Somefink abaht SnM and Exams and Studying over the Summer

gubbie

panda100 wrote:

Obviously you dont fit into this bracket dajaffa

SHE DOES!! She wears Dubes and O'Neills. She's not quite the boggery type that me and Panda are

cast_iron

dajaffa wrote:

As a whole I know the SU is concerned about how the changes to the college are killing the social aspects of college. It's not easy thou, like some of the sabbats raise simple issues like the lack of postering space in newer buildings like Quinn and Health Sci but services don't really care. Also, eeven smaller things like services not doing the poster rip on the same day now (it used to always be thurs, but anything goes at the mo, could be a ploy...) makes life very difficult too.

Granted, the SU may well have alot on it's plate (i'm sure plenty disagree - possibly myself included), but this is a pretty big deal.

Rather than stick to traditional style politics, why not try and look at the bigger picture - not just the day to day stuff.

Are you saying that the SU can see campus life dying away, but are too busy to do anything about it?
(That's how your post reads to me)

dajaffa

mloc wrote:

As for the porto, there were reasons behind the lack of society events on there in the last year or so.

Yeah it's changed cause of er, a, change...

gubbie wrote:

SHE DOES!! She wears Dubes and O'Neills. She's not quite the boggery type that me and Panda are

Ah now I never claimed to be boggery, +I don't deny the above but there is like SOOOOOOOO much evidence to the contrary.



Back OT, if u walk down the campus this week, there is NOTHING on. A lawsoc nite out + that's it. SnM is killing our college!

dajaffa

cast_iron wrote:

Granted, the SU may well have alot on it's plate (i'm sure plenty disagree - possibly myself included), but this is a pretty big deal.

Rather than stick to traditional style politics, why not try and look at the bigger picture - not just the day to day stuff.

Are you saying that the SU can see campus life dying away, but are too busy to do anything about it?
(That's how your post reads to me)

Ah no, what I'm saying is that in this Brady era, it's proving really difficult to even get poster space in buildings. In general that's all that I'm aware of what they're doing, many people seem to have accepted that SnM is here, Autumn repeats are gone, and are trying to focus on things we can do such as the poster space.

Chakar

Well he'll certainly be remembered for ever in UCD anyway.

The President who introduced the American system of S&M.

gubbie

dajaffa wrote:

Back OT, if u walk down the campus this week, there is NOTHING on. A lawsoc nite out + that's it. SnM is killing our college!

Well would you go out this week? The week before our exams?

gubbie

dajaffa wrote:

many people seem to have accepted that SnM is here, Autumn repeats are gone, and are trying to focus on things we can do such as the poster space.

Now you sound like the SU are thinking that they think there is no way to get the Autumn repeats back so will instead focus on more important things such as poster space!

Stabshauptmann

I went out last night, ISS christmas party in the blue room. Ive an amazing ability to find every society event in UCD

In theory S&M and no autmum repeats are a good thing and rather than undoing them we need to fine tune the system and adapt to them.

panda100

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

and no autmum repeats are a good thing .

Haha....you are joking right?

humbert

they can repeat exams like a million times though so not having to ruin your summer is dandy.

Stabshauptmann

S&M and no autumns has been in the Quinn school for a while, but its not the system being implemented universtiy wide at the moment. Like humbert said, In the old commerce system I can repeat an exam till the cows come home without being capped at a pass. I can book foreign trips or commit to work safe in the knowledge that I'll definitely be available.
Part of continuous assessment in quinn used to go for just showing up to lectures and there were bits for asking an answering questions. Ive learnt and remembered more from attending lectures than from traditional study.

If I had to repeat 2nd year Id have had to do more modules, more assignments, but shorter exams and assignments*. And attendance wouldnt get me marks
* The worst part about being the first year of a new system is you dont know what to expect or how to practice.


