[We see Baasit Siddiqui sat behind a desk in a virtual studio. The University of Derby logo is on the desk, 'Get Ready for Uni' is on the two side screens, and the Kedleston Road site is seen through the window behind him.]
Baasit: Welcome to Get Ready for Uni with the University of Derby. I'm Baasit Siddiqui.
Now you may recognise me from a popular television show and I'm also heavily involved in getting students like you ready for the next stage of life. Whether that's university, or an apprenticeship, or employment, through my company, Siddiqui Education.
So - you're currently at school or college and we're hoping you're considering taking the next steps towards further study. What are the differences between what you're doing now and University education? I really want you to feel prepared for those changes that could be coming up and not to have a shock to your system when you get there. I'm going to be joined by two guests from University Library who will help us explore the skills you need in more detail. And who better to speak to about it than University librarian at Derby, Ben Veasey?
So let's take a look and Get Ready with Academic Skills.
[Intro sequence with music reads 'Get Ready for Uni: Academic Skills']
[Back in the virtual studio, where Baasit is now joined by Ben Veasey - University Librarian.]
Baasit: Welcome Ben. So any student knows they can use the library to find out the information that they need, but what happens beyond that at Derby that they may not necessarily know about?
Ben: Okay well you know people have this sort of thought of the library as it being a place of books and of course it is. But it is much more than that. I like to think of the library in terms of being influenced by what they had in the Renaissance era right, and these were very social spaces where people would come together and they'd talk about their learning their scholarship so that's what we strive for here at here at Derby. A big part of that is of course accessing knowledge, accessing information,
Baasit: Of course.
Ben: Another big part of that is around the skills support that we provide and this is critical because as you transition into a university setting, you are moving into a much less directed element of learning so it becomes much more independent. That doesn't mean to say you won't get support, we offer a great range of of support, but it means that you have to take control of your learning and that means you know time management, setting your own goals, reflecting on what you're learning and and what what works for you.
Baasit: That makes a lot of sense. The library is there to support with a development aspect when you're a student. What will students have to get to grips with when it comes to university life in terms of the research side? Things that they might see as a bit of a surprise to their to their current learning? Now you've alluded to it a little bit but can you just elaborate a little bit more on that?
Ben: Yeah, so I've talked a little bit about that transition between it being quite directed at school or a college setting. When you move into university it becomes a lot more independent; a lot more 'active' in respect to the learning.
I think a big part of that is how one thinks with respect to critical thinking. So this is about the ability to consume information. Understand it, understand its context. Evaluate it - and then apply it. And this is an element that we offer support in. It's something that translates of course into then how you're assessed, and how you know you think about your learning in general terms. So an example might be: I put a question into a chat bot but can I trust the information that comes back through that chatbot? So it's about evaluating it, questioning it and then applying that to your particular context.
Baasit: Fantastic and I think that that that makes total sense there's so much information out there now and the skill really is helping young people to figure out how to grab the best information in an efficient manner. So within that as an aspect, this whole idea of active learning - what does active learning entail?
Ben: Yeah so it's a range of things. It's multifaceted in that sense. I think the way we like to think about it is that you have to have the right mindset to this.
Baasit: Definitely.
Ben: You think of it as a growth mindset I suppose in terms of being willing to dedicate yourself to your subject area and the learning that you're undertaking independently. And that translates into how one listens so you need to be listening to and questioning the things that are coming from your lecturers, they don't know everything so you should question it. As well as the reading and that will be some reading that you are directed to through something like your resource list.
You need to look at that and make sure that you are engaging with it, but crucially I think there's opportunity in a university setting to think about the wider context. So you should be reading wider, you should be looking at data sets that you might be finding from various databases. And how you apply that into your own particular context when it comes to something like an assessment or an assignment that you might receive.
Baasit: And there will be elements of this that practice makes perfect and students will get better at this. Would you say that when they first come to university there is a bit of a learning curve in terms of starting to learn actively, learning academically, what would you say is the greatest pitfall for the for the young people coming in - what's the greatest challenge would you say?
