistently working and having so much to do that you cant possibly devote as much time to each individual assignment as is truly neccessary. This will only lead to damaging your education rather than enhancing it. Do you not see how having three history essays due in the same week is completely ridiculous?

hullaballoo

No. I have exactly the same deal in B&L, and I'm not complaining. The reason I'm struggling with it is because I didn't get up off my ass early enough and start the work.

That's my problem, and to get full value out of my education, it's something I need to look long and hard at.

Blush_01

As far as I'm concerned, at least you're getting lectures. Which is more than many.

Horizons should be shot.

Mr.Nice Guy

I think it's a load of bullsh*t personally. Every lecture I go to I hear the same old excuse:

"Sorry this is happening but this was put to you guys last year and you asked for this to be the case."

1. It wasn't put to me.

2. I didn't ask for this to be the case.

I'm still trying to find my feet in college yet I have 6 essays worth 30% of my exam to be in by November with a lot of them due the same week and some of which require drafts to be shown to the lecturer beforehand (wtf?)

Oh and it gets better - questions I do for the essays can't be answered in the written exam. There was me thinking one of the main benefits of doing an essay was that you learn from it. :rolleyes:

Vainglory wrote:

Would people be interested in actually trying to do something about this? The more I think about it and talk to other people about it the more unfair it seems.

Everyone I've spoken to thinks it's a farce but it's way too late to do anything about it now.

AngelofFire

Those of you who are in Second Year of UCD horizons should know that your grades this year are assessed as part of your overall degree, meaning the days where people could scrape by in second year are over. This is a very worrying trend as it puts excessive pressure on students and im pretty sure it will have an negative effect on non academic activity on campus, Like a lot of things this wasn't included in the orginal proposals for UCD horizons. For those of us in first year last year im sure we all remember having ''grade point average'' in our results, the college have only now decided to tell us about its implications for our overall degree. Lack of consultation still a problem.

Pythia

AngelofFire wrote:

the days where people could scrape by in second year are over. This is a very worrying trend as it puts excessive pressure on students .

Or you could say it puts less pressure on students as the final exams don't count for everything.
It was already like this in my degree and a few others. I'm happy it is.

AngelofFire

I dont think its a question of dividing the workload, the fact we are being lumped with more course work in second year is no indication that there will be a reduction in the workload in 3rd year, this is evident in the fact that current third years have more essays to contend with. The Sociology department used to have the option for people to include their second year results as part of their overall degree, but under GPA that system will be gone, second year results will now apply to everyones degree. There are many different types of students, some are suited to working consistently others are better at leaving things till the last minute, i find it ironic that Brady, Nolan et al used to to champion horizons as offering a greater degree of choice, in practice that concept has been made hollow, what we have now is academic uniformity.

Sangre

If you can't get essay numbers reduced try and push for them to count more for you degree e.g. 40% instead of 20% or something.

Tbh, I always preferred essays to studying.

Riamfada

as far as having three essays in one week due? would it not be prudent to do them before the deadline and not all in one week? I much prefer the new method of being assessed through essays . It puts more an enphisis on what Im doing during the year than what I can turn out in 3 hours on a summers day 7 months after my 1st lecture.

Sangre

Hmm, I just realised I didn't make an obvious joke about lazy Arts students. I think I'm studying too hard.

Font22

i've heard the increase in coursework during the year is due to the new credit system that is being adopted by the EU. for instance many of the accounting subjects taught in quinn had very little assessment during the year but this year there is loads of stuff to hand in. i tend to agree with hullaballo on this one, continuous assessment keeps you on your toes and stops you getting lazy!

Jonny Arson

AngelofFire wrote:

Those of you who are in Second Year of UCD horizons should know that your grades this year are assessed as part of your overall degree, meaning the days where people could scrape by in second year are over. This is a very worrying trend as it puts excessive pressure on students and im pretty sure it will have an negative effect on non academic activity on campus, Like a lot of things this wasn't included in the orginal proposals for UCD horizons. For those of us in first year last year im sure we all remember having ''grade point average'' in our results, the college have only now decided to tell us about its implications for our overall degree. Lack of consultation still a problem.

With regards 2nd year grades partially (50% isn't it?) making up our overall grade, I understood that likewise to pre-modularisation where final years students had the option to take 25% or so of their 2nd year grade if it benfiited their overall grade that we had this option too. Would you be able to clarify this for me?

Vainglory wrote:

To me, 1000 words is basically three good length paragraphs. It's unbelievable to ask us to answer a complex final year essay question with that sort of word count available to us. An introduction and conclusion together would take up about 400 words before you even begin.

Aye, I remember last year doing a 1000 word essay and finishing my introduction after 600 words, had to restart and compress the essay and this no doubt compromised the essay quality. Quite simply 1500 words is an absolute minimum length in order to write a proper essay.

