Damn you Exams office, DAMN YOU!

griffdaddy

Stepherunie wrote:

Thing is, I've heard many reports that Hugh Brady introduced modularisation because he could get a presidency in more 'prestigious' universities until he had been presided over a modularised university. However with the state of it here I think his chances are severely curtailed until he manages to get the thing actually running. Rumour it may be but could make sense.

No, he introduced modularisation because it's the way every university in Europe is going. If you want something to blame for modularisation, blame globalisation or the EU. The whole idea is that modules taken can be compared like-for-like around different universities and it can then be established what level you are on on a bigger framework. There is also an initiative in place to have at least 30% of students participate in Erasmus exchanges over the next (i think) 5 years. (I'm not sure if it applied to you..) but didn't you notice that when applying for an Erasmus or foreign placement it's a lot easier to say 'I have x amount of ECTS spread over x amount of modules' rather than trying to say 'Well i did x course, which covered a bit of this and some of that, and y course that involved a bit this.' I kinda like the idea of a big Europe wide system to be honest, seems to be a good idea in the long run. Unfortunately some people are experiencing horrible side effects, side effects which are inexcusable in any context.

tribulus

I just sent an abusive email and got a very apologetic person explaining everything to me, times, the room to be at etc. I don't care anymore, I'm not being polite to these people.

Anyway I'm all sorted now my two clashing exams are on in the Quinn School as I imagine most clashing exams are.

dajaffa

griffdaddy wrote:

No, he introduced modularisation because it's the way every university in Europe is going. If you want something to blame for modularisation, blame globalisation or the EU. The whole idea is that modules taken can be compared like-for-like around different universities and it can then be established what level you are on on a bigger framework. There is also an initiative in place to have at least 30% of students participate in Erasmus exchanges over the next (i think) 5 years. (I'm not sure if it applied to you..) but didn't you notice that when applying for an Erasmus or foreign placement it's a lot easier to say 'I have x amount of ECTS spread over x amount of modules' rather than trying to say 'Well i did x course, which covered a bit of this and some of that, and y course that involved a bit this.' I kinda like the idea of a big Europe wide system to be honest, seems to be a good idea in the long run. Unfortunately some people are experiencing horrible side effects, side effects which are inexcusable in any context.

I don't think anyone has a problem with modularisation in principle, when it was originally brought in there were loads of promises made, like not modularising the current Arts final years, which they subsequently tried to do. The fact is it seems that for *some reason* Hugh decided one day to speed up the process and get us fully modular a lot faster than originally planned, which has caused most of the problems people are experiencing, essentially sacrificing the educations of 2/3 years of UCD students, so that 3 years or so from now it'll all be great, only the ones in college now are getting screwed.

Now on the topic of some reason, there is a school of thought that a high figure in UCD wants to return to a high achieving US college and wants to be in charge of a fully modular + high ranking UCD when a certain job prospect arises.

As for Steph's Erasmus, I'm pretty sure modularisation didn't really matter cause it was done in the style of a merry-go-round of a variety of European radiography schools so it wouldn't necessarily matter as it's a professional degree. However the great thing for professional degrees in UCD is that we still have to essentially do all the work of the old system, with an added 30 credits worth of work of electives. Hurray!!

AllStar

From Independent!!

"All part of being a Belfield student

It is now ten days until I start my third year exams in UCD. At least that's when I think they are starting because, as yet, the examination timetables have not been finalised.
This year, UCD decided to begin a process of academic restructuring which, to be frank, has proven to be a joke. Unfortunately, not many of the 20,000 or so students are laughing.
Being a student in Belfield is bad enough. We have to put up with huge classes, impersonal relationships with professors and lecturers and overpriced food on campus.
But that's part and parcel of being an undergraduate in the biggest university in the country.
The restaurants and shops seem to have been flogged off to the highest bidders who do their best to turn a profit by churning out over-priced, substandard food and products. For example, my lunch on campus, a terrible club sandwich, a packet of crisps and small bottle of water which came to the grand total of six euro and seventy cents.
In the last two days I have been moved seven times while studying.
Once in the library I was asked to move from the only area which had a electric socket because it was an electronic free zone.
So I went down to the business school, but there is no designated study area there until after six o'clock. The college simply has nowhere for students to study, which as you can imagine, is an important part of being a student. As a result of semesterisation, it is impossible to find past exam papers and lecturers seem lazily reluctant to post dummy papers which are a huge help while studying for exams.
I have to say, I really hate UCD. I regret it every day I actually bother to come in.
Many of us are disillusioned with the way the college is run and coming up to exams this is really something which we could do without.
For example, a commerce subject which was scheduled for May 30 has been brought forward two weeks giving students even less time to prepare for an exam which is worth double credits.
UCD is somewhere where slick marketing and shrewd PR have overtaken actual academic credibility and, quite frankly, I would say to any school leaver who has filled in their CAO to keep their change of mind very close at hand. The new slogan for UCD asks "How far do you want to go?" To be honest, as far from Belfield as i can get.
RONAN J GRACE,
TRALEE, CO KERRY ""

drdre

AllStar wrote:

From Independent!!