Ben: I think it's almost that shock to the system. I mean it's a little while back now Baasit to be honest but, you know when I came into the university setting, I was so used to that sort of directed style, you know and people are pointing me to what I should be looking at.
Baasit: Yeah.
Ben: Pointing me to you know perhaps how I should be sort of thinking about certain things. It's that transition that I really want to emphasise here and certainly something that I found something that I needed to adjust to.
Baasit: Yeah.
Ben: I think a big part of this is self-confidence and and how you think about yourself, how you're comfortable with yourself, particularly as you move into a new environment. But yeah it's that shift to the independent learning aspect that I think you know what people find challenging. The pitfalls are not engaging with the support mechanisms that are available. Whether that be through your lecturer, everybody - certainly at the University of Derby - gets assigned a tutor that they can go and talk through concerns or issues or challenges with. Of course, a little promotion for what we do in the library setting...we offer a lot of support too. So we want people to come to us, ask questions tell us if they're they're challenged on something we can help.
Baasit: Fantastic. I think you've really highlighted some really interesting points there as well first and foremost that it is that element of independence that can be quite nerve-wracking but it's it's really exciting that you can start to challenge and ask questions as well. At the same time the support is there and I think that that's really really important if you're coming into a university setting. Big buildings, don't feel that you have to do it alone. Keep asking for the support, like you said, from your lecturers, from yourself as well. Now just to bring it back to the content because we want to make sure that we give all of the students listening to this an idea of kind of the language that's used within universities and and get them ready for this university life.
And something that I know that you've already touched upon really well and I'm glad we've got some time to talk about this a little bit more is this idea of critical thinking so if you would give us just an insight in terms of critical thinking, what is it, why is it so important and how would you advise students younger than university right now to develop their critical thinking skills?
Ben: Okay so I talked a little bit earlier about what I think it is which is that being able to consume the information, understand it - I think really importantly understand the context. You know, can you trust it? Analysing it and evaluating it and then applying it and this is really important for a few reasons. Firstly, it will help you become more successful in terms of your academic studies because what you will be assessed and evaluated on is around your application of the knowledge. So we want your ideas right? So obviously read and interpret that but you need to be able to apply that in terms of your thoughts, your perspective, you know almost like building on the knowledge of others.
This is what we want from you in a university setting. Secondly - these are really important skills for as you leave us and you go into whatever job you're going into or if you become an entrepreneur, critical thought is absolutely critical in that setting and we see that from employers, these are the sort of skill sets that they need and they want.
I think we apply critical thought each and every day. From what clothes do I wear? To what food do I eat? To what do I buy in my shop? So I don't want people to feel overwhelmed by it, it's just about applying those same techniques that one would apply to things like picking out what fruit you might want in a in a supermarket. It's questioning and having a justification around why you have opted to include or not include something, why you've opted to decide on something or not. Coming to university is perhaps a good example as part of that process as you'll be evaluating a number of different things such as - what subject you want to study? Where you want to go? How you might get there? That kind of thing. It's applying those same techniques that we apply in daily life in an academic setting.
Baasit: I think it's brilliant that you said that Ben and just to kind of wrap it up in terms of this whole idea of critical thinking it's something that we're doing already but it's thinking about it within an academic context. So two things for me that really come across are the fact that if you're listening to this conversation right now and thinking what does he mean by critical thinking? You're already doing it - it's the interesting thing that you said is that you get evaluated on it and almost assessed on it so developing that skill that kind of not taking everything for granted or just looking at it at face value.
Start questioning essentially isn't it which I think is absolutely fantastic in this digital age with so much information out there I think it's so important to do that. Honestly Ben I could talk to you forever it's been so interesting talking to you and I think you've given loads of little useful nuggets for young people thinking of coming to university, so thank you so much for that. I think what would be really good now is if we explore the skill side a little bit more.
[An arrow wipe transition takes us into the next section where Baasit is now joined by Alexander Wood, Academic Librarian.]
