Access Course 2015 HELP.

Hi.

I'm 18 and recently *excuse my language* ****ed my A-Levels up. Albeit, I do blame myself. Over the 2 years I was pretty relaxed about attendance as a few weeks into my first year I realised the teachers didn't care to show up often and my timetable was a complete mess. Was very difficult to find the motivation to turn up to a college 30minutes away for an hour period to then have to wait around 5 hours for the 2nd 1 hour period. Anyway, long story short came out with D-U-D In A2 History, English Language, English Literature.

I'm eligible to take a fee-free full time access course, so I applied and attended the interview. I'll be starting in a few days, doing the 'Humanities & Social Sciences' course, hoping to go on to Uni in the 2017/18 year to do a Primary Education degree. ( Only planning on not going in the 2016 year due to me not really being 100% on the decision).

My question is: Anyone who is experienced in this PARTICULAR course (Humanities&Sciences), what was the workload like? I've seen some mixed thoughts on this in various threads. I'm aware most Access students are mature and in their mid 20s & have been out of the education loop for a while. However, I'm fresh out of 2 years of A-levels, and even though they ended up a a failure, I still believe I'm not the worst when it comes to things such as essays, assignments ( Why I did English ). What topics should I expect to cover in Social Sciences + Humanities? Will I be able to time manage 3 full time college days accompanied by 24-28hours a week at my job? ( Only other commitment I have right now). Is the content similar in difficulty and demand to that of AS or A2 level? The way I dealt with assignments in college was usually doing them the night I was given them. How do these assignments work? Do you have 1 a week, 1 every few days etc?

Reply 1

Amy. J S

16

Original post by SamMartin123

Hi.

I'm 18 and recently *excuse my language* ****ed my A-Levels up. Albeit, I do blame myself. Over the 2 years I was pretty relaxed about attendance as a few weeks into my first year I realised the teachers didn't care to show up often and my timetable was a complete mess. Was very difficult to find the motivation to turn up to a college 30minutes away for an hour period to then have to wait around 5 hours for the 2nd 1 hour period. Anyway, long story short came out with D-U-D In A2 History, English Language, English Literature.

I'm eligible to take a fee-free full time access course, so I applied and attended the interview. I'll be starting in a few days, doing the 'Humanities & Social Sciences' course, hoping to go on to Uni in the 2017/18 year to do a Primary Education degree. ( Only planning on not going in the 2016 year due to me not really being 100% on the decision).

My question is: Anyone who is experienced in this PARTICULAR course (Humanities&Sciences), what was the workload like? I've seen some mixed thoughts on this in various threads. I'm aware most Access students are mature and in their mid 20s & have been out of the education loop for a while. However, I'm fresh out of 2 years of A-levels, and even though they ended up a a failure, I still believe I'm not the worst when it comes to things such as essays, assignments ( Why I did English ). What topics should I expect to cover in Social Sciences + Humanities? Will I be able to time manage 3 full time college days accompanied by 24-28hours a week at my job? ( Only other commitment I have right now). Is the content similar in difficulty and demand to that of AS or A2 level? The way I dealt with assignments in college was usually doing them the night I was given them. How do these assignments work? Do you have 1 a week, 1 every few days etc?

Hi,

I can only help you with a few things. I'm starting the Access course on the 14th (Social Science pathway) so I won't be able to give you 100% detail on assessment, work content etc. I'm 19, and know that I am one of three or four who are the youngest, all aged 19; so it's very likely that you'll be with others who are very close to your age. Although, I'm not sure about people being there who have come straight from A Levels. I haven't seen it personally, but I'm sure there will be students in the same or a very similar position to yourself.

I'm not sure if you've been told this already but the Access course runs on credits. To complete the Access course you'll need to have passed 60 credits, of which 45 should be at level 3. You'll have subjects (I have 3) which will be at level 3 and have a dedicated number of credits. My level 3 subjects are Psychology, Sociology and English Literature. Whilst I'm not aware of the exact credit allowance for each subject (each college does it differently) your work will be assessed as either 3, 6 or 9 credit pieces- as you can imagine the higher the credit the more work you'll be given. However, for your particular Access course (the same as mine) your assessments will most likely be 3 credits each. Assessments include essays, presentations and research projects; for other Access courses, especially the Sciences, exams will be included. Alongside your Level 3 work you'll have study skills (which are ungraded, I think?) and Level 2 work at pass or fail; the level 2 work doesn't go beyond a pass.

