University: keys to pass in the first year
The current model of college it implies more work on the part of the student. The methodology of work, the system of study, the freedom of schedules and classes ... disconcerts a bit the newly arrived students and many good students can see fail the first course of university. These are the keys to avoid it.
With fewer class hours in the university, young people run the risk of becoming distracted, of losing too much time, and not maintaining a constant pace of work, which is the final goal of both Bologna and the concept of continuous assessment. It is important that they understand the need to dedicate a few hours a day to complete the preparation of their classes.
To lay the foundations of each subject, they must assimilate part of the content through compulsory readings, personal projects, group work, public exhibitions and other systems that allow students to personally acquire their knowledge.
Teachers have a tutorial schedule practically as wide as the class schedule and are available in that period to answer any questions or delve into issues that may have been unclear.
Keys to pass in the first year of university
1. Learn to organize time
Many parents are surprised to see the few hours of class that students usually have when they arrive at the university, compared to the many hours they usually spend at school. At the same time, it is also surprising that, contrasted with the morning or afternoon shift, a good number of hours are devoted to internships, group work or classes in a laboratory.
Indeed, the current system tends to restrict the old master's lessons in which a teacher came to class, imparted their knowledge while students took hurried notes, and left.
To avoid running the risk of being distracted and not maintaining a constant pace of work, a good solution is to establish a work schedule adapted to the schedules of classes and practices. The students thus reserve certain moments for the study.
2. But I do not have notes!
The lack of lectures throughout the course has substantially modified the way of acting in the classes. The children can no longer attend the classroom passively, armed with paper and a pen, ready to copy in an almost mechanical way everything the teacher says, write on a blackboard or show in a presentation.
The students have to ir to class with homework doneand that is anticipate what is going to be explained so that the time in the classroom is of prospecting, of solving doubts, of developing the most complex points of the subject in the study process.
But this way of working tends to make newcomers nervous to the university classrooms, accustomed to the previous system, even of application in most of the schools. To overcome this change, they need to learn to work by taking very simplified notes of the concepts that are discussed. From there, they can develop conceptual maps that will be completed with material recommended by the teacher or located in libraries and documentary sources.
3. And I do not have books either!
After years of Primary, ESO and Bachillerato with a book for each subject, one of the great surprises of the students when arriving at the university is to discover that they do not send them a specific book for each subject. In the programs, the teacher recommends several manuals and other specific works of specific points of the subject, but it is very difficult to obtain a text that adapts completely to the proposed agenda.
University students have to learn to prepare their own study material. For that, it is important that they know well the Teaching guide (the official document that contains the subjects of the subject, the objectives, the methodological proposal, the evaluation systems and the documented bibliography) and learn to elaborate their own schemes, notes and annotations handling diverse materials.
Bologna has reached the classroom at a time when it is very easy to manage teaching support documentation. Students will have to be aware that the material provided by the teacher (academic papers, articles from specialized journals ...) is part of that compendium that will have to be studied.
4. How do I prepare the exam?
The exams and the rest of the tests for the evaluation in the university can be very diverse, from oral expositions to type test, going through more or less extensive questions of development. It is important to attend to the teacher when in the first classes he details these evaluation methods that, in turn, are reflected in the Teaching Guide.
To prepare the material they are going to study, they need precisely that Teaching Guide that helps them to verify that they have worked all the aspects of the subject through the recommended material.
The EHEA: university degrees valid throughout Europe
The acronym EHEA includes the concept of the European Higher Education Area, the so-called Bologna Plan for the Italian city in which it was agreed to start up. The objective of this system, which is born in time with European convergence in other matters, such as free circulation of people and capital or a single currency, consists of establishing common criteria for the organization of higher academic degrees in such a way that a degree obtained In one country you can automatically use another in the exercise of a profession.
This possibility of changing the country to study is completed with the option to study part of the studies abroad, a very common reality in exchanges and Erasmus Scholarships. So that a student who leaves a year to another University knows that their studies are going to be appropriate, the cataloging of subjects was created by ECTS credits (European Credit Transfer System), a system that grants each subject a number of credits depending on of the practical and theoretical hours that it includes. Thus, the subject that is not taught at the university of origin will be exchanged for another or similar subjects at the university of destination with the guarantee that the effort made by the student will be common.
Alicia Gadea