Baasit: Let's say hello to Alexander Wood who is an Academic Librarian at Derby. So hi Alex thank you so much for joining us. So Alex - we are both alumni of the University, many years apart - when you started studying here, what did you expect it to be like and how did that compare to the reality of what it's actually like?
Alex: Well to be honest, I didn't really do much prep before I started university or engage in a lot of the materials that I was given. So I had a lot of misconceptions in my head about what university would be like compared to what it actually was like. I thought you genuinely had to study all of the time. So every minute of every day maybe except for sleeping time would be spent studying to make sure I got the highest mark I could do. I thought I had to read everything that the lecturers had given me on my resource list and understand it all. I spent so many hours trying to understand things that were really weren't relevant to my course.
When I went to my first lectures, I thought I had to take notes verbatim of every single word that was said by my lecturer. Even though there was lecture recordings available. So those expectations are different to what the realities that I learned are. For example, instead of studying all the time you just have to study almost like it's a full-time job or a part-time job if you're studying part-time. Have set hours that you do and then in those hours there's flexibility to take opportunities.
Baasit: Okay and with that in mind and I think that fantastic and and why we've kind of created this as a resource as well is to give people who are listening right now that idea that perception versus reality are two different things and I think that you'd probably agree with this - that there is the support out there to kind of help you to balance that and juggle that. You saying it, is really powerful in the sense that it's not the be all end all it shouldn't be all consuming; the support is out there to actually help you with it. Would you say that the most important thing is finding that balance and working out your own schedules in terms of how to how to get involved and and do the academic side of university?
Alex: 100%. I didn't engage in the skill support at the University at all. It turns out that there's support offered by myself and the skills and the library team and we cover all these misconceptions in the first week. For anyone who wants to go out, there's lot of support available on the website on Careers and Develop@Derby webpages so that students can get their head around university as quick as possible.
Baasit: Brilliant, fantastic and let's not make any bones about it - going to university is a completely different experience to kind of school and college. It's nice to know that when you couple your enthusiasm and excitement about it with the support that the university gives you and managing that time, that's that's really useful which is brilliant so thank you for that. Now, independent learning can come across as daunting, a little bit nerve-wracking but are there any advantages or opportunities that come from studying independently?
Alex: I think that studying independently is full of opportunities. Compared to studying at college and before that where you're stuck rigidly studying at set hours all the time in set ways that your teachers prescribe to you, maybe you can add a little bit of flexibility to your homework and revision methods. But at university there's so much more flexibility - you can really learn your way.
Whether that is in terms of how you revise, how you do research, what hours you study at - you can choose to study at your best time. Some students stay up all night studying! I wouldn't recommend that: I prefer as a morning person, to wake up early and do my studying in the morning get it all out the way and then I can chill more later on in the day. You can study when you want to and you can study how you want to. The other thing is - with your scheduling with how university is independent, you can take advantage of a lot of opportunities.
At school between the hours of 9 and 3 you're there. Whereas at university you have the opportunity to join other online classes, you've got the opportunity to volunteer, to work - to do so many different things and take advantage of all the opportunities that the university has like societies and things like that. The final advantage that I can really think of at the moment is the fact that at university there's so many different types of assessment.
Baasit: Yeah.
Alex: And so you can choose modules to do the assessments that you really want to be doing and you thrive at a lot more.
Baasit: Right. Can you give us some examples of that then?
Alex: Yeah so it's a lot different, so at college for example you have - generally speaking - you have exams and you have some coursework assessments. Those exams are generally closed book, there are exceptions to that. At university there are exams and coursework. We have a lot of coursework in assessments but even within them, there's a lot of nuance; a lot of differences. So for example, exams - there might be open book, they might be closed book, there might be multiple choice, they might be partially seen exams. But there's also dissertations. There is group work assessments. There's presentations. There's reports. There's reflective writing. There's portfolio assessments. No course will have the same assessments as another course.
