On arrival at university I had to do an "Expectations of University" survey whereby I detailed what I was expecting to get out of my degree, interests outside university, plans for balancing work and social life and my reasons for coming to university and picking my degree. However, during a student rep meeting last Wednesday I noticed that a lot of problems raised by other first year representatives could've been summarised under "The University's Expectations of Students".
Broadly speaking, the university expects you to understand what everything they're saying means in terms of finding information and keeping up-to-date with updates etc. This is an understandable demand, apart from the fact that they expect you to do this FROM THE DAY YOU ARRIVE. I don't recall a single person I've spoken to that is comfortable with using the online learning system and we're one month into the course. Something like this just takes time to get used to, and the demands of the university at these early stages should certainly be relaxed a little.
Another conclusion that I made from the aforementioned meeting was that students just need to get used to university life in general. Some of the issues raised were, in my opinion, both puzzling and baffling. A request for "more water fountains across campus" may have been raised because, as first year students, we haven't actually found out where the fountains are? There are probably plenty around and in logical places, it's just a case of finding out their locations. A couple more requests came in the form of "lower pre-lab grade requirements" and "online assessments having a greater influence on the final grade". To address the first, you get three attempts at pre-lab assessments and if you're getting it wrong three times in a row then you're almost certainly doing something wrong and should've asked someone for help a long time ago. As for the second, I am a supporter of continuous assessment but the university, along with almost every other in the country, have decided on a system that works and modifying proportions for personal preferences are just not going to work.
Hopefully I'll have more to say over the coming weeks!
Oli
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