London Specials: Academics, Know the World (English)

Academics are a university’s main selling point. How they communicate the knowledge of the institution to the student’s is the very meat of university education. The quality of the education and the mechanisms used to communicate them varies amongst universities. The way unis teach students and prepare them for the world is is commonly reflected in several indicators; teaching mechanisms and modules.

Teaching Mechanisms

Teaching mechanisms across UK unis are often similar and may seem redundant to take into consideration. However, where this element varies is that there are unis that emphasise certain mechanisms over others. You should take this into consideration as there are several mechanisms that are used and have their own benefits. The following are a list and brief description of some of those mechanisms:

  1. Lectures-Lectures are probably the most straightforward where the entirety of the class is gathered to receive an explanation of a topic from a lecturer. This serves to communicate the brunt of a module’s material which becomes the foundation of the knowledge received during uni.
  2. Seminars-Seminars are more personal where classes are divided into smaller classes to have discussions and assignments. Seminars act to help students further deepen their understanding of materials alongside other students with more intimate help form tutors.
  3. Independent Study-This probably goes without saying but independent study is basically taking time out of your day to revise material for whatever need may arise.
  4. Assessments-Assessments are basically tasks that are required to be submitted as part of the learning process. Usually, there are formative tasks, tasks that are not graded and meant for practice, and summative tasks, graded tasks that record the progression of a student, that work hand in hand to ensure the student’s learning process is going smoothly.
  5. Practicals-Practicals are any sort of learning activity which requires students to get hands on experience with whatever knowledge that they are being tested on. This includes activities such as laboratories and oral assessments.
  6. Study Weeks-Study weeks can be considered to be an extreme take on practicals as an entire week is dedicated to teaching students through solving a problem given by the tutors. For example, UCL’s Chemical Engineering course has a week dedicated to the processing of urea to become an effective source of fertiliser. Students work in groups and are required to combine several elements of different modules to be able to solve this problem.

Modules

Modules are basically the classes students will take in a course during uni. Modules can be a form of consideration because the same or similar courses in different universities might have different modules. For example, KCL’s Politic’s course is more politics heavy compared to UCL’s Politics and International Relations course. This is shown by KCL’s modules which discuss topics such as comparative politics and comparative theory as opposed to UCL’s modules which have elements of research methods. This can be a consideration for students depending on their wants and needs regarding to uni education.

Contact Access Education at: 

Email:  info@konsultanpendidikan.com

Alamat Lengkap Kami

London Specials: Rankings, Social Construct or Practical Indicator? (English)

Rankings are one of the main comparative indicators for university courses. Rankings that are commonly used either in tandem or exclusively are university rankings and course rankings. These two rankings are often interchangeable in the scale of priority which depends on the students who are considering them.This has called for the necessity of students being aware of the debates that are taking place on both sides: Social and Practical.

Social

Course rankings and university rankings are two things that should be looked at differently. University rankings are usually what makes or breaks a student’s social status as they are often viewed as a means to boost your social status in the context of university education. This is possible because usually the higher the rank the more competitive admission into the course is and the better the program is. As a result, students often disregard course rankings in favor of university rankings. The implications of this thought process is that students might not be able to get a high-quality education when considering uni rankings first. This is because course rankings are what really reflect what you will learn in uni and give more insight to how those learning experiences in different places compare to each other. So in the context of social comparison, university rankings are usually prioritised over course rankings to the detriment of the learning experience a student will experience.

Practical

The practical approach towards rankings is that course rankings are the most important comparative indicator in regards to the education offered by the course. This is because course rankings are much more specific and insightful to the learning experience a student will experience. However, this approach is not usually undertaken due to the lack of social reward. This is because there are many cases where the fame and competitiveness of a uni are not parallel to the course. This means that there a lot of cases where good courses are in unis that are easy to get into which doesn’t garner significant social recognition. In conclusion, being practical and choosing a uni for its course ranking instead of its uni ranking is a smart choice educationally but not of much use socially.

