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What you learned the hard way first year

Basically what things did you learn by doing at uni in your first year mine was. I cannot turn up at the hand in office 5 minuets before it closes and hope to get my assignment in on time the line will be too long and I will lose 10% of my mark.

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Going to lectures/tutorials when you're hungover is unbearable
Reply 2
A harsh lesson I've seen others learn - the uni can throw you off your course for "lack of engagement", not just for failing exams. They can do it at any time during your first year and they aren't obliged to let you finish the year.

"Lack of engagement" includes things like not going to lectures/tutorials/seminars or repeatedly not turning work in on time. You can be thrown out before you've even taken any exams. If your uni monitors lecture attendance, they can use it as evidence.
People seem to carry their air-tight bubble with them when they leave home to come to uni and I had to pop a lot of those bubbles. I also don't like people who are afraid of being in an argument just because they've never been in one or they purposely avoid agro. I avoid it, but some times it's unavoidable and when people paint you (me) out to be some kind of monster because I had an argument is much more worse than creating one because you failed to reach a verdict with that other person/people.

When you pop someone's bubble and you just can't believe how some people have lived. It's ridiculous at how much people aren't actually grown up and are so immature at uni. You can tell they run to their parents if they have any trouble instead of trying to clean up the mess they created - literally and figuratively. Lost a few "friends" because I had to put them in their places cause everyone else was do cowardice to do it. But sometimes it just has to be done. As Eminem said: if you have enemies good - cause it means you stood up for yourself.
Not to sign up to things at freshers' fayre just because they're giving you a free pen or stress ball, otherwise for the rest of the year you'll get floods of emails from the choir society or how to meditate.
Original post by jonathanemptage
Basically what things did you learn by doing at uni in your first year mine was. I cannot turn up at the hand in office 5 minutes before it closes and hope to get my assignment in on time the line will be too long and I will lose 10% of my mark.


Luckily I handed my stuff in on time, and didn't leave it to the last 5 minutes (I am in 2nd year now) but at my university (De Montfort) they didn't just knock 10% off your mark - hand your work in late and your work is capped to a bare pass (40%).
Original post by jonathanemptage
Basically what things did you learn by doing at uni in your first year mine was. I cannot turn up at the hand in office 5 minuets before it closes and hope to get my assignment in on time the line will be too long and I will lose 10% of my mark.


Only lose 10%?

I'm jealous, if you hand anything in late at my uni/my course you get a fail on that assignment.


Anyway back to the question; I learnt that if you fall behind on a subject you can't just make up for it in other areas of the module/course. Because more often than not the subjects are connected, and if you don't know A you can't learn B to understand C.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 7
From the posts above, another lesson would be to not assume that you will "get away" with something just because mates at other unis do. There are no central rules govering the detail of how unis manage assessment, and your uni may have more stringent penalties than others.
Original post by spotify95
Luckily I handed my stuff in on time, and didn't leave it to the last 5 minutes (I am in 2nd year now) but at my university (De Montfort) they didn't just knock 10% off your mark - hand your work in late and your work is capped to a bare pass (40%).


it only happened twice once on a TCA which we should have been warned about to be fair.
(edited 8 years ago)
I learnt that people will have a celebrate-end-of-exams party in their flat despite their flatmate still having one more exam to do the following morning.

I also learnt that folks will bang repeatedly on your door and scream abuse at you for being "unsocial" whilst you're trying to study for said exam.
Original post by SophieSmall
Only lose 10%?

I'm jealous, if you hand anything in late at my uni/my course you get a fail on that assignment.


Anyway back to the question; I learnt that if you fall behind on a subject you can't just make up for it in other areas of the module/course. Because more often than not the subjects are connected, and if you don't know A you can't learn B to understand C.

That's a bit strict! I think the DMU policy is fair, in that you are penalized, but not too harshly.

I definitely recall what you stated in my electromagnetics module. If you don't pay attention to A, you can't really understand B or C because they both require the knowledge of A.

Same with Control Systems, you can't do part of the module if you didn't pay attention to the Laplace Transform, and Z transform, in Mathematics.