The only people who suffer from the absence of autumn repeats are final years who graduate before xmas the next year and students here on erasmus. I think the arguement of a more stressful next exam sitting to be based mostly on fear of change. When people experience the new system it wont be so bad. Last summer for example I had an extra exam (I deferred accounting - another lovely thing which Ive been told isnt widely available) and it made zero difference to my study. You can still study during the summer if you fail may exams if you like and lets be honest, theres far more time to study for may exams than xmas ones.

Its only if you're one of those people who does all their cramming the night before an exam that you'll have a problem. and thats another beuatiful thing about continuous assesment. What are you doing when you're researching essays? Study. You are being forced to study all year round. I've spent the last week doing extra curricular stuff (Consultative Forum, Dutch Soc, finance Committee etc) and Im not worried about my exams despite the fact that Ive done little traditional study.

jimi_t

Well, one benefit of S'n'M is that you can have two huge nights a semester when people are guaranteed to go out - the Friday/Saturday the semester ends, and the day of the last exam (probably Wednesday week in this case). This way, people are actually excited about going out. Look at the queues outside the two UCD bars by 2pm on that Friday - fecking madness.

In terms of students from UCD not going out? I was in Bondi last wednesday (I know.. but 2 euro drinks ) and, including the 40 odd group of people I was with, everyone I talked to or recognised was in UCD - nearly all of them 1st years, and the majority being in either arts or commerce. I even managed to track down the girls from Diary of a Debutante and playfully harass them, so no shortage of UCD people on good nights out. I just think that the kind of nights that the UCD socs are arranging have lost their edge - people would nearly prefer to just head out by themselves in their own groups. The best nights that I've heard of have either involved SurfSoc, JazzSoc or DutchSoc - three of the smallest socities. Maybe the whole idea of a society night is that you're meant to feel like you're in a society!

panda100

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

The only people who suffer from the absence of autumn repeats are final years who graduate before xmas the next year and students here on erasmus. ..

As someone who is in neither of this categorys I beg to differ.I dont really have time to reply properly to this at the moment but after my exams I will reply properly to this

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Its only if you're one of those people who does all their cramming the night before an exam that you'll have a problem. .

Its not just people who cram the night before exams who have to repeat exams and that is an extremely narrow way of looking at the repat exam situation.People have to resit exams for many different reasons.

Stepherunie

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

The only people who suffer from the absence of autumn repeats are final years who graduate before xmas the next year and students here on erasmus.

There's a person in my class who did autumn repeats without prejudice in first year because she was, at the time of our summer exams, undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Are you telling me that she wouldn't have suffered far more had she not had the opportunity to have autumn repeats?????

Redeye stop being so narrow minded about it all. Look at the bigger picture not just how you see it applying to you.

PS Sorry for being so horridly off topic this just really really really really bugged me.

gubbie

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

I went out last night, ISS christmas party in the blue room. Ive an amazing ability to find every society event in UCD

In theory S&M and no autmum repeats are a good thing and rather than undoing them we need to fine tune the system and adapt to them.

Panda again speaks sense! It's hard enough to study for the 6 exams that we got without having to study for extra

Heres a stastic-70% of people fail 3rd year elec exams first time round. Now if they had to repeat these in summer, it would put more stress on and they'd be very likely then to repeat them in their final year. I DON'T WANT THAT and no one in the, considered "tougher" courses wants that.

Engineering (by the skin of their teeth)

Thats pretty good considering there aren't even 1000 people in engineering Its all those women trying to steal our men!!

Stabshauptmann

panda100 wrote:

As someone who is in neither of this categorys I beg to differ.I dont really have time to reply properly to this at the moment but after my exams I will reply properly to this





Its not just people who cram the night before exams who have to repeat exams and that is an extremely narrow way of looking at the repat exam situation.People have to resit exams for many different reasons.

I can see you are indeed in a hurry at the mo, you didnt read my post correctly. Reread the but above where you selectively quoted. I didnt say those who cram end up repeating, I said repeating a summer exam at xmas instead of autum doesnt give you less time to study, unless you only do study one week before the exams.