"All part of being a Belfield student

It is now ten days until I start my third year exams in UCD. At least that's when I think they are starting because, as yet, the examination timetables have not been finalised.
This year, UCD decided to begin a process of academic restructuring which, to be frank, has proven to be a joke. Unfortunately, not many of the 20,000 or so students are laughing.
Being a student in Belfield is bad enough. We have to put up with huge classes, impersonal relationships with professors and lecturers and overpriced food on campus.
But that's part and parcel of being an undergraduate in the biggest university in the country.
The restaurants and shops seem to have been flogged off to the highest bidders who do their best to turn a profit by churning out over-priced, substandard food and products. For example, my lunch on campus, a terrible club sandwich, a packet of crisps and small bottle of water which came to the grand total of six euro and seventy cents.
In the last two days I have been moved seven times while studying.
Once in the library I was asked to move from the only area which had a electric socket because it was an electronic free zone.
So I went down to the business school, but there is no designated study area there until after six o'clock. The college simply has nowhere for students to study, which as you can imagine, is an important part of being a student. As a result of semesterisation, it is impossible to find past exam papers and lecturers seem lazily reluctant to post dummy papers which are a huge help while studying for exams.
I have to say, I really hate UCD. I regret it every day I actually bother to come in.
Many of us are disillusioned with the way the college is run and coming up to exams this is really something which we could do without.
For example, a commerce subject which was scheduled for May 30 has been brought forward two weeks giving students even less time to prepare for an exam which is worth double credits.
UCD is somewhere where slick marketing and shrewd PR have overtaken actual academic credibility and, quite frankly, I would say to any school leaver who has filled in their CAO to keep their change of mind very close at hand. The new slogan for UCD asks "How far do you want to go?" To be honest, as far from Belfield as i can get.
RONAN J GRACE,
TRALEE, CO KERRY ""

Thats excellent. Now UCD should bloody cop on and stop acting the collox

Stepherunie

dajaffa wrote:

As for Steph's Erasmus, I'm pretty sure modularisation didn't really matter cause it was done in the style of a merry-go-round of a variety of European radiography schools so it wouldn't necessarily matter as it's a professional degree.

However the great thing for professional degrees in UCD is that we still have to essentially do all the work of the old system, with an added 30 credits worth of work of electives. Hurray!!

Yeah as Dajaffa said my Erasmus was different. All the radiography schools set a number of clinical hours to be completed (200) and then everyone does a different speciality. It's not so much about credits as it is about learning something and having a slightly different degree training to others.

And on Dajaffas second point, again in my course that's not necessarily true. I know speaking to lecturers they've found it advantageous in that they were finally able to bring in changes they've been trying to make for years to various courses. A lot of the time the different departments teaching various courses would refuse to make the changes that our school wanted to make.

Modularisation managed to get rid of the gross inequality radiography students experienced in terms of the amount of in course assessments they had to do for the exact same percentage of their end of year grade (try doing 30 physiology seminars to get 7.5% and where physios prepared a mere 10 to get the same 7.5%). It also resulted in the absolutely horrible 50% MCQ with negative marking being removed from Pathology. That was an exam that one person at least failed every year and it resulted in them only receiving a pass degree.

And GriffDaddy I agree that in essence modularisation is a good thing, it's caused atrocious side effects but I can still see it's positives, even if it means that I end up taking courses with people in the year below me next year. What I dislike was the implementation of it whereby UCD decided to not listen to the advice they were given and implemented the system in less than half the time they were told it would take to implement it effectively.

It seems thought and consideration are no longer priorities in administration anymore.

Garret

AllStar wrote:

Being a student in Belfield is bad enough. We have to put up with huge classes, impersonal relationships with professors and lecturers and overpriced food on campus.

depends on your course. on black friday a load of us from our class were drinking with our one of our lecturers and one of our tutors

The restaurants and shops seem to have been flogged off to the highest bidders who do their best to turn a profit by churning out over-priced, substandard food and products. For example, my lunch on campus, a terrible club sandwich, a packet of crisps and small bottle of water which came to the grand total of six euro and seventy cents.