Further, with Analogue Electronics last year, you needed to know the principles of differentiation - which is learnt in Mathematics also. So yes I agree that everything is linked into each other.
that some peoples idea of cooking would set the alarm off weekly
Original post by spotify95
Luckily I handed my stuff in on time, and didn't leave it to the last 5 minutes (I am in 2nd year now) but at my university (De Montfort) they didn't just knock 10% off your mark - hand your work in late and your work is capped to a bare pass (40%).


Yeah, quite a few universities have it so if the work is handed in after the deadline, you get an extended deadline and the mark is capped at 40%. If you hand it in after the extended deadline, then you get 0% regardless of how good it is.
Original post by spotify95
That's a bit strict! I think the DMU policy is fair, in that you are penalized, but not too harshly.

I definitely recall what you stated in my electromagnetics module. If you don't pay attention to A, you can't really understand B or C because they both require the knowledge of A.

Same with Control Systems, you can't do part of the module if you didn't pay attention to the Laplace Transform, and Z transform, in Mathematics.

Further, with Analogue Electronics last year, you needed to know the principles of differentiation - which is learnt in Mathematics also. So yes I agree that everything is linked into each other.


I don't think it's too unfair really, if you have a good reason for not being able to do it on time you can apply for an extension. If you don't have a good reason then it's your own fault really, they give us more than enough time to do the assignments.

Yep, missing stuff or not understanding some things has certainly hindered my learning and progress.
Original post by Arkasia
Yeah, quite a few universities have it so if the work is handed in after the deadline, you get an extended deadline and the mark is capped at 40%. If you hand it in after the extended deadline, then you get 0% regardless of how good it is.


That's also exactly how DMU do it. After the original deadline, but no more than 2 weeks late, capped at 40%. After 2 weeks late, mark will always be 0%.

I'm surprised that some universities give a mark of 0% even after the original deadline... then again I am surprised that some universities only knock 10% off for being late. After all, it's not supposed to be like in secondary school, where handing in work late just gives you a 10 minute or 30 minute detention...
Original post by spotify95
That's also exactly how DMU do it. After the original deadline, but no more than 2 weeks late, capped at 40%. After 2 weeks late, mark will always be 0%.

I'm surprised that some universities give a mark of 0% even after the original deadline... then again I am surprised that some universities only knock 10% off for being late. After all, it's not supposed to be like in secondary school, where handing in work late just gives you a 10 minute or 30 minute detention...


Yeah, university needs to be tougher, or else you would just coast through not doing the work.
Reply 16
Not to leave all my coursework til last minute and have to pull several all nighters to get it done


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keep track of when all essays are due, perhaps write it on a piece of paper on your wall
don't say no to going out, especially in the freshers. the more you go out the more people will know you, and the more people you'll know
don't get super stressed about work (especially if you're doing humanities) in the first year, really doesn't take that much work to do well

Original post by langlitz
Going to lectures/tutorials when you're hungover is unbearable


truth. no point even going for many subjects imo would be much more productive to stay at home and recover.
There's no longer a well-defined syllabus listing all the stuff you need to know - so it is really important to do extra reading as well as attending all lectures/ supervisions/ labs. Also, there are no set answers to exam questions and no markschemes - making revision really difficult. University is no longer about learning to pass an exam (as it is at A level), but instead a much vaguer assessment of your abilities.

Also, no resits and constantly assessed practicals means that you can't afford to slip up at all - if you fail, you're out. It's so important to keep on top of the work throughout the year, I started drifting behind in the first term and it took solid studying for the whole Christmas vacation to catch up.
Original post by Arkasia
Yeah, university needs to be tougher, or else you would just coast through not doing the work.


Also, something that I have found out (especially in the 1st year!) is that, based on how some of the modules are set out, if you manage to ace the coursework, you barely even have to show up in the end of year exam and you've passed the module. Especially since the 1st year marks don't count to anything at DMU.

Obviously this doesn't apply as much in the 2nd year, and definitely not in the 3rd year, as both of those years count towards the overall grade, 25% and 75% respectively.

Further, so long as you know how to write a half decent report, and you know the background info, most of the coursework only modules are relatively easier.

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