Introductory Lecture to University Study In

Good morning and welcome to the University of Westlands. My name is Marcia Mayhew and I’m the co-or-dinator of the Bachelor of Social Science degree here at this university. This morning I’d like to tell you something about the structure of the university and about some of the requirements of the degree that you’re about to enter. The Bachelor of Social Science is in one faculty within the university: that is the faculty where I am working, known as Arts and Social Sciences. Here on this campus we also have the faculties of Architecture, Law, and Science and Technology among others.
   First let’s take a brief look at the structure of the faculty. It’s important to know something about the structure of the faculty because, as you go through your course, you may need to call on members of the staff to help you.
   Our university works as a hierarchical system. At the top of the faculty we have a dean and below the dean we have three divisions; each division has a divisional head and your degree is located in the Division of Social Sciences. Within each of the divisions, there are the departments and each of these offers different degrees. For instance, two of the departments which offer the major subjects for your award are the Department of Sociology and the Department of Psychology. Each has a departmental head, but for practical purposes, the people you are going to see the most of is myself, because I work as coordinator of the social sciences degree and serve as a bridge between you and the departments. The other group of people whom you will also see very frequently are the actual lecturers who are teaching the subjects that you are taking. For instance, in the first semester you’ll be doing four subjects, namely psychology, sociology, history and economics, so you will be meeting lecturers of these subjects very often. Most likely, you may see them once a week, but some of them, it is possible for you to meet them twice a week.
   If you have any problems or difficulties, not that I’m anticipating you will, but you never know, then you should go and see your lecturers. For instance, you may find that you can’t meet a deadline for an essay, or perhaps you’re having problems with attendance. These seem to be the two most common problems that students face on this campus. In most cases, your lecturers will help you to solve your problems.
  If your lecturers are unavailable, you can always come and see me in my office. I’m available on Wednesday and Thursday mornings and on Friday afternoons as well. Outside these hours, perhaps you could ring the secretary and make an appointment. Usually I will find the earliest possible time to see you and discuss your problems.
   Now, you’ll note that all of the subjects which you undertake in the first year are composed of lectures and tutorials. A lecture is about an hour long and a tutorial usually runs for about two hours. A lecture is rather like what I am doing now, where one person will talk to all of you together on a subject. We do ask you to try to attend the lectures.
   A tutorial is perhaps where most of the learning occurs at a university. You will be divided into groups of between 12 and 15 students and each week one of you will have to present a piece of work to the group as a whole and then the group will discuss what you’ve said. It’s this discussion, this exchange of ideas, which really constitutes the basis of university learning, in my view. Listening to lectures in many ways is just giving you information that you could access for yourself in the library, but the discussion at the tutorial is very important. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go to the lectures, though!
   Other factors to be particularly concerned about are the structure of essays and delivery of written material and in particular I would like to mention the question of plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking other people’s work without acknowledging it, that is, without saying where it comes from. Of course all essays are based on re- search done by other people but you must remember to attribute the work to the original writer. And while it’s a good idea to work with other people, don’t hand in work which is exactly the same as your friend’s work be- cause we will notice! If you don’t acknowledge the source of your information, then you run the risk of failing the subject or in very serious cases you might be denied entry to the university.
   Last but not least, stay in touch with us. If things are getting you down, don’t go and hide. Come and talk to us about it. That’s what we are here for. Right, thank you very much for coming along today, and hope you’ll enjoy your stay on this campus.