Okay i know prices are high, but I don't know anywhere that charges that much. Certainly not the centra (who do decent roll/sandwiches) or 911 (which is okay before 5).

In the last two days I have been moved seven times while studying.
Once in the library I was asked to move from the only area which had a electric socket because it was an electronic free zone.

Well I'm sure there are signs to that effect, I know I've seen them. And there's a good reason too. People can be noisy hammering on their keyboards and the whirring of the fans can irritate some.

The library does need more laptop areas though, and does need to craic down on the number of spaces taken up by laptops and a book, but no student to be seen for hours

So I went down to the business school, but there is no designated study area there until after six o'clock.

Just go into a vacant room, there's usually at least one.

[/devil's advocate]

gubbie

Does depend on the course. I've been drinking many times with professors and demonstrators (loving the scandel I get from the demonstrators!) Sure Red_Alert was/prays everyday that he will be again, my demonstrator

On the food... its a joke. In the restaurant EVERYTHING tastes the same and its just not value for money. It costs twice as much like for milk then it does in the shops (in UCC its free!... its the little things...) and I thought it was subsidised... It also sells the most expensive sambos on campus. No actually bar the Arts Cafe. €4 for a sambo!
My problem with the food is that maybe €4 isn't a lot if all your spending is €4, but when you're around from 9-7 like poor me you have to get something then also. Thats where the expense goes. The others don't. Ah boo like

The study area is driving me mad. During the year there's loads of places in engineering to study but now every professor seems to have booked these rooms for some meetings of some sort. I've taken to using vacent rooms but during the winter there's no heating in them so they're pretty cold

dajaffa

Stepherunie wrote:

And on Dajaffas second point, again in my course that's not necessarily true. I know speaking to lecturers they've found it advantageous in that they were finally able to bring in changes they've been trying to make for years to various courses. A lot of the time the different departments teaching various courses would refuse to make the changes that our school wanted to make.

Eh partly true, the main point is that it simply wasn't possible to reduce the core workload by a sixth. Often a similar workload is merely crammed into less time, + overall horizons just results in a sixth more work. So far I've done 20 credits of work on top of my core physio, same with all of my class, + its just a case of extra workload, and the year behind us seem to have it even worse as we were kinda the experimental year so the marking was more lenient than it is now.

Spectator#1

Does anyone know if UCD could be taken to a civil court over duty of care negligence? That would be ****ing amazing, it would **** their whole 'Horizons'/Rebranding thing right up the swanny in terms of PR and new image. The SU don't have the balls to do it either. I bet they'd listen if you got the law involved, I want to see that idiot go down with the college, I want him selling charity bank giro's on Talbot St. for the rest of his life!

aequinoctium

yes, damn them; i still have 3 in one day!

Stepherunie

dajaffa wrote:

Eh partly true, the main point is that it simply wasn't possible to reduce the core workload by a sixth. Often a similar workload is merely crammed into less time, + overall horizons just results in a sixth more work. So far I've done 20 credits of work on top of my core physio, same with all of my class, + its just a case of extra workload, and the year behind us seem to have it even worse as we were kinda the experimental year so the marking was more lenient than it is now.

Yeah see what you mean, kinda different with us though because *I think* that our technology has a bit of mad throughput, we've digitised in a space of like 10 years so a lot of the stuff that I would have learnt (now feeling particularly old) is now completely out of date and not taught anymore. Though I do feel bad for them in that they no longer get to learn how to print photos. Best part of second year I tells ya!

Chakar

I saw an advertisement in the paper for senior positions available in UCD. Incredibly enough, there is a position available as Deputy Director of Assessment!

rain on

Chakar wrote:

I saw an advertisement in the paper for senior positions available in UCD. Incredibly enough, there is a position available as Deputy Director of Assessment!

i.e. Person Responsible For Cleaning Up All The Mess Made By Poor Decisions On The Part Of Upper Administration.
worst job ever.

Chakar

rain on wrote:

i.e. Person Responsible For Cleaning Up All The Mess Made By Poor Decisions On The Part Of Upper Administration.
worst job ever.

It's well paid anyhow. The salary range is between 54,000 to 85,000 euros per annum.

drdre

Chakar wrote:

I saw an advertisement in the paper for senior positions available in UCD. Incredibly enough, there is a position available as Deputy Director of Assessment!

ahhah, some people have got the sack already :cool:

pretty*monster

There's an unsubstantiated rumour doing the rounds that a lot of people in logistics quit over the last two years or so because the of management/new systems being totally unworkable and the timetable sucked because the people doing it were new and inexperienced.

