How Classes [seem to] Work...

As classes have now been going on for a month now, I thought it would be a good time to do a blog post about the basic format of classes, and basically how the semester is organized.  This may be edited/updated at a later date, as a lot of this is just what I've been told by lecturers so far, and may actually be different once I've experienced it.


Lectures:  Lectures are fairly similar to how they are in the US, as I've said before.  I've heard a lot of people say that you don't HAVE to go to lectures, and a lot of people just don't.  It also may depend on the class.  While I don't actually go to my Politics lecture in person, they offer it online, so I watch the whole lecture (powerpoint slides, audio, and visual of person lecturing) at home.  For Politics, I feel like getting the information from the lecture is important.  Also like I've said before, lectures appear to be supplementary - and even sometimes, as in my History of Art class, some of the lectures appear to be based on the different essay topics.

Edit:  I just realized that I forgot to mention one of the biggest differences between lectures here and in the US.  Apparently it is completely normal to have multiple (and I mean, 10, 20 or more) lecturers for one class.  And they just come in for different topics on different days (like in my History of Art class, where we've had probably about 7 different lecturers so far), or they will split up the class based on their expertise (like in Archaeology and Politics, where there are three lecturers and they each do the lectures for like 3 weeks or so, based on the time period or topic). 

    Also related, lectures sometimes don't really have anything to do with each other.  The lectures for my History of Art class are like this... completely random and unrelated, except that they have to do with Art History.  Although for Politics and Archaeology, the lectures make sense in context with each other.

Tutorials/Seminars:  Once again, very similar to how they are in the US.  Attendance counts here, and generally (depending on the number of sessions you have), you can only miss a few.  One of my friends has a class where there are only 5 seminars, and I think she is not allowed to miss any because of that.  Tutorials/Seminars also seem to differ based on who is running it.  For example, in my History of Art tutorial, we're doing a practice test for a test we're going to have in class in two weeks, but I don't think the majority of the other tutorial groups are doing it.  We also have to turn in an abstract on the essay we're going to do in December, and the other groups aren't doing that either.

Homework/Assignments:  One thing I had heard about the British education system before I came here was that there were very little, if any, homework assignments, and that usually your whole grade was based on maybe one or two grades from the semester.  Generally, this is actually true... scarily enough.  With the exception of my Archaeology class, which has us doing two worksheets based on the fieldtrips we're taking, there are no assignments or grades other than an essay and a final exam.  The essay doesn't seem to be too ridiculous (so I say now).  The word requirements are not that much - which can be a bad thing.  Some local students have apparently already started working on theirs (which scares me), even though for the most part, they are not due until mid November or early December.  And then you have the final exam, which can be at any point during a 3 week period in December.  Classes here end December 2nd, and the final exam period runs from around then until December 16th.  I've also been told, that apparently, final exams here could possibly be on Saturdays and Sundays!  We find out our final exam schedule on November 7th.

School Breaks/Reading Week:
Apparently, there are no British holidays in the fall that require a break from school.  Incredibly depressing for me, as that means that you go the whole way through without any form of vacation (which is not necessarily a huge deal, but when you're used to it, it can kind of suck).  However, they do have Reading Week breaks.  These can be completely random, so it seems, and can depend on the class.  For example, Reading Week for one class may be one week, and then for another class, its a different week.  So it really doesn't do you any good, cause you're only having a break for one class, and still having to go to the others.  Also, apparently even the fact that a class is having a reading week doesn't even matter, because during the reading week for History of Art, we still have a lecture on one day, and a test on another.  Doesn't make ANY sense to me.

One final note: 
You can only get books out of the library for one week!  What the heck am I going to do with a 400 page book in one week!  And you can only renew it if no one else has placed a hold/request on the book.  Soooo weird. 

Anyway, thats how classes [seem to] work, so far.  :)