Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
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Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#2The first year of a degree teaches students what 6th forms used to in the old days. Fix the dumbing down in state schools first. A-levels have been devalued by politically driven grade inflation, so let's take it out of the hands of the politicians altogether and switch to the IB.
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#3The quality of UK university courses varies tremendously. I studied engineering as did lots of my friends. The standard course length for an MEng is 4 years, I think that might even be a requirement to get the course accredited.
But what happens in those four years can be very different - if you are at a less good university, you will probably be working less than 20 hours a week on your engineering degree. If you are at a top university, you will work at least full time if not more.
So if this proposal was followed through you could end up with a slightly odd situation (or maybe a good situation?) where the less good universities offered shorter courses than the good ones. So the brightest students would be in uni for longer.
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#4Generally the first year is a bridging year. You have students with a wide variety of different backgrounds and they all need to be bought up to the same base. It's also the first time many students will have to learn for themselves as opposed to being spoonfed.
So while you do learn less in the first year than the other two, it still has a lot of value, because you learn how to learn and many other personal skills which are critical for university and later life.
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#5The first year of a degree teaches students what 6th forms used to in the old days. Fix the dumbing down in state schools first. A-levels have been devalued by politically driven grade inflation, so let's take it out of the hands of the politicians altogether and switch to the IB.
The situation seems to be the same as in the US, where a high-school diploma no longer guarantees mastery of remedial English and math skills. Forcing colleges to front-load that education before moving forward.
HS graduation rates may be higher today but I'm not sure that correlates with greater mastery of basic intellectual skills.
This also helps explain the increasing reliance on college degrees (any degree) as a necessary prerequisite credential for many office and knowledge worker jobs.
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#6The first year of a degree teaches students what 6th forms used to in the old days. Fix the dumbing down in state schools first. A-levels have been devalued by politically driven grade inflation, so let's take it out of the hands of the politicians altogether and switch to the IB.
Apologies for my American-centered knowledge of an education system. Could you provide more background about this issue? A-levels vs IB (Internaltional Baccalaureate I think)?
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#7For my degree (Computer Science at Warwick), the first year did count towards my final results. Even without it counting, I feel it would have been fairly difficult to adequately teach Computer Science without the 'extra' year at the start.
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#8Generally the first year is a bridging year. You have students with a wide variety of different backgrounds and they all need to be bought up to the same base. It's also the first time many students will have to learn for themselves as opposed to being spoonfed. So while you do learn less in the first year than the other two, it still has a lot of value, because you learn how to learn and many other personal skills w…
I agree mostly with this statement, however for most schools (including the one I attended) where you are going for a Bachelor's degree, you are required to take a certain number of general elective credits and required basic classes. Supposedly this makes you a more well-rounded human, more of a broad thinker, what have you.. But for a major like mine (CompSci) it makes you wonder if it's really worth it in comparison to a 2 year degree or tech schooling. Was falling asleep in geology 101 every day for a semester and ending up with a bachelor degree and more loans worth it, when I could have been in the work force 2 years earlier probably doing the same thing? Who knows.... but universities should take more emphasis off general electives (badminton anyone?) and offer more major-related classes to those who are interested.
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#9For my degree (Computer Science at Warwick), the first year did count towards my final results. Even without it counting, I feel it would have been fairly difficult to adequately teach Computer Science without the 'extra' year at the start.
So how much were you able to actually get into CS your first year?? I was limited to mostly programming 1 & 2... you couldn't get into any higher level CS studies until you had those two classes completed, and you couldn't take them at the same time. That led to a lot of fun side projects, no doubt, but that was when I wasn't falling asleep in my under-water basket weaving class. I often wonder if a technical program at a computer-specific school would have yielded the same results for much less dime.
Re: Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
#10Generally the first year is a bridging year. You have students with a wide variety of different backgrounds and they all need to be bought up to the same base. It's also the first time many students will have to learn for themselves as opposed to being spoonfed. So while you do learn less in the first year than the other two, it still has a lot of value, because you learn how to learn and many other personal skills w…
Yeah, if a university education is a gleaming skyscraper the first year is like the foundation that holds it up: often unappreciated, but necessary.