Fun Stuff > CHATTER

University course funding

<< < (3/5) > >>

pwhodges:
May's "classes" are I presume what I call "tutorials"; in my case (a looong time ago) they were just two students.  Oxford (and Cambridge too, presumably) is very proud of its tutorial system, and considers it an important USP; however, most other UK universities don't have anything remotely as personal, and like to sneer at the waste that such an intensive system implies (I know because my wife went to one such and now works in another).

snalin:
I'm taking a Bachelor's in Informatics at uni here in Norway. We take 18 courses over 3 years (preferably), and can choose six of them. I think other degrees offer more choices, especially the ones at the humanities, but that's just guessing. The three years does not have to be continuous, and there's usually not a problem if you need to take a year extra to finish because you failed courses or changed your degree, although the university does not like that at all (as they get money from the state based on, amongst other things, number of finished degrees).

You get student loans from the state as long as you're studying (maximum limit is NOK90800 a year, 15,5k USD). If you pass at least 30 points each semester (3 courses for us, the "normal"), you get 40% of that converted to grants (if you don't live at home). I think there's some special rules for part time students and such. I couldn't find official numbers on how long you get your loans, but I know that there's no problem getting them all the way through your master's, even if you are a year behind on finishing. There's some rules about how long behind you can lag though - if you have passed 60 points less than you should have if you took the normal amount of courses - basically if you have taken loans for a year more than you have passed, you won't be able to get any more loans before you've passed some more courses.

Going to uni costs pretty much nothing - I pay 470NOK (80 USD) each semester, and that goes to the student organizations and such. The loans does sadly not cover the living costs for a year (over 90% of the students have a job), but all in all we are pretty well off financially. There pretty much is no kinds of private grants, simply because they are not needed. There is neither any private universities or colleges, although there exists some private schools that has a more job-oriented higher education (they usually cost tons of money, you don't get official loans, and their reputation is mixed).

Barmymoo:
The Norwegian system, from what I know very vaguely from talking to Jens and Kris, seems quite good and incredibly financially supported. I wish we were moving towards that sort of system, not the USA system of "take them for every penny they've got and then some".

Yes, when I say "classes" I mean what Paul calls tutorials and I call supervisions. For each one we get given a reading list that generally takes about 15-20 hours to get through, and sometimes also an essay to write, and then we go and discuss the reading in groups of two or three. I have one-to-one supervisions for one of my subjects this year, which is simultaneously great and terrifying. I'm doing five subjects and we have a supervision for each one every fortnight, so lots of reading all the time.

schimmy:
I wish my tutorials were that small! Yesterday I was in the smallest one I've ever been in - four people, including myself, excluding my lecturer - and that was due to people skipping it because it was a hard topic.
Usually my tutorials have at least 8 students in them, which is just enough that you can fairly easily fade into the background, or stop paying attention, both of which I am prone to do if I'm not kept on my toes.

DrPhibes:
about 20k in debt. IN my second year. If I finish I'll be about 30-40k in debt.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page