University of Birmingham students discuss the different methods of studying at university including lectures, seminars, the use of the library, group work, essays, presentations and online study resources.
Title: Studying at the University of Birmingham
Duration: 2.58 mins
Speaker Names (if given): S8 Lizzie Ralph, Vice President Student
S1 When you’re working in research projects with other people it’s great because you learn so much about yourself, how you work with other people as well; so it’s good.
S2 Sometimes whatever you think is not always right: you don’t always have the best answer, so you have to collaborate with other people and work together to find solutions, which is quite good as well.
S3 Lots of minds together often produce some really good results.
S4 We’ve done a group presentation, which was quite good; it was quite nice to work as a group because you spread the workload and discuss ideas and three heads are better than one.
S5 Preparation for lectures and seminars is done very independently. It usually revolves around having a topic, which you know you’re going to discuss at the seminar – and then going away, finding out all about that topic, making some notes, maybe answering some questions that your tutor has set you; so it can really evoke a discussion.
S6 We’ve got the main library where it’s easy to work; there’s lots of books there; there’s loads of areas where you can actually do some studying – and most of the students have Halls of Residents that are quite close to the University; so in between lectures you can always go back to your own room and do your work there.
S4 There’s some library-specific librarians for our subject who are kind of good at showing you where all the things are.
S7 Outside the classroom we have a thing called Web CT, which is basically an on-line system which tells you what the lectures are going to include and sometimes what the seminars will involve; so you can prepare a lot of your reading before that. So you might go to the library, get a few relevant books out, maybe have a look on the Internet, see what sort of things are available and then just sort of build up a portfolio of work from that.
S8 We have a service available to us called Web CT, which is a way that lecturers can distribute notes and things like that, but also on there is a link to ‘progress’, which is where you can go and enter all the skills you’ve learnt, what level they are. It’s going to help you looking at what you need to improve, but also proving what you’ve done. It’s a really good way of putting that all down in one place.
S9 Most of the tutors put the notes on the lectures on the computer for us to have a look at, download, print off and add to our own notes.
S10 Being able to use the University’s computer network here, which is excellent, both in the library and in the learning centres and in other facilities, other buildings on campus has been really, really helpful.
Feedback
S11 Whenever you hand in assignments you’re always given written feedback forms with it where the tutor says what they liked about it and also what could have been improved about it and especially in the first year they’re very helpful because you can learn to really hone your kind of assignment writing to the requirements and kind of bump up your marks by responding to the feedback that you’re given.
S12 All my essays I’ve been given feedback on. When we do presentations they get feedback. Also personal tutors or the seminar tutors they’re always there for you to go and see them, to go and talk to them, find out how you’re doing and for them to give you advice on how you can do better.
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