Lectures and tutorials

Lectures and tutorials are your main points of academic guidance.

First year

In first year, you will usually have three or four lectures in each subject per week, plus tutorial or practical sessions.

The difference between lectures and tutorials

Lectures

Lectures provide a guide to the subject matter and set out the foundations upon which you can build your knowledge.

For some first-year courses, the number of people in lectures can exceed 300.

Tutorials

Tutorials and practicals give you the opportunity to develop themes or discuss problems, usually on the basis of written work.

Tutorial and practical classes are much smaller than lectures, with the tutor providing a key link between you and the course work.

Number of hours spent in class

The number of hours spent in lectures, tutorials or practicals varies.

If you study some of the applied sciences, for example, the hours may be quite considerable, while in a social science course the formal teaching periods may be relatively few.

Normally, only a few hours will be spent each day in classes, and private study is the major element in the timetable.

Methods of assessment

Methods of assessment vary within the University, although most courses still follow the traditional system of a class examination and a degree examination at the end of the session.

Most final assessments will involve a combination of work submitted during the year (tutorial and project work, essays and practical work) and end-of-term and end-of-year exams.

This article was published on Jun 4, 2010