Jonny Arson

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

The only people who suffer from the absence of autumn repeats are final years who graduate before xmas the next year and students here on erasmus. I think the arguement of a more stressful next exam sitting to be based mostly on fear of change.When people experience the new system it wont be so bad.

So you would say that a 3rd year Arts student having to repeat 2nd year 3 exams on top of another 6 exams at Christams in their final year would be stressful only based on a fear of change? Ah come of it, it isn't based on a fear of change, it based on having a sh!tload of exams thrown on top of your finals which would be stressful for any normal functioning human being. It's unfair on already worn out students under S&M.
The only partially legitimate argument in favour of scrapping August exams is that students will have a free summer. This argument worries me greatly as it sounds all juicy and appealing to the student who hardly gives a thought to issues like this but in reality this argument has no substance for students degree prospects.
All students should have the right to complete their year before the next year of their course starts. Carrying exams over into the next year of your course will only be of a hindrance for a students other modules. Scrapping August exams is going to make things ridiculously messy for everyone, students/lecturers/administration. I'll say again, if this years pathetically inactive UCDSU fail to campaign and protest against this issue I'm asking for my membership fee back.

In relation to the scrapping of Autumn repeats with regards to college social life, again having an extra two repeat exams on top of christmas exams will only further cut out students from becoming actively involved within college life. Students have to speak out if we feel we're getting a raw deal for the college big shots, with a decreasing active social scene out in this cold and informal college, drop-outs and failure rates will only increase (from what I understand they are already increasing) Campaiging just for a bit of extra poster space will do sweet FA in the overall big picture.

Stabshauptmann

Stepherunie wrote:

There's a person in my class who did autumn repeats without prejudice in first year because she was, at the time of our summer exams, undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Are you telling me that she wouldn't have suffered far more had she not had the opportunity to have autumn repeats?????

Redeye stop being so narrow minded about it all. Look at the bigger picture not just how you see it applying to you.

PS Sorry for being so horridly off topic this just really really really really bugged me.

It buggs me when my post is misquoted for a misinterptretaion I suddenly getted labeled with.

I didnt say those who cram end up repeating, I said repeating a summer exam at xmas instead of autum doesnt give you less time to study, unless you only do study one week before the exams.

Stabshauptmann

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

So you would say that a 3rd year Arts student having to repeat 2nd year 3 exams on top of another 6 exams at Christams in their final year would be stressful only based on a fear of change?

No. Thats not what I said. I didnt say it wouldnt be stressful. I said that they have the same amount of study time available.
Under the old commerce system I alluded to, there was a limit on how many you could carry over without being forced to repeat the year though, simply for this reason.

Ah come of it, it isn't based on a fear of change, it based on having a sh!tload of exams thrown on top of your finals which would be stressful for any normal functioning human being. It's unfair on already worn out students under S&M.

Ive done it! Im speaking from experience from a person who had to do extra FINAL exams in one sitting.

Stepherunie

Sorry but it does give you less time to study - if I was to fail one exam I would have a fair bit of time in during the summer to study.

Now if I was to have to carry that whilst I could keep tipping over in the summer I'd have the added pressure of having to study for all my other subjects that I'd taken on as well as the subject that I was carrying to study for at Christmas.

Now as someone who knows a good few people who've had to carry things from last year I only know of 2 people who aren't completely and utterly unhappy with this situation because of the added pressure they're under. Oh and the only reason those two aren't under added pressure is because they're sitting there repeat in the summer when we have no exams.

I don't see why people should be forced to study for an exam at chirstmas when they could repeat in the autumn. I mean in my course If I carry something from this year I'd have that which would be worth 30% of my my degree and which i will only get a pass grade in no matter how well I do and my christmas exams next year which account for 70% of my degree as well as being midway through the research for my disertation.

The stress of all that can't be good.