In saying this coursework is good, it keeps you working throughout the year but there's such an imbalance in the levels of coursework between various courses and departments that it makes the structure of Horizons a complete joke. For instance, one of the main characteristics of Horizons was to have an even ratio of exams/coursework, why then this semester I have 2 modules that are assessed 100% coursework and 2 modules that assessed by 100% exams? IMO this makes a complete mockery of my course structure, a little of continuity and organization for us students wouldn't go amiss.

Stabshauptmann

Vainglory wrote:

This is mainly directed at final year arts students as I'm not sure of the situation in other areas of the college. Would be interested to hear, though.

If I had been a final year student last year, I would have been required to do 4 Philosophy essays and 8 History - a total of 12 all year.

This year, I am required to do 6 Philosophy essays and 10 History - a total of 16.

In some of the modules, the essay is required to be 1000 words, as opposed to the usual 2500. This is obviously some sort of effort to make it easier for us. However, I don't think it's particularly fair to train us to write longer essays for the past two years and then suddenly switch in final year.

This problem is compounded by the fact that although some schools have changed the word count of essays, they haven't really changed the questions in light of that. For example, last year the core course essay in History asked for "the contributions of FOUR historians to the historical debate on X". This year, the essay question asks for the contribution of THREE historians. Although they have only knocked one historian out of the question, they have reduced our available word count by 1500 (over half).

I also don't think the length of an essay has any particular impact on how long you need to spend researching and reading in order to get a good grasp of the subject matter and be able to answer the question given. If anything, this may require us to spend more time on our essays, cutting down the word count, chopping out paragraphs, thinking of shorter ways to say things etc.

To me, 1000 words is basically three good length paragraphs. It's unbelievable to ask us to answer a complex final year essay question with that sort of word count available to us. An introduction and conclusion together would take up about 400 words before you even begin.

16 essays on 16 distinct subject areas is too much by anyone's standards, no matter if those essays are 1000 words or 3000. We were promised that the way we are assessed wouldn't change for final year; the opposite seems to be true.

Are any other final years who weren't previously modularised experiencing increases in assessment levels?

If you are, what do you think of the way they are doing it?

PS Grrr...Boards ate my thread...had to retype..grrrr.

lol

Stabshauptmann

Sorry, honest first reaction. A constructive post:

You had an easier system and are now being asked to work harder to meet the normal standard. Hard luck that it happened to you but really its not something to campaign about. Its progress.

Ive to write 1000 word essays.

400 words is far too much to spend on a concise intro and conclusion, I know you're used to doing this but Id be fairly sure most of it is waffle.

I too found answering complex questions in 1000 words more difficult than if there were no cap. Its more difficult because Ive to make what I write of a higher quality. But shouldnt the college be trying to improve the quality of your essays?

Stabshauptmann

beanyb wrote:

To a certain extent this is true. However, there is a difference between having enough to keep you consistently working and having so much to do that you cant possibly devote as much time to each individual assignment as is truly neccessary. This will only lead to damaging your education rather than enhancing it. Do you not see how having three history essays due in the same week is completely ridiculous?

ROLF.
No, I honestly dont see how having 3 essays due the same week is unfair. Some how the rest of us cope

last term ie Jan-March
I had 3 HRM essays, a handout and a presentation; the hardest essays Ive done in college so far
A 4000 word BIS project and 2 presentations
Weekly management accounting MCQs and one major MCQ worth 15% of yearly grade

Luckily my 4th subject didnt have any continuous assesment. This is prob the only subject Ive done so far without any.

Stabshauptmann

AngelofFire wrote:

Those of you who are in Second Year of UCD horizons should know that your grades this year are assessed as part of your overall degree, meaning the days where people could scrape by in second year are over. This is a very worrying trend as it puts excessive pressure on students and im pretty sure it will have an negative effect on non academic activity on campus, Like a lot of things this wasn't included in the orginal proposals for UCD horizons. For those of us in first year last year im sure we all remember having ''grade point average'' in our results, the college have only now decided to tell us about its implications for our overall degree. Lack of consultation still a problem.

You are talking through your ass. As are most of the posters in this thread. The workload is more than you are used to, but not unfair or imposible. Having done one year semesterised and one not I know that 2 sets of exams actually involves less study/cramming time.

Im a modularised final year.
I have time to go to the gym, play on a sports team and run single handedly a society of nearly 500 members. Im averaging a 2.1 and plan to do better this year.

Though there might be very poor coordination between your modules there is enough time given to prepare all your essays, whether deadlines coincide or not. Pull the thumb out.

The system is not perfect atm, it is 90% perfect in quinn and Im 100% sure its a better system for the students, staff and standard of education than the old system.

