3rd Year Abroad - Thread I

How is everyone doing on the exam/mark front? I was told as an Erasmus student they are either very lenient or many lecturers will automatically just give you the pass mark for whatever you do, but I'm really not finding this the case. Right now I'm on track to fail 4/10 modules. My year abroad doesn't count towards my final degree, and if we fail we just have to show our lecture notes to prove we attended, however, I don't want to fail and four modules is so excessive to me. But I don't know what to do, I'm trying my best but not getting anywhere.

Lecturers at my university also hold exchange students to the same standards as regular students, and I'm really struggling. Instead of contrôle continu like in France, here you basically do nothing all semester until a "sink or swim" style exam at the end. It counts for 1/3 of my degree too :s

It's frustrating, because I know for a fact lecturers at my home university always go easy on Erasmus students (they state it openly). I guess it depends where you go, and we were unlucky :s

Seems that Granada is quite a bad place for studying.

Disorganisation is something that I've sort of got used to, but there are things that leave wondering how on Earth so many home students can decide to study here, especially at the faculty where I'm studying.

Classes are mostly overcrowded, making it hard to teach and learn. Lecturers sometimes talk nonsense and the teaching is centered around them and their scripts, not around the latest research in the field and the interaction in the class. Assessment is another problem. The goal is not to think up an argument or discover something, the goal is to parrot someone, be it a lecturer or an author of a book.

Written work is a complete crap. As I mentioned above, you just need to parrot someone. You are not allowed to bring on your own ideas for a project, because the examiner doesn't want to think thoroughly when assessing you. You can usually get away with copying and pasting what you found somewhere. No one cares about formatting.

In an exam, you have to respond to so-called "questions" that usually consist of a word or a phrase. Example: Dissimilation. So what does the examiner want? A definition? Examples? What an old fart in the seventeenth century said about it? You have to guess, but you mostly expected to write down what the lecturer has said, not what you may know. A classmate of mine asked the examiner during the exam what she meant in one of the tasks and she told him off, saying what apart from writing down what is in a book she could want.

Don't expect any written feedback on your work, it's nonexistent. You'll only get a numerical result.

If you somehow manage to pass all your exams and progress to graduation, you'll be another unemployable graduate without relevant skills for work, because you'll only know how to parrot someone. Language classes may be a bit different, but I've found people who only progressed because they were going to all their classes and smiling at the lecturer, regardless of how profound their knowledge was.

To those studying in Spain, does anyone know which universities would be better for studying music or history as its likely that my degree will be one of these combined with spanish. Im 16 and haven't even started A-levels yet so I have a long time to think about this but I am hearing so much about poor quality of teaching and wondering if it is even worth studying abroad and considering doing work placements instead. I'm also very unsure if I choose to do music as its unlikely that I will know enough of the technical terminology in spanish. I suppose a music and spanish student is quite rare but can anyone tell me about good spanish unis for it and history?

Hey,

I am planning to go abroad next year in Granada. Is it really that bad?

I want to do maths so i guess the things you mention may not apply as much

Did your Spanish come along a lot whilst u were there? Since , because the marks that year don't count for me, the main rain is just to get really good at Spanish

Thank u


Posted from TSR Mobile

How did everyone do in the end? I'm panicking because it turns out I failed 4 modules :/. Luckily it doesn't count towards my degree but I'm definitely panicking right now.

Feels so weird to see I used to say I hated it because now I only have fond memories of my year abroad

It sounds like you passed the vast majority of your modules, plus why are you panicking if it doesn't count towards your degree? So long as you improved your language skills I'm sure you'll be fine in 4th year

I passed every module apart from one, getting the 60 credits I needed - just as well really, as it counts for a third of my degree! My first semester was a bit of a disaster academically but I'm pleasantly surprised at how much better I did in the second.