The New College's System

This year all assignments are very important and valid to our area of study. I’m saying this because in the previous years we used to have that one or two assignments per semester which weren’t that important to our area of study. However, today I look back positively that I managed to pass and achieved decent grades although they were challenging to me. Such assignments were also preparing me to tackle challenging situations where I wouldn’t much relate to or don’t like.

This year although all assignments are very important for our preparation to the future career, I can still mention some things which aren’t being tackled well, probably because of the new system. Last year we were starting this new course (Spatial Design) which is now not related to the BTEC system anymore but now it’s being offered by MCAST for free, which is a positive direction for MCAST. Another positive thing is the new grading system, where previously the grading were only based on four grades the ‘Distinction’, ‘Merit’, ‘Pass’ and ‘Referral/Fail’, which weren’t that accurate. While the new system grades from 0 to 100, typically 50 being the pass mark. This is a more accurate grading system, while we also have the advantage of receiving feedback where students understands where to improve. However something I don't really agree with the new grading system is that if you fail an assignment, one has to do the assignment all over again in a very short period of time, and that no feedback is given after submitting a task from an assignment, it's only given along with the final mark.

Since we were the first to attend this new course, we felt like we are being ‘guinea pigs’, because they made lots of changes from the BTEC course and some changes weren’t ‘tested’ previously. So, this was a disadvantage for us because it made us feel frustrated at times when things weren’t going well. Last year we also had to stand together and literally use ‘power from below’ to show our voice about issues that we were facing to the administration. Sometimes we managed to have a suitable compromise and sometimes not so much, and lots of things still need to improve within the new system!

Due to our complaints and suggestions, this year for the same course (Spatial Design, year 1), I noticed that there were some better adjustments and changes in the course delivery.

At the same time this year, we are still first ones to be doing the second part of the course, and I still have the same feeling that we are being the ‘guinea pigs’. Few assignments aren't planned well and sometimes we feel misguided or lost. However one particular assignment which for the previous years (in the BTEC course) was being delivered in one semester is now being delivered in both semesters and it is planned very well, which gives us adequate time to learn and explore such subject, which is about 'Design Principles and Methods'.

Another new assignment which was introduced this year and is very important to our thesis for next year which is 'Critical Thinking and Research Methods'. For the previous courses (BTEC) this assignment was being delivered during the last year of the degree. So this is something positive about the new changes which is putting us in the advantage to start preparing us for our thesis earlier. The thing with this assignment is that it is only being delivered in one semester and I think it would have been better for us if it was delivered during both semesters, as we will have enough time to think and do our assignment properly.

An assignment which is about sustainable design should have been planned better, because it’s quite complicated as design which is being requested from this assignment. The first lectures of this assignment were about introducing the subject then follows some other information related to sustainable design. What I would suggest for a better delivery to such topic is to give us more information related to sustainable solutions (especially for Malta), materials, showing us other case studies, etc. Another thing is that a lot of marks have been allocated with one task and another task to which had fewer marks allocated to, had lots of work to be done.

Now that we have done half of the assignment individually and everyone came up with his own design, we needed to present our design to the client who is an engineer from the MCAST institute of engineering, and he had to criticize our designs according to how could it be working. Then from 24 students, only 6 had to be chosen and mine was one of them which I am proud of. Now for the next stage, we have to be in groups of four to further develop the design chosen. At this stage we haven’t established who will be working with who, as we need to have some sort of meeting with the engineer and our lecturer to assign us into groups. Something which we’re worrying about is that the meeting is going to happen right after the holidays and at the moment this assignment is put on hold for the Christmas holidays, which this time could have been essential to us to start working as groups. I hope that due to all this, we will be given an extension as lots of work still need to be done, and it is impossible to be done in just less than a month. Our knowledge learned from this topic should prepare us enough to be able to design sustainably, which is very important to our future career.

In addition, during the Christmas holidays I will be trying to have some relaxing time with family and friends and also continue to work on assignments to keep myself on track and on time hopefully.