Contact Access Education at: 

Email:  info@konsultanpendidikan.com

Alamat Lengkap Kami

London Specials: Predicted Grades, Doormat Requirement (English)

Choosing courses should be both idealistic and pragmatic. One element of the application process that warrants pragmatism is predicted grades. Predicted grades are the grades students receive after obtaining a sufficient amount of academic data to be able to project the student’s grades at the end of the course. Predicted grades are what will be used to apply to unis and are extremely important from both the unis and student’s point of view.

Student

As a student, you have much to work on to ensure your predicted grades are good enough for the uni you want. This is simply a process of studying properly and keeping your grades up to be able to convince your tutors to award you with high predicted grades. However, even after being awarded high predicted grades, you will also have an obligation to reach those grades to actually be admitted into the uni of your choice.

Uni

Students should always check course pages on uni websites. This is done by going on the course page and going to the usually dubbed “entry requirements” to see what grades are needed to even be considered by the course. This is extremely important as it determines whether your application will go through or not. If you fail to survey your the predicted grades for the course that you want correctly you might as well consider one slot of your application void.

Contact Access Education at: 

Email:  info@konsultanpendidikan.com

Alamat Lengkap Kami

London Specials: Personal Statement, Penultimate Essay (English)

The personal statement is a massive part of a student’s uni application. This makes the writing process a lengthy one where students often have several drafts that they go through before having a finalised version. The personal statement that a student is comfortable submitting shouldn’t be wasted and should be uploaded to UCAS. This might go over some students’ heads where they expect to send it unis directly any through any other mechanism which could result in a voided application.

UCAS

UCAS is the platform where all students should upload their personal statements and there are two notable features on UCAS that students should be aware of. First, its important to note the character limit. The character limit doesn’t allow students to write however much they want and forces students to finish their personal statements comfortably before the deadline to adjust the size of their personal statements. Second, students should note that it is possible to change the personal statement after uploading. This allows students to at least have something on UCAS and can change it whenever they like.

Contact Access Education at: 

Email:  info@konsultanpendidikan.com

Alamat Lengkap Kami

London Specials: Additional Information, Help Them Help You (English)

Additional information really means how unis can go beyond and help students with specific circumstances. This includes help such as disability care, language help and even funding aid. This topic might not exactly hit the spot regarding the whole application process but can be very helpful for students under special circumstances so it is worthwhile checking out information provided by UCAS and the unis themselves.

UCAS

UCAS does help students with special circumstances but in a very limited way. This is done through selecting various options when filling out personal information. This can range from disability information to funding information and can help a student out by being a notification for unis when admitting students. This is done in such a limited way not because UCAS doesn’t care, they probably do but UCAS itself is an admission platform and the extent of which they help students with special circumstances is parallel to its function itself.

Universities

Universities often provide information of how students can receive help in different ways. There are pages on their websites which touch on subjects such as funding and disabilities that provide extensive information that students will find useful when applying. Additionally, emailing unis through their admission email accounts and independently enquiring is a very viable option. This allows students to obtain even more in-depth information and provide unis with information that students feel are important for them to be aware of.

Contact Access Education at: 

Email:  info@konsultanpendidikan.com

Alamat Lengkap Kami

London Specials: Course Choice, Be Careful! (English)

This might seem extremely obvious and a bit of a waste of time to talk about but paying attention when filling in your course choices is really important administratively. Make sure that whatever course you apply for that its course code is correct to avoid any mishaps. This is important because it determines the entire course of your uni life as the course itself is one of the most important parts of uni.

On UCAS

Being careful in filling in your uni application with a course or several courses on UCAS is incredibly important for your uni application. It’s very important to note that the courses chosen are the ones that you want and have worked for. This is because your course choice is supported by other components of your application, especially the personal statement. If a course is chosen incorrectly, this administrative blunder could lead to an entire uni slot choice being rendered redundant and the chances of you getting into uni severely damaged.

Contact Access Education at: 

Email:  info@konsultanpendidikan.com

Alamat Lengkap Kami