Tag: Computer science

Although academics play a huge part in a student’s university life, the social life of a course is an integral part of a student’s livelihood in general. This is because socialising is an important aspect of survival and enjoyment, especially for a young person who is probably living alone for the first time. The social life in different courses usually have their own stereotypes and shouldn’t be judged based upon those pre-existing biases. However, they can mainly be predicted by the following factors.

Study Time

Study time is probably the most tangible and universal of factors that can affect a courses timezone. Study time can probably impact a courses social life in two main ways.

First, study time can make the students of a course less sociable. This is apparent in courses such as Medicine where students are required to allocate massive amounts of their time to independent study. Usually this does make students less sociable but there cases such as UCL Medicine where students of the Medicine course get together and empower each other to graduate together.

Second, study time can make students more sociable. This possibility itself has two potential scenarios; lots of study time or less study time. In regards to the former, lots of study time for courses such as engineering require students to work together. This allows time for bonding and helps social life bloom. On the other hand, the latter just allows free time to its students. The students can basically pursue whatever they want due to not being busy.

Stream of Knowledge

The stream of knowledge of a course to refers to the academic umbrella class they are categorised to such as the sciences, social sciences and arts. This might be the least credible indicator of the social life of a course but can give a bit of insight.

First, courses which are within the realm of the sciences are usually less sociable. This doesn’t mean they are completely desolate of human interaction but might have less time for it compared to other streams. However, courses in the sciences can also facilitate student bonding through rigorous group assignments.

Next, courses in the social sciences are probably in the middle in terms of social life. Courses in this stream usually have a lot of reading time but generally require lots of discussion with peers. This type of learning experience can lead to a colorful social life if utilised correctly.

Lastly, the arts are probably the most social of the streams. The arts themselves are ways to express oneself in whatever they create. Coupled with the necessity of being comparative in terms of creating art, the arts are an incredible course choice for people who seek an exciting social life.

Course Structure (In Class)

Course structures can be an indicator of what a social life can be in a course and this is seen from a few indicators.

First, the teaching mechanisms of a course can show how much students will be exposed to each other. Teaching through seminars and group projects usually promote social interaction and is a positive sign for a good social life.

Furthermore, studying hours can be seen from a course structure. This correlates with the first point where students can roughly calculate how much time they’ll spend studying from examining the course structure.

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Academics does not have to be confined within the walls of a classroom. Universities have programs and mechanisms that allow them to provide student with opportunities to learn outside of the classroom. This serves to both allow students to apply their knowledge in extremely practical situations and attain knowledge taught outside of the classroom. The most common ways unis do this is through internship programmes and exchange programmes.

Exchange Programmes

Exchange programmes are opportunities for students to go to other unis for a specified period of time. This is useful in gaining new experiences in other unis and is a great addition for a CV. This can be a consideration when choosing a course because some courses in some unis have a designated year where student’s travel abroad. For example, KCL’s Politics course has a year abroad in unis such as NUS, Georgetown and UNC. However, some courses do not have a designated year but allow students the opportunity to apply for a year abroad such as UCL with their Erasmus+ programme.

Internship Programmes

Internship programmes are another way that unis teach their students by giving them an opportunity to get a first-hand taste of what the real world is like. Although internships can be applied to independently, there are courses in some unis that help students get into internship programmes. Applying to internship through a uni is generally much easier and ensures an internship programme of a higher quality and compatibility to what a student is learning.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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