Track 64

Track 64.

Hi, Terry.

Come in.

What can I do for you?

Hi, Dr Harris.

Well, I just wanted to check on some information about the course, as it’s all new to me.

Of course.

What do you need to know?

Well, first of all, I’m not sure exactly what a seminar is for.

We never had them at school.

I know it’s to discuss things together, but is it more than that?

Well, yes, you’re right, it is really.

You see, at university we typically have lectures, you know, with about 100 or 200 students in the lecture theater together.

It’s a one-way form of learning.

The lecturer sets out the topic and discusses it and you take notes.

Then you need to review your notes following the lecture and also do some extra reading.

And where does the seminar fit in?

It could come at any time once you’ve had some time to think about the lecture.

When you attend the seminar, you should have some of your own ideas to discuss with the other students, usually up to ten of you.

It allows you to discuss the topic, exchange ideas and prepare for your assignments.

OK, thanks.

And what about tutorials?

Are they like seminars?

Well, usually we try to space them out over the term, so that we can have a chance to check on your progress and how well you’re doing with your assignments.

It often depends on when your tutor is available, and at times that might mean you have three weeks between tutorials.

Normally, every term you should have one at the beginning, then usually another four, spaced out depending on your program, and one before the holiday.

So that works out at about one every two weeks.

Right.

And what about assessment?

How many exams do we have to do?

Well, that varies from course to course, but generally we focus on continuous assessment more than exams, though exams are, of course, very important too.

We tend to assess you over the first two years through your assignments, which is over half of your overall assessment, usually 60%, and then most of your exams will come in the final year.

OK, I’m happy with that.

I get really nervous before exams.

And talking about assignments, how long should they be?

On all undergraduate courses, students tend to write about 3,000 words or so, but it varies depending on the question.

However, there’s a minimum of 2,000, and while there’s no upper limit, you should be careful that you don’t write too much as a lot of that might not be relevant to the question.

So I should aim for between two and three thousand as a rule there’s one last thing I wanted to check about assignments, and that’s references.

How many do we need generally?

Well, as your course is international finance, you have to use banking, finance and news sources as well as academic sources.

Ideally, you should have around ten references for each assignment to show that you’ve read widely, but we expect a minimum of five sources which are academic journals and books.

From the other sources, we’d generally expect three to be used.

OK, thank you, Dr Harris.

That’s cleared up a lot of things for me.

Glad to be of help, Terry.

See you next week.