How to Succeed At University--International Edition. Danton O'Day

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СКАЧАТЬ (liaison officers) are there to get your warm body to their university for the revenue it will generate. They are not going to tell you about their shortcomings, only about their strong points. However, you can learn a lot from these meetings, especially if you make notes about the topics discussed. If social or sports aspects are emphasized with little regard for academic programmes, then you should beware. You are going to university (or should be) to get a valuable education that will form the basis for your future. You will have fun along the way, but that should not be your prime concern. Look for liaison officers who describe the academic programmes available and be sure to ask questions.

      University recruiting nights may be limited to specific locations and are not offered by all schools, so they will not be available to all students nor will they provide you with data on all the universities in the country. Thus you will likely still have to rely on other sources of information such as university brochures and websites.

      What to Expect

      In many aspects university differs greatly from high school; in others it is very similar. In this section we want to give an overview of what you will be up against at university. Later we will get down to details.

      The most significant difference between university and high school is the freedom that you have at university. This might seem like a good thing but, as we have seen, it can work against you. For example, since you are free to attend or miss classes at will, you may be tempted to skip them.

      Your classes or lectures will often be very impersonal events. You will sit in a large lecture hall listening to an apparently miniscule professor standing in the distance at the front of the classroom lecturing you on topics that were never covered in high school. Except in rare instances, you will not be missed if absent or acknowledged if present. It will be up to you to decide what is important and what is not. It will be up to you to decide whether or not to study; very few professors give unannounced quizzes in the lecture period.

      You alone can decide whether or not to do what’s asked. It will be up to you to decide if you should hand in an assignment. It will be your decision whether to attend a lecture, laboratory practical or tutorial session. To the lecturer you will be one of hundreds or thousands of uninspiring first-year faces. It will be up to you whether you remain anonymous or get the most out of your years at university.

      Your hours in class will vary with the subjects you have chosen. In each arts subject (English, history, fine arts, etc.) you will have a minimum of two to three hours (depending on the university) of lectures per week. In the sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) you will have the same lecture periods and you will also have to attend laboratory periods which will range from two to four hours per week. Some disciplines, such as mathematics and computer science, also have tutorials that are designed to give the practical aspects of the subject as well as some individual attention. The number of tutorial hours will also vary from university to university.

      Typically students are required to take a number of subjects per academic year, each worth a certain amount of credits, for three or four years to be awarded the Bachelor’s degree. Also, full-year classes tend to be less common with single-semester subjects predominating. Thus depending on your chosen curriculum you will have between ten and thirty hours of class time per week. In disciplines that have few class hours, more outside reading and other assignments are usually required, while in the sciences time will be spent preparing for labs and writing lab reports.

      Did You Know?

      Nowadays, many students take fewer than the full academic load of credits per year, increasing the time required to complete their degree requirements. It typically takes four to five years for students to complete what is considered a four-year degree. However, that’s the average and it’s not unusual for students to take six or more years to graduate from a four-year programme. As a result, it’s common for students to discuss their progress towards graduation in terms of the number of credits earned as opposed to specific years of study or the amount of time required for completion.

      Because of the diversity of university programmes it would be futile to spend any more time giving generalities about what to expect. However, to succeed at university you should spend about twelve hours of work time per class per week. So if you are taking five subjects that means a sixty-hour week, which is longer than a typical workweek. Of course, some students do well with less work and others need more time at the books. Let your grades be your guide. As with anything, the more you work at it, the better things will go. Studying will be covered in more detail in Chapter 5.

      Courses and Calendars

      One of the most dramatic differences between high school and university is the wide variety of subjects available at the postsecondary institution. At a large university you will have literally hundreds of subjects to choose from, ranging from anthropology to musicology to zoology. Even small universities will have a large number of disciplines in which you can specialize.

      As a result, the most important book you can acquire for sorting through this academic maze is the university calendar (also called the prospectus or catalogue, depending on the institution). This document contains all the essential information about the institution, such as admissions and registration procedures, available courses, tuition fees, university policies, etc. You can write to the universities that interest you and request their calendars, or, more conveniently, you can usually find them as PDF documents on the universities’ websites. Your school library or a local university library also may have calendars you can look at. Don’t select a university until you have visited the universities you are interested in or have checked out their calendars and websites and talked to others who have first-hand knowledge of the institution.

      The calendar is your academic bible and complete information guide. It will tell you the admission requirements for each programme, explain the minimum number of credits you need to get your degree and outline the general requirements that have to be met. It will show which subjects are required to complete a specific programme and how many subjects are optional. The calendar is divided into sections for each discipline or area of study. So if you are interested in English or history, for example, you simply use the index to find the section and see what courses are listed. The essential contents of each course are also outlined.

      The university calendar also has much other useful information. It will tell you how to register, enrol and withdraw from classes. It will explain how to transfer from one university to another. It will detail the grading scheme for that university and the grading regulations. In addition, it will contain information on all other aspects of your academic progress: transcripts, appeals, academic offences (e.g., cheating) and other valuable data.

      If the calendar is complete, it will also give you information about other resources available, such as student housing, library facilities, athletics and student organizations. It lists the names and positions of the academic faculty. Thus the calendar is a valuable reference book when you want to find out whom to see about a specific problem.

      Confusion: Courses and Curricula

      Although your university calendar will give you details about course requirements in various areas, it will not give the lowdown on what you encounter when you enter the university system. One way to find out how other students rank specific subjects and their instructors is to review the results of student teaching СКАЧАТЬ