University Students

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Frijj said:
The degree is but a small part of it. It’s a piece of paper saying you’re just barely competent enough in any given field to go outside and find someone to pay you for it.

I’d hate to think people were (en masse) living at home and missing out on the wider aspects of it.
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Maybe we will end up with learning online but everyone gets a couple of 18-30 holidays a year!
Stormo said:
No freshers week in Durham would be good.
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Probably not for a lot of businesses.
 
I take back what I said about freshers week actually. The city probably makes a lot of money from it. Plus it’s during the week and I’m too old to go out round Durham during the week.
 
sksk3021 said:
I’d guess there will be a mixture of methods, traditional models still exist but other options available increase.
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We already have the OU for that. Maybe until we return to normal they’ll do this sure, but afterwards hopefully not.
Stormo said:
I take back what I said about freshers week actually. The city probably makes a lot of money from it. Plus it’s during the week and I’m too old to go out round Durham during the week.
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Too late. The hockey club are on their way to your gaff and they’re going to quote Hamlet at you, between eating houmous and leaves.
 
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The Open University have done this since 1969, giving first class tuition. The only problem was that you needed to watch televised lectures at around 2am presented by someone who looked like he was from the group Jethro Tull. All lab work etc, is/was covered in a Summer School, which is well "doable" now, splitting the groups/weeks to keep distancing. I do miss the Saturday morning couple of hours lecture with a tutor. One of the few times, in the study year that you ever interacted with another human being. Gives you a chance to keep your job and study for a degree, albeit that it takes 6 years to complete. I think the OU expertise will prove invaluable to other universities in the coming months.
 
Frijj said:
We already have the OU for that. Maybe until we return to normal they’ll do this sure, but afterwards hopefully not.


Too late. The hockey club are on their way to your gaff and they’re going to quote Hamlet at you, between eating houmous and leaves.
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I think we will se an increase in OU type provision.
Stormo said:
I take back what I said about freshers week actually. The city probably makes a lot of money from it. Plus it’s during the week and I’m too old to go out round Durham during the week.
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Durham would really struggle if there was an extended period of no students I guess.
 
Demons Run said:
The worry for my University, and probably all, is that we're expecting lots of the new intake of students to defer. I don't blame them, I'd probably do the same. BBC said 1 in 5 are considering it. On top of that there will be a massive reduction in international enrolment. All of this will mean cash black holes for Universities. Some smaller institutions are going to be on the brink.
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I would defer, like. Some of university life is around the experiences and friends you make while there. You'll be missing out on so much by not attending the campus or being able to mingle with new people.
 
Lexingtongue said:
I would defer, like. Some of university life is around the experiences and friends you make while there. You'll be missing out on so much by not attending the campus or being able to mingle with new people.
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Definitely. Deferring makes the most sense.

Really they need to stop the intake of any new students for a year and use this time to reset the academic calendar. Freshers intake in January, A-Level results in August, allow students to apply with real grades...
 
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Frijj said:
Hopefully not :lol:

Online learning would destroy a rite of passage for a sizeable minority of our young people
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This rise of home working and distance learning is greatly exaggerated imo, particularly the latter. Humans crave sociable situations and that's not going away. It's even more important for the youngsters to be out there mixing at uni and in the first few years of their career. You shadow people, spend time learning from the behaviours of others, having one to one's regularly etc.

There will be a bit more home working in future but I think most will be based in offices at least 75% of the time. Any university trying to shift lectures online in the long run will end up going bust as well, no 18 year old kid is going to see that as attractive.
 
James said:
This rise of home working and distance learning is greatly exaggerated imo, particularly the latter. Humans crave sociable situations and that's not going away. It's even more important for the youngsters to be out there mixing at uni and in the first few years of their career. You shadow people, spend time learning from the behaviours of others, having one to one's regularly etc.

There will be a bit more home working in future but I think most will be based in offices at least 75% of the time. Any university trying to shift lectures online in the long run will end up going bust as well, no 18 year old kid is going to see that as attractive.
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Some will see it as attractive, particularly if it is at lower cost and can be done more flexibly. I dont really see that as a negative.

You are right about some of the challenges of home working, I have been doing it fairly well, having not done it before. However I think a lot of that is because I have existing relationships. About to have a couple of new starters in my team and managing that will be difficult. It’s going to increase though quite significantly I would have thought.
 
mysticmackem said:
The Open University have done this since 1969, giving first class tuition. The only problem was that you needed to watch televised lectures at around 2am presented by someone who looked like he was from the group Jethro Tull. All lab work etc, is/was covered in a Summer School, which is well "doable" now, splitting the groups/weeks to keep distancing. I do miss the Saturday morning couple of hours lecture with a tutor. One of the few times, in the study year that you ever interacted with another human being. Gives you a chance to keep your job and study for a degree, albeit that it takes 6 years to complete. I think the OU expertise will prove invaluable to other universities in the coming months.
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The OU has been struggling for a while though. The latest tuition fee changes had a major impact on numbers of mature and part time students which is the OU’s market.

I think moving to online/prerecorded lectures has been on the cards for a while really. It gives flexibility to students but also allows academics to spend more time on smaller group classes like tutorials and seminars which is where the students really get value anyway. What Cambridge and other unis are proposing is basically that model, i.e. non-lecturer teaching will remain face-to-face.
 
Dave Herbal said:
I’d have thought all the research grants cover those
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It is certainly an important part of Uni funding, 2nd to tuition.

Lexingtongue said:
I would defer, like. Some of university life is around the experiences and friends you make while there. You'll be missing out on so much by not attending the campus or being able to mingle with new people.
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If anybody has a child (or themselves) that is considering deferring I'd suggest contacting their choices immediately. Universities have no obligation to grant a deferral when it is requested half way through a cycle, and most will be nervous about accepting too many.

Unfortunately students applying for competitive courses next year are likely to be disadvantaged due to the number of students reapplying having been unsuccessful with calculated grades, and due to the number of places already taken by deferrals.
 
My younger son is concerned. He's doing a degree where most of the examinable work is group projects and media they have to produce rather than written work. He's doing that as he's dyslexic and he really struggles writing things down. He's just dropped loads of marks in a recent unit as they been told to write an essay instead of doing the group work. He's busy thinking about things and is wondering about working full time for next academic year then going back once the normal project work starts again.
 
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