21–30 of 32 posts
Coincidentally, I have not taken a summer break from classes for 3 years now.
Generally 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…
Maybe the UK experience is different than US, but this sounds like 'no child left behind'. Let's make 50% of the students do inane coursework for a year so the other 50% don't feel bad about requiring an extra year to finish university. We'll call it 'personal improvement'. While it definitely takes a year to adjust to being on your own, the average US freshman experience calcifies the mind. Example: I had 2 dorm fri…
Some of the maths was repeated but really helped me get a better grasp on it. The physics class was the only physics I got exposed to in uni and was hard but rewarding, same with the circuits stuff for electronics. As opposed to some of my recent 4th year classes, which have actually been a waste of time.
But I saw with many (not all) of my classmates just how important that first year was. Unfortunately, the differences between people's high school educations were just so much (there were some people who were having problems with limits... I was breezing all the way up to multi variable calculus and linear algebra) that as useless as individual courses may be for individual students, taken as a whole (as a class), all those 'review' classes were definitely necessary to prevent massive massive 2nd year fail rates.
Unfortunately this is not a problem that can only be solved by universities. They have their role to play, but so does our (by this I mean our province's) high school curriculum. In Toronto (where I grew up), we had integration (and almost derivatives) ripped out of standard grade 12 calculus (as well as a series of similar neuterings in other subjects). To get that stuff at all, your school had to offer honors, AP, or IB calculus or w/e. I lucked out with AP being available (which despite all the taunting I directed at the College Board did actually set me up for my first year university courses). But many bright smart kids just aren't lucky enough to attend to a school with such programs. Or even just average or slightly above average kids weren't pushed by the challenge, or dragged along by their smarter classmates.
In the end, (at least in Canada), I cannot see first year becoming any harder (or useful) until universities know that enough of their enrollees will be knowledgeable enough. Because ultimately, they are run as businesses on some level, and have to keep a float. Which is the biggest shame.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the UK experience is different than US, but this sounds like 'no child left behind'. Let's make 50% of the students do inane coursework for a year so the other 50% don't feel bad about requiring an extra year to finish university. We'll call it 'personal improvement'. While it definitely takes a year to adjust to being on your own, the average US freshman experience calcifies the mind. Example: I had 2 dorm fri…
This! Exactly! I'm currently in my first year and bored out of my skull with the material we're covering. Last week we spent going over the Data Protection Act in comp sci... the DPA is part of the standard grade course and I learnt it inside out in S3. I came to uni expecting a challenge - a new level of learning, but I'm so far left wanting.
It takes a very long time to become awesome at something, so I'd suggest you start now while you have plenty of spare time.
Generally 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…
It's difficult to strike a balance between not boring the brightest and losing the less bright completely.
But my friend, who is going to school in his town is finding the first (and even the second) year pretty useless. And it was sad that his freshman English class consisted of determining correct comma placement. I hope it's just the school and not the dumbing down of education across the board. So scary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There have been a number of tweaks to A-levels, once the gold standard of secondary education, to make them easier to pass. For example instead of one exam at the end of two years, it is split into smaller modules, which can be repeated, lower marks can be discarded, there is a consolation prize of an AS level, and pass rates have been going up every year. There is even a whole new grade, A* above A - whereas surely…
Having recently completed the IB there are some things that are not really great (they may still be better than the A levels). I can only comment for the subjects I took. Physics- too much emphasis on theory and step by step problems. I think solving a complete, complex problem shows much more understanding of physics, than the present state, where you can spend a month learning the theory by hard and then solve quit…
The education system, in any country, seems to be particularly vulnerable to capture by bonkers ideologists who prize "equality" and "inclusiveness" above all else, which means dumbing down to the lowest common denominator so everyone can win a prize at the end. It why, no matter what the governments try to do, private education is thriving.
Generally 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…
In the UK it's also likely that the students are living away from home for the first time, which takes a bit of getting used to for some. It's difficult to strike a balance between not boring the brightest and losing the less bright completely.
University isn't supposed to be merely a continuation of secondary education.