Plan for success

High attendance

Students who miss classes do not do as well as those who attend. It’s not the same intellectual activity as reading up on lecture notes.

If a student is unable to make a class due to an unexpected circumstances, they need to get in touch with their School Office. This is recorded in the University’s attendance monitoring system and the student needs to ensure they find out what was missed from the University’s online system, Unilearn, and/or their lecturer.

Preparing for sessions and background reading

Students are more likely to learn from the lecture, seminar, lab session or workshop if they have prepared by, for example, doing the recommended background reading, preparing for presentations and discussions or completing set work. This should be a priority.

Students attend different kinds of study sessions such as formal lectures, small group seminars, discussion groups, workshops, practicals, supervised and independent activities, one-to-one tutorials to discuss progress and group tutorials. Some of these are regular weekly sessions and others are at intervals.

Individual timetables are always accessible to students online and they are expected to manage their own independent study time and there are plenty of spaces around the University library for this.

Regular and disciplined independent study times

Recommended independent study time is a minimum of 35 hours per week (including scheduled classes) but on top of travelling time and other commitments.

One of the biggest differences between school/college and university is the amount of time students need to spend studying independently in order to succeed.

At university students are learning to solve problems, undertake independent research and think independently. These are skills that employers require from their graduate staff – they need graduates who can be relied on to work on their own initiative, read complex material and work out which parts are relevant to the business in hand, or decide what theories or formulae to apply to a technical problem. That’s why it is so important that university students schedule plenty of time for independent study. We suggest students allocate a minimum of 35 hours per week to their studies – it may be that only 12-15 of those hours are formally scheduled – the rest is working on assignments, undertaking background research and practising skills.

Even if the timetabled classes at university are over, study time is still essential and crucial. Students need quiet places to concentrate and study. You could support this by thinking about:

• Is there a space at, or near, the student's home that can be used regularly for quiet study?
• How could a regular pattern of planned independent study be made into a fixed habit?
• How can family and friends agree to support these study times?

When a student has their timetable, why not have a chat about when, where and how planned independent study can be made possible?