Awards Ceremony and Education in Britain

Ceremony starting

A few weeks ago, my sister attended the graduation ceremony of the university of East London held at the Barbican Centre for her BSC (Honour) in IT. In fact , it was a sort of celebration of the achievement of university students after 3 years of extensive reading, doing research works in given time frame, writing academic essays with thousands of words and attending seminars. I was proud of her. But that school event was little or nothing exciting to me as she is the 4th person among our relatives who took the UK degree. Yes, of course, I brought my camera and took some random photos.


queueing for a hand shake with chancellor. The degree certificate had been sent off by post in advance.

The following is some information about attending the university I was told.

Enrolment:

For International student : To join the UEL, student must achieve IELTS score 6.0 for undergraduate degree and 6.5 for post graduate. In some cases, they may accept score 5.5 or 5.0 for some subjects, such as history or geography. The university gives more chance to international students than home students in entry as it can earn oversea fees, which is around £7500 to £10000 per annum for foreign students while home rate is about £2000-3000.

For Home student: Entering university as home student could be challenging. The students aged under 25 must follow their UCAS (University college administration service) system. They have to apply 4 to 5 universities after finishing A level. Some Uni reject and some give offer to them, depending on the situation.

Those aged over 25 do not need A level and do not need to apply in UCAS. They can apply directly to universities but they have to take aptitude test in English, mathematics and language interview.

Modules:

As a student, 6 modules have to be taken in every single year. BSc (honour) degree is a 3 years course. So it needs to clear 18 modules to achieve the degree, including the dissertation paper which must be done in the final year. The dissertation is essential to complete the degree, which includes research proposal for 3000 words and dissertation itself for 12000 words in the final year.

Semesters:

There are 2 semesters in a year. 3 modules have to be completed in one semester. Every module has at least 2 course works, some have 3, including exam. One semester lasts 4 months, during which the student has to submit 6 to 9 course works with or without exam. That means not much leisure time, contrary to uni life in Yangon.

Marking system:

First year’s marks doesn’t count for final grading while the scores of 12 modules of The 2nd year and final year are important.

• The average marks over 75 is first class honour,
• over 65 is upper second class honour,
• over 55 is lower second class honour,
• over 45 is third class honour grade and
• 40 is just pass mark with no honour but an ordinary degree.

Achieving the first class honour means that he or she can do the Ph.D. directly, without having MSC or MA and it is also easy to secure a job, but it is rare. The commonest one is second class honour among the UK students, according to the research.

Any question about study in the UK, welcome!