The workload, I think a lot of people will agree here, doesn't go in much depth- there simply isn't the time to cover everything as A Level students. But the work does cover a lot of breadth, in the time frame you'll go over a considerable amount. It all depends which awarding body your Access is with, which I assume you'll find out on induction week. I can't really tell you the subject content per se, as it differs widely between colleges, but a good place to start is looking through the A Level content of the Social Sciences/ Humanities: Sociology, Psychology etc. Because you've studied both English's at A Level, you're at an advantage. :smile:

What I've gathered from speaking with Access students is to do your work as soon as you get it; do it on a first-in-first out basis (exceptions made for priorities, of course). The work does come thick and fast. You'll have a slow start whilst they ease every one into it, but soon you'll have to expect multiple assignments on or around the same deadline. The Student Room is a great place to ask for help though. Those in the Mature Student's section are so kind and always willing to use their experience to help people; take full advantage of it! :smile:

Commitment-wise, I can't tell you much. I don't have the working hours that you do. I'm currently unemployed and the only jobs I'm looking at are casual/part time/weekend work. I think with 20+ hours at work you could be pushed for time. Is there any chance you can reduce hours? But then again, everyone has different working capabilities- you may be just fine. It might be worth speaking to your course tutor though in the next couple of weeks, just to see what they think you'd be able to cope with from experience with teaching the course. I was going to take an extra GCSE alongside my Access course- this being both Maths and Biology- but was advised by my Tutor last week or so, that this would be a significant workload that I would have to consider about dropping the extra GCSE when things become more intense. Especially since offers from University for my chosen course are 30+ distinctions. I think I agree with her that I would be spreading myself thinly.

Anyway, apologies for the long post, I just didn't know quite where to start! I hope I've helped in some way, like I say I haven't started the course yet so can't advise you on all the nitty-gritty work aspects of the course. Good luck anyway! :smile:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 2

jimmy_looks_2ice

11

Original post by SamMartin123

1)What topics should I expect to cover in Social Sciences + Humanities?
2)Will I be able to time manage 3 full time college days accompanied by 24-28hours a week at my job? ( Only other commitment I have right now).
3) Is the content similar in difficulty and demand to that of AS or A2 level? The way I dealt with assignments in college was usually doing them the night I was given them.
4) How do these assignments work? Do you have 1 a week, 1 every few days etc?

Pretty comprehensive answer above, but I might be able to add a few tips.

1) My course was divided into 5 units for each subject. Each one had an assignment worth 3 credits - 15 credits per subject x 4 = 60. That includes 15 credits for Study Skills (SS), which even though ungraded, are still @ Level 3, same as the academic subjects' credits (not sure if that's universally true for Access, though).

Topics
Psych: Perspectives (Behaviourism/Freud), Disorders (e.g. schizophrenia), Developmental Psych (Piaget), Social Pysch (Asch & Milgram), Memory/Eyewitness Testimony.
Soc: Health, Perspectives (interactionist/structuralist), poverty & social inequality, education, crime & deviance.
Lit: Short stories, poetry, dramatic texts (Shakespeare), novel, independent study (book of own choice).

Your topics may be completely different, but it doesn't really matter. If you want to successfully complete the course, you just get on with whatever topics you're set!

2) I guess only you can really answer that question. If you find 24-28hrs work per week is too much, what options have you got? Can you afford to reduce your hours or even quit altogether?

3) Tbh, I'm not sure I can answer that question, since I did A-Levels yonks ago and so I've forgotten what they were like and they've changed since then anyway. Access and A-Levels are both Level 3 qualifications, so in theory they're both set at the same level of difficulty.

4) I believe it varies from college to college. Mine was structured basically along the lines of 1 unit per 1/2 term (see answer 1), so for example in the 6-7 weeks between starting the course in early Sep and the 1/2 term break in October, we had 4 assignments to do. That was pretty much the pattern - 4 assignments per 6-7 weeks of each half of each term.

IIRC, it was usually not until the second lesson/week was complete that you could really make a start on an assignment. From then, it's up to you. You get a deadline and if you want to spread the workload fairly evenly over 4 weeks, you can, or you can leave it all until a few days before if you prefer. Our assignment deadlines were usually in the same week, e.g. Psych in on Monday, Soc in on Tuesday etc., so I found it better to try and distribute the workload over the available weeks. It was always a bit stressful in 'deadline week' anyway - you're printing your assignments off the night before and getting frustrated when you find typos and errors!

Overall, you should be fine. You'll settle into it and get the hang of it. The only specific points I'd make are (a) bear in mind is that Access is geared towards making you an independent learner; you may find that you get less supervision and are expected to be more self-reliant than perhaps you may have been used to as an A-Level student, and (b) an extension of (a) really - make the effort to turn up. Due to the compressed nature of the Access course, there's not a lot of margin for missing lessons. It's much more difficult to confidently address the requirements of the assignment when you've missed chunks of the taught material.

(edited 8 years ago)

Access Course 2015 HELP.

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