The Higher Education Megathread

Wiggy G32 wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Karl wrote:@Moggy: Fingers crossed for a 2.i.! ... But there's nowt wrong with a 2.ii. either, it hasn't done me any harm.

I'd be ecstatic with a 2.2! I'm a 35 year old doing a degree part time, too old to learn and too busy to devote too much time. A 2.2 would be a massive achievement for me.

Im the same although younger but for me the grade wasnt the big thing just setting out to do it was the thing for me. Im hoping for a 2.2 myself. July 127th seems a long way off!

If you're waiting for July 127th then you might have a very long wait.

Yeah I am only doing the OU for personal achievement reasons (plus I enjoy learning). A high grade would be amazing but I am not going to lose sleep over it as long as I eventually get to put Bsc after my name. And I'm the sort of asshole that will write that on everything.

I've added you to the OP, Wiggy.

Karl wrote:Hi Hime, sorry to hear about that exam. In my experience it depends on the institution - asking for exam feedback was a nightmare at Oxford, so no-one did it. Here at Swansea, you just have to email the lecturer for the course, and they're always happy to spend 10 minutes talking through what you got right/wrong.

You probably won't know until you ask, so just email the professor for the course and enquire.

Cheers Karl,

I emailed the course administrator about results for the dissertation and added in my disappointment about the exam. By some stroke of good fortune I got my dissertation result which was way better than expected and some time later an exam result revision that was around what I expected to get.

Got the results after an amazing wedding in Rhodes so all in all it's been an amazing day.

How on Earth do grades work at your universities there, all this talk of first, and 2:1 or whatever seems very confusing. Here it's just simple letter grades, and at the end a GPA, which is a bit more confusing.

Rightey wrote:How on Earth do grades work at your universities there, all this talk of first, and 2:1 or whatever seems very confusing. Here it's just simple letter grades, and at the end a GPA, which is a bit more confusing.

Top Grade: 1st
Second best grade: 2.1
Third best grade: 2.2
Fourth best grade: 3rd
Worst case scenario: Utter epic fail

Moggy wrote:

Rightey wrote:How on Earth do grades work at your universities there, all this talk of first, and 2:1 or whatever seems very confusing. Here it's just simple letter grades, and at the end a GPA, which is a bit more confusing.

Top Grade: 1st
Second best grade: 2.1
Third best grade: 2.2
Fourth best grade: 3rd
Worst case scenario: Utter epic fail

General percentage pass marks for grade dwork and exams - though I guess it differs from place to place - are:

1st - 70%+
2:1 - 60-69%
2:2 - 50-59%
3rd - 40-49%
Fail - 39% and under

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Rightey wrote:How on Earth do grades work at your universities there, all this talk of first, and 2:1 or whatever seems very confusing. Here it's just simple letter grades, and at the end a GPA, which is a bit more confusing.

Top Grade: 1st
Second best grade: 2.1
Third best grade: 2.2
Fourth best grade: 3rd
Worst case scenario: Utter epic fail

General percentage pass marks for grade dwork and exams - though I guess it differs from place to place - are:

1st - 70%+
2:1 - 60-69%
2:2 - 50-59%
3rd - 40-49%
Fail - 39% and under

I think the OU is broadly the same but their percentages can be harsher.

So Righey, a 2:2 is the 3rd best grade and you need 50% or more to get it. What's confusing about that?

Thought I'd made an absolute banana split of my thesis for a few weeks there. Loads of documents that I missed in Austin were popping up in books all over the place and making me look bad/opening up glaring holes in my thesis. Thanks to the Office of the US Historian - whatever the strawberry float that is - most of it has been adapted for the interwebs and made available online for me to read and put into the thesis as and when I feel it to be necessary. Sweet Jesus.

This is interesting to no-one but it's more or less made my day so strawberry float it.

Moggy wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Rightey wrote:How on Earth do grades work at your universities there, all this talk of first, and 2:1 or whatever seems very confusing. Here it's just simple letter grades, and at the end a GPA, which is a bit more confusing.

Top Grade: 1st
Second best grade: 2.1
Third best grade: 2.2
Fourth best grade: 3rd
Worst case scenario: Utter epic fail

General percentage pass marks for grade dwork and exams - though I guess it differs from place to place - are:

1st - 70%+
2:1 - 60-69%
2:2 - 50-59%
3rd - 40-49%
Fail - 39% and under

I think the OU is broadly the same but their percentages can be harsher.

So Righey, a 2:2 is the 3rd best grade and you need 50% or more to get it. What's confusing about that?

40% is a pass?! What

It's not really a pass. A third class degree won't get you far.

Rightey: our exams aren't comparable to yours. Realistically the top attainable mark is going to be around 80%.

Cora: I think that's a bit harsh, it depends on the institution. A third from a Russell Group uni might still open some doors that failing outright would have closed.

Had an e-mail today, get my final degree mark on the 24th. 13 days seems like so long to wait when I'm not really doing much with my time.

Karl wrote:Rightey: our exams aren't comparable to yours. Realistically the top attainable mark is going to be around 80%.

How is that possible?

Karl wrote:Rightey: our exams aren't comparable to yours. Realistically the top attainable mark is going to be around 80%.

Cora: I think that's a bit harsh, it depends on the institution. A third from a Russell Group uni might still open some doors that failing outright would have closed.

Not sure what a Russell Group Uni is. My mate got a third from Glasgow uni and has been totally unable to get a job in his field since he graduated - the reality is that usually there's someone out there who has the same degree with a better grading. A third basically indicates that you were either on the wrong course, or didn't work hard enough to most employers.

SPEED EDIT: I see Glasgow is actually in the Russell Group.

Rightey wrote:

Karl wrote:Rightey: our exams aren't comparable to yours. Realistically the top attainable mark is going to be around 80%.

How is that possible?

They are really rather difficult...? Particularly at the best Unis, a mark of 100% is nigh unheard-of.


@Cora: I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I know a fella with less than a Third - he has a Pass without Honours - and although lots of doors have closed he hasn't found it impossible to find work and so forth. To be fair, though, his degree is from Cambridge, which I suppose probably helps. I guess it all depends on the individual circumstances involved.

I've never had a mark above a 78 at my university, highest I've heard of in Politics is an 85 but I think the individual lecturer and their interpretations of the marking scheme and the essays can play a large part in that too. I'm nearly sure someone got a 9x in Philosophy but I'm not sure how thats possible! But such grades are absolutely the exception, rather than the rule. The vast majority come back as 2:1s or 2:2s here, low firsts of 70-75 are relatively common but are also the general cap.

Oh yeah, the exceptions to the rule are Oxford and Cambridge(and maybe one or two others). A third from there is probably better than a first from Strathclyde.

Karl wrote:

Rightey wrote:

Karl wrote:Rightey: our exams aren't comparable to yours. Realistically the top attainable mark is going to be around 80%.

How is that possible?

They are really rather difficult...? Particularly at the best Unis, a mark of 100% is nigh unheard-of.


@Cora: I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I know a fella with less than a Third - he has a Pass without Honours - and although lots of doors have closed he hasn't found it impossible to find work and so forth. To be fair, though, his degree is from Cambridge, which I suppose probably helps. I guess it all depends on the individual circumstances involved.

Here when you graduate you just get a degree. No mention of your grades anywhere on it.

I'll make a mental note to never hire from Canada.

Anyone else get their results today?

Got a first...just.