There are a lot of demands on you and your student life. Why do you need to know them?
Video made by the Counselling and Study Support team at SDU
"... By knowing the both visible and invisible requirements, it is easier to prioritize and plan your time and use the right resources to solve the tasks..."
Have you tried this:
- You are unexpectedly invited to a holiday or a party?
- You failed the exam, and the re-exam is just around the corner?
- The flu hits and you miss two weeks of classes?
- You have to move and have to spend a lot of time on it?
- You have scored a good job that takes up a lot of your time?
Unexpected things always happen!
Know your external demands, because when the unexpected happens, it will be easier for you to make good decisions in your student life.
Listen to a professor explain about the course descriptions
Interview with Jan Møller Jensen, Associate Professor at the Department of Management at SDU. 2022
Two things that the teacher says, among other things:
"Read your academic regulations and your course descriptions. Examine the framework for your subjects and how the three learning objectives: Knowledge, skills and competences correspond to what you do in your everyday study life."
"If, for example, you want to complain about an exam, it is also important to have familiarized yourself with the course description."
That's what a student once said in a guide.
This was because the students saw it as a competition with themselves, to try to understand the course descriptions in relation to what they were presented with in the syllabus and in the teaching.
Do you recognize yourself in these statements?
- I can't find my course descriptions
- The curriculum and course descriptions make no sense at all
- I do look at the course descriptions once at the beginning of the semester, but that's also it
If you can recognize yourself in those statements, you probably don't use the course descriptions in your daily life. This can make it more difficult to choose which resources to throw at your studies.So do as the student who loves to hate his or her curriculum...
... And practice decoding it:
- Look in your course description, e.g. before each teaching session
- Become aware of what knowledge, skills and competences the subject should give you
- Recognize themes from the reading list or for the teaching that are repeated in the course description
- Ask your teacher if there is something that is not connected, or if you just want to be sure
- Talk to your fellow students about whether they see the connections
- Consider how the exam is related to the learning objectives of the subject
Get out your computer or a piece of paper and answer the following questions:
- Why are the course descriptions difficult for you to use in practice?
- What could you have done differently compared to a course you just had?
- What is your strategy for using the course descriptions better for a course you have right now?
- The library at SDU has a wide range of resources on, for example, academic integrity
- If you want to know more about your own academic regulations, please contact your academic supervisors or the student counsellors at your faculty.
- That you understand what we mean by external demands
- That you have created a better overview of your external demands on your student life
- That you have become more familiar with your academic regulations and the course descriptions
- That you have tried to define a strategy for how you will create a good interpretation of a course description