Baasit: That sounds fantastic - first of all you're taking me back to kind of my time at university and I'm thinking back to certain group activities that I was assessed on and I had some flashbacks in terms of that but you're absolutely right there is that opportunity to find out the best ways for you to determine how you want to be assessed as well to some degree, and like you said, marry up the modules that you feel are going to play to your strengths as well. Would you say that that's something that you've reflected on or do the lecturers support you with regards to that as well?
Alex: Every time you have a new type of assessment, your lecturers will cover what is expected of that. There's a lot of information ahead of each assessment about what you're going to be marked on. There's usually some lectures where they teach you the skills and how to do it. It differs depending on course but there's usually a lot of support in place to make sure you're ready for that assessment type.
Baasit: Fantastic. So we've really covered the idea of assessment, how it is really different in comparison to college/school and I'd be completely agree with you through the work I do through Siddiqui Education, it is a lot within schools and colleges and we're building towards those assessments - coursework, controlled assessment, and exams. But I think that's really refreshing to hear and hopefully the people that are listening right now get the idea that methods of assessment change when going from college to university. So that is absolutely brilliant. Do you have a particular favourite?
Alex: I really like presentation assessments and they were not assessed at all really at high school and college compared to university. And I studied Law so negotiation assessments are so cool. I was very daunted but the support there was fantastic for me.
Baasit: Fantastic, that's lovely to hear. Brilliant. Having studied at university at both undergraduate and master's level, part-time and full-time, what would your number one piece of advice for students be for getting the most out of their time at university? I personally think you're the perfect person to ask this question to because of your varied experience. So what advice would you give?
Alex: I think the key skill is the ability to reflect. To be honest with you - there's a lot of things that are new at university, lots of different types of assessments as we've just discussed. You're not going to get everything right straight away and you're not expected to get everything right straight away. The key thing really is to spend time reflecting after you do things and during whilst you are doing things. I would personally recommend reflecting daily, just writing down some notes about how the day went and the different tasks you're doing to keep yourself on track. You can also reflect weekly to consider how your week's gone, how you've managed your time and what you're going to do differently next week.
Having a look at what your goals are for the semester; your assignments, your own personal goals about employability and things like that and comparing if you're on track through reflection. Reflection can take many forms. It could just be writing down. It could just be in your head. It could be having a conversation with a friend about things. Find a way to reflect and just give yourself that time to make sure you're doing what you should be.
Baasit: I think that's absolutely brilliant advice and and there's something extremely powerful about reflection, but I think at the top of that is to just be fully transparent: you're not going to get everything right straight away. This is massive. Being at university is a learning experience. Enjoy the process - reflect on the process, see what works well for you. I love this idea of writing down and getting as habitual as that as to write down what works well for you.
One bit of advice I would add to that as well and I think it's brilliant advice is if you are a reflective person (I'm quite a reflective person) always start with what's gone well. Focus on the positives that you're really chuffed with and then think about what you could do a little bit different just to make your life a little bit easier. That's that's really sound advice, so thank you very much for that Alex. Independent Learning is an opportunity to learn in your own way and have a unique experience whilst at university. Thank you Alex for being here and you've broken down some brilliant things from your varied experiences, full-time,part-time, it's been an absolute joy to talk with you.
Alex: Thank you very much.
[We transition into the next section and Baasit is the only person on screen.]
Baasit: Allight, that's going to be it for this one. I hope it goes without saying from meeting Ben and Alex that the University of Derby has an outstanding teaching team and student support services so there will always be a friendly face to turn to for trusted information, advice and guidance. Academic skills aren't something you need to arrive with but be open to developing as they'll come naturally the more you rely on them to achieve your goals, as they will form a part of your assessments. So getting ready now will really help. There are resources on the web page linked to this session that you can access if you want to find out more. Thank you very much for joining me and good luck developing your skills.
[End titles - 'Get Ready for Uni with Baasit Siddiqui' - and the University of Derby logo]
Get Ready for Uni: Academic Skills video
Back to Academic Skills