College Student?

dahamsta

Hi there,

We're currently looking at the possibility of setting up a College Working Group, and I'd like your feedback on this please. The intention would be to have a representative of each major college in the country become a member of this group, and work alongside the current Groups, concentrating of course on the college communities they would essentially represent. Not being very familiar with college life, I can't outline precisely how this group would work, but I would foresee three main tasks it would be charged with:

- Lobbying and communicating with student councils and groups
- Lobbying and communicating with college administrations
- Growing our membership

I think the reasoning behind the above should be obvious, and rather than explain them myself, I would rather you rationalise and explain them to each other. I would also be quite happy to entertain additions to the above, and suggestions for a way to run and manage this group. For example, is it overenthusiastic of me to think that each college could have a subcommittee of it's own, that reports to this group? Would I be optomistic of me to suggest that these groups could go down a level, and give talks on the Internet at Secondary level?

I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there, it's up to you to define it, and us to approve it. So go wild, all we can do is laugh mightily, and, eventually, say "no". Or perhaps "yes".

NOTE: We are NOT currently looking for members, just feedback.

Thanks,
adam

m1ke

the only problem I could see would be that a lot of people in colleges won't be very into this kind of thing. Simply because most decent colleges have massive amounts of bandwidth set aside for everyone. I know in DCU we have a 34mbit connection or something like that anyway heh.

The 3 points you proposed though are all workable, I don't see why not. Plenty of opportunity to expand the member base too if it's gone about right and you can get enough people on the ground giving it enuff hype.

I do think subcommittees might be a wishful for the time being - best to test the water first I think.

gandalf

Mike to be honest I think alot of people in Colleges should be into this kind of thing, why because one day they leave their DCU or their UL and find that they no longer have a **** hot multi-megabit link but they now have a almost obsolete connection to the net.

Ask anyone who left college to work in the real world.

Gandalf.

timod

Yup,

Count me in. I've only a few months left in UCC, but I might be able to do a thing or too.

Tim

yellum

I can vouch for Tims proactiveness in a college environment.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

m1ke

gandalf, this isn't aimed towards people who left college u divv.... so u have to make the considerations.

dahamsta

gandalf, this isn't aimed towards people who left college u divv.... so u have to make the considerations.

But it is aimed at people who will, someday, be leaving college Mike.

Seriously though, we don't just have to concentrate on those people -- what about the people who /do/ have fast connections to the Internet in college, but are unable to use the Internet to study /outside/ of college, because of the horrendous costs involved?

adam

Dangger

Seriously though, we don't just have to concentrate on those people -- what about the people who /do/ have fast connections to the Internet in college, but are unable to use the Internet to study /outside/ of college, because of the horrendous costs involved?

Here here Adam, I remember well the cycle from the Terenure to DCU to sit in a lab and take an online module in Databases, cursing the slow connection at home, yet greatful I could take this lecture any time I wanted.
:rolleyes:

Farls

I think this is a very good idea dahamsta, take into consideration that almost every course takes in computers in one form or another, and that means everyone knowing how to use a computer and if you can use a computer you want to go on the net at a reasonable price.

For instance at the moment i'm starting cisco and with cisco everything you do is online, the learning, the revision and the exams. To learn this i have to come back into college at night for the few hours its open to try and cram all i can, where as if i had the net up in my appartment i could do my learning when i wanted to, and at the weekends.

I'm in Letterkenny IT and theres no gaming society here either, this means losing rights to computers if your caught playing so you either take the chance and possibly get caught or dont and do without cuz your dont have a net connection living away from home because eircom wont give you one at a price you the student can afford.

One thing i'm sure this would do is greatly increase the numbers in this group at the very least, if it was brought up at say a student union meeting and then brought it up with their superiors it could have a massive influence overall because realistically in this day and age access to the internet should be like turning on the tv.

Farls

p

It might be useful to work with the various networking/computer societies set up in the different colleegs as their members are the ones who'd probably most likely to be interested.


http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie
http://www.compsoc.com
http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie
http://www.netsoc.ucd.is
http://www.ducss.tcd.ie
http://www.csn.ul.ie
http://netsoc.kst.dit.ie
http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/

http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/intersocs/

Wafterford, Blanch etc... have ones too although i don't know the URLs offhand.

- Kevin

dahamsta

Hi p,

Just FYI, redbrick and compsoc have already expressed an interest in supporting and communicating with IO, it's just been on the back burner for a while (far too long).

adam

scojones

I'm a first year in ITTralee studying Computer Science. You can count me in

seamus

I'm definitely not a lobbyer, but I can do some of the grunt work, or come up with ideas, etc. If this goes ahead, I assume 80p will be involved in UCD, so you can contact me then

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Well, I do have a few Ideas that I'm preparing for the committee ATM and will get back on the issue soon.

The propsoals will be something such as guidelines for those who want to help promote IOFFL thro' existing college machinery- ie. Media / Websites / Public Debates etc.