Stabshauptmann

gubbie wrote:

It also sells the most expensive sambos on campus. No actually bar the Arts Cafe. €4 for a sambo!

Thats not the most expensive on campus

Stabshauptmann

Spectator#1 wrote:

Does anyone know if UCD could be taken to a civil court over duty of care negligence? That would be ****ing amazing, it would **** their whole 'Horizons'/Rebranding thing right up the swanny in terms of PR and new image. The SU don't have the balls to do it either. I bet they'd listen if you got the law involved, I want to see that idiot go down with the college, I want him selling charity bank giro's on Talbot St. for the rest of his life!

What are you talking about? What duty of care have they broken?

drdre

Spectator#1 wrote:

Does anyone know if UCD could be taken to a civil court over duty of care negligence? That would be ****ing amazing, it would **** their whole 'Horizons'/Rebranding thing right up the swanny in terms of PR and new image. The SU don't have the balls to do it either. I bet they'd listen if you got the law involved, I want to see that idiot go down with the college, I want him selling charity bank giro's on Talbot St. for the rest of his life!

Stop talking crap

TheVan

Is someone a first year tort student?

Spectator#1

drdre wrote:

Stop talking crap

Ah, textbook misuse of the smiley face!

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

What are you talking about? What duty of care have they broken?

I don't know, that's why I asked! Hulla and Sangre do law don't they? Perhaps they'd know. From what I know, duty of care isn't strictly defined categorically, its determined in the process of a particular civil action, it'd be enough to get UCD as far as the court to damage the PR bull**** that education has been subjugated by the last two years.

I mean, the delays on the exam timetables, the inordinate amount of clashes, the amount of messups over Christmas with exams swapping places on the timetable without anybody knowing, the distances to be traversed between exam centres in a short time, the unworkable timetables: eg. 3 a day, 10 in 8 days etc...; surely there could be a case anyway?

Anyone?

TheVan, were you asking about tort for the same reason or are you just looking for exam advice?!

TheVan

I was asking were you a first year tort student. You know...."I've been studying duty of care and I want to apply it to the real world" type vibe.

Just making an observation

And no, I don't think a duty of care arises. At all

I also study law

stolenwine

There's a letter in the Sunday Independent today (Sunday 13th) , a commerce student is sharing his joy concerning the admin debacle. He should forward his letter to Mary Hanafin she's not a big Hugh Brady fan.

HappyCrackHead

Like Mary Hanafin is any better?

Grants anyone. Face facts, students are seen as nothing more than mass consumers, and care for our well being isnt terribly important.

Spectator#1

Yeah, you're absolutely right but that's not the point.

Every single change that's been made in UCD over the last two years has been for the sake of 'rebranding' and putting UCD on an 'international footing'. If their ability to cater for the student population was called into question in the public - which would be a fair criticism judging by the fact that they've lied, concealed and ****ed up all over the place the last two years - then all of the soft-focus attention they've been getting in the media would be for nothing. Think of it more as revenge or setting the record straight than looking for sympathy!

Spectator#1

TheVan wrote:

I was asking were you a first year tort student. You know...."I've been studying duty of care and I want to apply it to the real world" type vibe.

Even worse, I haven't ever studied it, I was just wondering! You could have just said that instead of being all condescending, I never pretended to know about it!

And no, I don't think a duty of care arises. At all.

Would you get it as far as the courts though if you took a case? That's all if would take to get it into the public eye, even if the court threw it out then, there'd probably be more media interest into how the college is working on the inside and what the students and staff think.

Good luck in your exams everyone by the way!

Sangre

Any case you take, no matter how ridiulous has to get to the courts unless the parties settle. Now getting past the preliminary hearing is a different matter but even that would suffice for paper headlines, 'student sues UCD for eductional negligence'.

hullaballoo

Maybe someone will suffer nervous shock and then we can talk.

Spectator#1

Sangre wrote:

Any case you take, no matter how ridiulous has to get to the courts unless the parties settle. Now getting past the preliminary hearing is a different matter but even that would suffice for paper headlines, 'student sues UCD for eductional negligence'.

Bingo!

hullaball&#250 wrote:

Maybe someone will suffer nervous shock and then we can talk.

I wouldn't be surprised, what with people like theVan being made to wait until four days before their exams start before they know what the deal is with them.

Perhaps the SU should be looking into doing this on behalf of the students who got left at the wayside this year? Would it be theoretically possible for them to take action on behalf of a number of students, whether or not they actually would?

Would any students here be interested in approaching the SU about it, as a matter of interest?

I wonder if UCD are watching this thread... Hi guys!