Page 82 - FSTE A5 Handbook

Chapter Five
Articulation Experiences of
Senior Year Students

Students seemed to have a different perspective when it comes to deciding their own GE
curriculum, based on the institution’s GE framework as reflected from the programme definitive
documents. They could not appreciate the subtle differences in competencies between the
two levels of learning, i.e. sub-degree versus degree. This may also happen to instructors too,
as suggested by the student above.

Students’ Perception of the Requirement of Additional Courses as Senior Year
Entrants

Some students were keen to do more courses in their sub-degree programmes as they would
like to study the same way as other university students normally do. For example, they would
like to work for the Student Union, participate in activities organized by Societies or join an
international exchange programme. However, it appeared that the block transfer approach to
credit transfer has made it very difficult, if not impossible, for these senior year entrants to do
so. As the block transfer has shortened students study time in university, the study timetable
was very packed particularly for those who changed their discipline of study. It is quite ironic.
On the one hand, every student is expected to have a full range of curricular and co-curricular
experience and enjoy university life. However, these barriers stop them from having these
opportunities. Of course, one may argue that the senior year entrants can still do so provided
they are willing to extend the duration of their study, but most students would prefer to
graduate together with their fellow classmates, not 6 months or a year later:

“I can’t go for an exchange. If I applied for an exchange study, I would need to study an
extra year. If I went there, I would need to defer my study.”
“Basically, in our final year, we would be working on a big project. If I went to join an
exchange programme, basically there was no difference from seeking a deferral. Many people
did have that problem. Therefore, we would be limited to do so. If people who are admitted to
senior year want the exchange programme, they can only do it in semester 1 of their final year.
It is because they are not allowed to do that in semester 2. There is another problem.

If you apply for an exchange, you would be quite certain that the courses you do during the
exchange would not be given credit transfer. Only occasionally, at most two to three courses
could be transferred. This means with a total of 63 credits for graduation, if you want to join an
exchange programme, you would need to study a lot more in other semesters, say 18 to 21
credits per semester.”

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