So yes this affects ALL students. Not just the ones you highlighted.

PS Final years in my course graduate in June so it wouldn't affect there graduation - they were never allowed graduate with there class anyways even with autumn repeats.

Stabshauptmann

gubbie wrote:

Panda again speaks sense! It's hard enough to study for the 6 exams that we got without having to study for extra

The amount of time has not been reduced though.

Heres a stastic-70% of people fail 3rd year elec exams first time round. Now if they had to repeat these in summer, it would put more stress on and they'd be very likely then to repeat them in their final year. I DON'T WANT THAT and no one in the, considered "tougher" courses wants that.[/quote
70%!:eek:

Perhaps the semesterisation and introduction of continuous assessment will help address this.
From someone who has gone through both systems I can say from experience and from confidence from talking to my peers that that S&M and C.A makes exams less stressful and easier to pass.

Having only one exam at an exam period makes it easier to cram, not to study. While this makes life harder for some (me included) I cant fault the college for trying to raise the standard of learning.

Thats pretty good considering there aren't even 1000 people in engineering Its all those women trying to steal our men!!

Ah yeah but few ppl join a society simply because its related to their course. Im in all the languages, Law and psych

Sangre

Stepherunie wrote:

Sorry but it does give you less time to study - if I was to fail one exam I would have a fair bit of time in during the summer to study.

Now if I was to have to carry that whilst I could keep tipping over in the summer I'd have the added pressure of having to study for all my other subjects that I'd taken on as well as the subject that I was carrying to study for at Christmas.

Why can't you study during the summer aswell for the xmas one? You'd be doing it anyway.

An extra 3 months to do an exam, its not physically possible to have less time to study.

Stepherunie

I did point out that you could study over the summer, I just feel that it's all very well doing a good bit over the summer but then when it comes closer to exams you have even more work to be dealing with and adding an extra subject, no matter how much you have done over the summer, is an added stress that students don't need.

Stabshauptmann

Stepherunie wrote:

Sorry but it does give you less time to study - if I was to fail one exam I would have a fair bit of time in during the summer to study.

You can still study during the summer

I don't see why people should be forced to study for an exam at chirstmas when they could repeat in the autumn. I mean in my course If I carry something from this year I'd have that which would be worth 30% of my my degree and which i will only get a pass grade in no matter how well I do and my christmas exams next year which account for 70% of my degree as well as being midway through the research for my disertation.

What that boils down to is time management. You dont have to wait till a week before the exam to study.

If you have studyed something and know it well, revision is quick and easy.

The stress of all that can't be good.

I actually suffered from extreme stress in the past. Im talking about only a stones throw from a breakdown. I overcame it and am now the most care free happy go lucky scamp you will meet because I learned proper time management skills.

So yes this affects ALL students. Not just the ones you highlighted.

How many times have I to say it, I NEVER said only those who cram need to repeat.

PS Final years in my course graduate in June so it wouldn't affect there graduation - they were never allowed graduate with there class anyways even with autumn repeats.

can you explain that. If you repeat a 2nd year exam for example, you wont be allowed to graduate with your exam, sounds a bit strange to me?

Jonny Arson

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

No. Thats not what I said. I didnt say it wouldnt be stressful. I said that they have the same amount of study time available.

Sure if you study for a repeat exam during July and August which will be taken at Christmas you end up with an equal amount of study time but I know for a fact that 99.9% of students will not be studying for an exam 4 months before they take it. They will study when they are at college come September-December and this study time will eat into their study time for other exams.

Jeez I've hardly had time to study my 2 exams this Christmas and I've had no exams to carry over. If I did I'd be buggered to the max!

It's so simple, keep August exams. Why is it been changed? For lecturers, the college's bank account and NOT for the benefit of students. It makes me sick.

Sangre

Well theres a lesson in all this, don't fail the first time round.

Jonny Arson

Sangre wrote:

Well theres a lesson in all this, don't fail the first time round.

