UCD Access Course - Any Insight?

Yeti Beast

Hi folks,

I'm interested in going to university next year, and at the moment I'm leaning towards Forestry in UCD. I know I could apply as a mature student (I'm 38) via the CAO, but I noticed the Access Courses would guarantee admission to certain courses (including Forestry) for successful students.

So, has anyone here done either of the Access Course in UCD? What was the entrance "exam" like? Worthwhile experience?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Yeti Beast

I'll take that as a "no" then. :P

Would I have better luck posting this in the UCD forum?

Maldesu

I've not done access, but I am friends with many students who came into UCD through Access. I've just finished my exams, but in the 3 years of being in UCD, I've seen the benefit of Access.

It provides students with a strong network of friends before going into UCD fully. With a campus of 22,000 students, having that support network is important generally, let along for a minority.
Both the mature students advisor, Ronan Murphy, and the Access co-ordinator, Thomond Coogan, really work hard to for the students. They are very supportive and always do what they can.
I've only ever met one of the lecturers for Access, and I was impressed by his commitment to Mature students. His Phd was in science (Chemistry I think) and he felt it was his responsibly to encourage mature students in their education. He taught study skills.

While I can't comment on the content of the course, I've never heard any complaints. I do know that former Access students make a point of inviting the student advisor and co-ordinator to various drinking/food events and I don't think they would bother if they had a bad time.

Hope this helps. Also, if you do have questions about the Access content, email Thomond. I've only met her occasionally, but she is very nice and willing to help where she can.

Humbird

Hi Dair,
I can tell you about the access course at UCD as I have just completed it. You sit an "exam" in August - basically it is a lecture and after it is over you need to write an essay about it and provide your views on the topic - this helps determine your writing skills I suspect. Then there is a maths exam a few days later I recall, followed by interview with Thomond Coogan (yes, very nice lady).
The classes were on Monday and Wednesday nights and many Saturday mornings too. It was incredibly intense to do the course, but it was fantastic and really prepares you for uni - the curriculum for the access course for 2013-2014 had altered and might alter again based on feedback from the students. When I did the course (2013-2014) there was a huge amount of maths as part of the course but very little physics or biology ... which was disappointing because I took on the course in order to increase my science base. We did more chemistry than physics or biology and that is because our chemistry lecturer also gave study skills lectures and he had the ability to put more chemistry on than was scheduled.

When it came to maths, you don't have time to catch your breathe on one chapter before moving on to another completely different chapter to know. There are many assignments, one after another and they take hours of work. I had no idea how hard this course was going to be or what a huge time commitment it would be. There is a Maths Support Centre which is there for extra help for any student and without it I would have crumbled - it was a god send and many students were in it for several hours before the Mon and Wed classes.
You have to achieve high grades to be eligible for entry automatically into a number of courses at UCD - unless you meet the standard you will not get in to UCD automatically and will have to compete at CAO level. Be sure that you know what courses do provide automatic entry - there was some confusion amongst my fellow classmates as some felt that they joined the access course to get automatic entry (only to find out at a later date that this was not the case). If you are interested in science at UCD and achieve the right grades for automatic entry you also are given free credits for the first year at science.

I would highly recommend this course. I think it is very well regarded as an access course amongst other universities. But be well warned that it is incredibly time consuming and hard hard work, I was not prepared sufficiently for the time commitment involved. I wanted to achieve high marks so I suppose I put in about 6 hours of work every day and that didn't include lecture time or time at the Maths support centre.
The lecturers were very good - I was very impressed with Shea Mullally who was a mature student himself and very supportive always.
Let me know if there is any particular things you want to know about the course and I can answer you.
Humbird

Yeti Beast

Thanks Maldesu and Humbird.

I had heard great things about the course alright, and Thomond Coogan as well. Your feedback tallies with what I had heard about the course being difficult, but definitely worthwhile - the study skills lectures in partuclar would be useful to me, although I'd hope there'd be more biology than you experienced Humbird, given that it's Forestry I'm interested in.

As regards the difficulty of the course, that's fairly intimidating. But I'm out of work at the moment, so I suppose a silver lining would be that I would have plenty of time to put in the work.

And yep, the social and support network aspect would be a huge draw for me personally too.

Can I ask ye both about a) the entrance lecture/exam (subject, difficulty etc) and b) how you're graded on the year - is it continual assessment, big final exams, or a mix of both?

Thanks again both for your time by the way - I really appreciate it.

Humbird

Hi Dair, I had signed up for this course ESPECIALLY to get biology under my belt, and for that reason I was disappointed. However in the long run it didn't matter so much because it was "perceived" I had more biology than I actually had as a result of doing the course so at least on CAO form it looked like I had sufficient science, if you know what I mean? But I do think that the curriculum is changing for this Sept on the back of a few people feeling like there was too much maths and too little science, so Thomond can give you the low down on that - be sure to ask her specifically and ask for the break down of what hours of lectures per module (e.g. we did 40 hours of maths this term versus 16 hours of physics, which was totally insufficient).
I gave up employment to do this course and thought that I'd have loads of time to do it, however I found it hard hard hard and put in so many more hours than I expected when I signed up for it. Thomond had said it was time consuming but to be honest I didn't quite believe it, but it IS time consuming ... I know several people who dropped out because they could not do it and juggle other commitments. And some people's grades just didn't quite meet the mark and they have to repeat exams.
For Maths there was continuous assessment which accounted for 25% and then an Xmas exam and final exam. Biology and Chemistry the same, and physics too.
There was not a real social thing going on to be honest, except around assignments and study groups, and people didn't go out for drinks etc much - remember that classes end at 9.30pm and people were wrecked after 3 intensive hours of lectures on tough subjects. However, I do know that in Sept when the people who will continue at UCD are back that there will be a nice little network for them to start off with, and already we all feel very at home on the campus and its facilities.
Anyway, I would defo recommend this course and hopefully it will boost your chances for forestry.
Humbird

Yeti Beast

Thanks again Humbird - I'll give Thomond a call next week. I think they start accepting applications in June??

Thanks again, you've been a huge help!

Humbird

Hi dair, one other thing ... I forgot to answer you ...
You asked about the tests for entry: The lecture and essay after that - you just need to pay attention the lecture and perhaps take a couple of notes. Then you are asked to write an essay on it with different views .... pro's/con's type of thing and you can take whatever stance you wish. They just want to check out your writing skills I guess. After that if you pass they call you for a maths test. What they offer in advance of the maths test is some refresher maths classes for a few nights in advance. To be honest without these I would have failed miserably, they were fantastic at digging up some maths that was buried deep in the back of my brain from 100 years ago. So I strongly recommend going along to those classes (free) and then you will be fine for the maths test and interview with Thomond.

PS, I didn't get a particular course in TCD (only 4 mature places) that I wanted in 2013 so I did the UCD access course (amongst other things to boost my chances for 2014) .... I am happy to say that I was one of the lucky 4 who got a place for this Sept 2014 - I don't think I would have got it without the UCD access course under my belt (amongst other things).
Good luck,
Humbird

Yeti Beast

Congratulations Humbird - glad it really helped you. And thanks again; your info has been a huge help to me!