The only sympathy I have is the manner in which the change is taking place.
It is unfair to change the rules half way through the game
Its unlucky you have to work harder during term
It is unfortunate that modules and lectuerers within the same programme are not coordinating well within the same school what ever about how your electives clash.

But the problems are not as catastrophic as you make them out to be
They are manageable and though its dissapointing the change was rushed through (in an attempt to be the first irish university to be modularised IMO) but the new system is far superior to the old.

Mr.Nice Guy

Wow Kaptain Redeye is really acting like a dick. He must be having a bad day...

Blush_01

Sorry MNG, but he's perfectly right. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Just because you're not used to working consistently (or rather because you could avoid working consistently if you liked without any real repercussions before) doesn't mean the new system is bad. However, it has been very, very poorly implimented.

If you look, it's Arts students who are having the hardest time coping - because the Schools within Arts are having the hardest time coping with the administrative and timetabling issues forced on them by the college; because Arts students learned to get by by working just enough to flow along until the pre-exam cram, etc. Lecturers are confused. Students are being shuttled from Science to Engineering and back to Ag for tutorials and lectures for German, or Philosophy, or Economics..., causing hassle with getting to and from classes and also with figuring out where you are - Arts students are being made into lost Freshers again, having already spent a few years getting into a routine. Sure, it's not fun, and it's annoying, frustrating and (because forewarned is fore-armed) completely unfair due to the lack of notice about the changes, but it's not life threatening. You WILL get used to it, and you'll do just fine.

I actually sort-of wish I was in final year again now. I worked consistently all year and then had a hiccup that was completely unrelated to college in March. My hard work before that point could (and now would) have counted for more than it did. I'd have come out of my degree with more than a 2:1, which I'm happy with, but could have done better.

The stupid switcharoo that's being played with classes is ridiculous. (I kind of know why and would LOVE to be able to say, but can't. ARGH!) But the change in tutorial size won't make that much of a difference, except to your tutor, who'll have to correct twice as many essays. I've had tutorials of 12, 6 and once 25. The larger ones were more active and people actually discussed things. In the smaller ones people were more intimidated because they couldn't hide behind someone if they were nervous.

Sangre

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

Wow Kaptain Redeye is really acting like a dick. He must be having a bad day...

Rather than call you an idiot MNG, I think I'll just describe the above comment as displaying the attributes of someone with below average intelligence.

Seriously, he constructively disagreed with the general flow of opinion and hes an idiot? Hmm, never had to deal with that myself. You must be devastated Kaptain.

Anyway, I'm sure if Arts students put in any hours that Engineers have to put in, they'll fly through this. The fact that its a devasting blow that you've had to hand in 3 in the same week shows the 'leave it to the last minute' attitude.

Mr.Nice Guy

Sangre wrote:

Rather than call you an idiot MNG, I think I'll just describe the above comment as displaying the attributes of someone with below average intelligence.

If you wanted to view comments that display the attributes of someone with below average intelligence then observe your own smart-alec comments throughout this forum.

angre wrote:

Seriously, he constructively disagreed with the general flow of opinion and hes an idiot? Hmm, never had to deal with that myself. You must be devastated Kaptain.

Who called him an idiot? I said he was acting like a dick. If you want to look down on other people's intelligence then learn to pick up on what has been said. I took issue with the condescending tone in his posts. Such as:

You are talking through your ass.

As well as his first comment where he basically laughs at the points made.

Sangre wrote:

Anyway, I'm sure if Arts students put in any hours that Engineers have to put in, they'll fly through this. The fact that its a devasting blow that you've had to hand in 3 in the same week shows the 'leave it to the last minute' attitude.

No it just shows that I object to us students being burned out when those who went before us had things a lot easier.

Every tutor I've spoken to have stated they regard the whole process as a farce but what do they know since we have self-righteous bastions of academia like yourself around to tell us what's what.

We're so lucky in that way.

Stabshauptmann

Thanks sangre an blush for sticking up for me, MNG's comments sent me into a shame spiral and I had to rush to the shop to buy ice cream.

I couldnt help but laugh at this thread, ppl are acting like its the end of the world, that they'll have to work a lot harder (which isnt fair) and there will be less time for fun. Then theres the ludicrous idea that the reforms will lower the standard of education/essays.

Like sangre said, i was constructive. 3 posts with a point each:

1000 word essays are harder to write but of a higher quality. Thats a good think education wise.

The workload is manageable, I do it easily. In fact I spent less time cramming in year 2 (semesterised) than year one (the old system). Not only that but Ive 40% of my degree got now and will have another 30% at xmas leaving only 30 in may. This leaves me more time to focus per subject if I choose, though with 40% all together from continuous assesment I dont need to stress for exams at all.

I manage to fit in a lot of extra cirricular stuff, which incidentally they're comming up with a system of awarding credits for. Im even looking for more stuff to take on than i did last year dispite that this is my final yr which under the old system would have me worried