True, I wish it was easier said than done

Stabshauptmann

If I carry something from this year I'd have that which would be worth 30% of my my degree and which i will only get a pass grade in no matter how well I do and my christmas exams next year which account for 70% of my degree as well as being midway through the research for my disertation.

You lost me there, if your penultimate year counts as 30% of your degree, and lets say you have 12 exams, 6 each sitting, thats only 2.5% of your degree. Which you'll have to do alongside exams worth 35% of your degree.

And if you're capped at a pass then its only worth 1% of your degree.

gubbie

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

70%!:eek:

In one of my subjects our class average is 29%. Its things like this that make me think why our subjects are hard. These are smart people who get A's in their leaving cert maths and then fail left right and center in college.
And 3rd years supposed to get a lot worse.

Perhaps the semesterisation and introduction of continuous assessment will help address this

And that 29%-ya that was in a mid term. You can't say something like this. If anything its due to get worse-we're doing very much the same amount of work as they did before but in the space of 12 weeks. And all the courses are different (work is done at different times) so as where they were able to learn off previous exams, we can't because we have different professors and material

Ah yeah but few ppl join a society simply because its related to their course. Im in all the languages, Law and psych

No believe me, its like med soc-everyone in their course joins

Byrno

OK I'm going to have to be quick as I have to return to study but I just have to reply to this thing about no autumn repeats.

I failed my exams there in the Summer (only just btw and if the pass rate was 40% like for the rest of the college I would've gotten through but that's just the way it is in Health Sci). For some reason that only the School knows we didn't have Autumn repeats like there was every other year for those exams. This has resulted in me and a fair few others in the class having to repeat these exams now at Christmas along with our normal Christmas exams. This is a ridiculous situation. We have the added pressure of trying to pass both the repeats and ordinary exams together. It has led to a situation where I have to leave two of my exams aside to focus on passing my repeats.

This situation wouldn't have occurred if there were Autumn repeats. We would've been able to focus on passing the repeats then and then could go on to the Winter exams without the added pressure of having to repeat other exams. There is just too much to do at the minute.

I do agree with you Kap on the Continuous Assessment though. It is something that I wish there was more of in my course, and not just MCQ's but presentations etc.

Also correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the situation in Commerce is that you have the option of repeating either In Autumn or Christmas?

Stepherunie

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

You can still study during the summer


What that boils down to is time management. You dont have to wait till a week before the exam to study.

If you have studyed something and know it well, revision is quick and easy.


I actually suffered from extreme stress in the past. Im talking about only a stones throw from a breakdown. I overcame it and am now the most care free happy go lucky scamp you will meet because I learned proper time management skills.

When did I ever say anything about crammers being the only one needing to repeat - in fact I don't think I ever mentioned crammers in my arguments. I'm saying that it's all great about time management skills - that's fine - I work hard to get everything in myself - what I'm saying is that no matter what management structure you have in place that being forced to repeat exams at the same time as having to sit other exams in unfair and does cause undue stress.

There is also this issue: I know people repeating second year subjects in third year - they were given preferential places over student who'd passed second year in my course - this caused uproar. What reason were we given for this: they paid for there courses - so screw those who worked there asses of - lets give it to those who failed.

As well as that our year head quite rightly refuses to represent those students on issues pertaining to there second year subjects in terms of when they sit them as we negotiated that we could complete clinical placement during the exam period as we had no summer exams. His belief is that he deals with issues with regards to third year, not second year. Now those students are left in limbo and have no one to represent them staff wise about these issues.


[QUOTE=KaptainRedeye}can you explain that. If you repeat a 2nd year exam for example, you wont be allowed to graduate with your exam, sounds a bit strange to me?[/QUOTE]


Quite simple - no autumn repeats would affect final years I do believe - I was just saying that in my case it doesn't affect final years as they graduate before autumn repeats ever happened so if they failed they didn't get to graduate with the class anyways.