Getting in to UCD & Meet our Students - Access UCD at Home

Post editor

Hello everyone and welcome to another

webinar in the Access and Lifelong Learning summer series.

My name is Michelle Treacy and I'm the Student Support Officer here in Access and Lifelong Learning

and today along with my

colleagues Enya Murray and Áine Murphy

who are the Outreach Officers we're going to talk

to you a little bit about the pathways

into UCD and the supports that are

available to you as a student

when you come in to the college itself. Before we

begin I'd like to ask everybody if you

could turn off your videos and your mics

for the duration of the webinar and if you have any questions or if there's anything you'd like

to query during the session you can use

the chat function that's at the bottom

of your screen everything that we talk

about today is going to be on our

website, along with our contact details

so if anything crops up at the end of the session

or if there's anything you'd like to ask

us when this is over please don't

hesitate to get in touch with us. Along

with our colleagues today from Access

and Lifelong Learning we have a student

panel who are also going to talk to you

about the pathways that they use to come

into the college and the supports that

they found most useful to them in their

learning. So without further ado, I'm

going to pass you over to Áine and

Enya who are going to talk to you now

about the different pathways into UCD.

Enya, sorry I'm trying to share my screen

but I can't maybe you can share yours

Yeah, I will, of course, sorry I put you on. You should be able to do it now, Áine.

Perfect, thank you. So, hi everybody Enya and

I work as Outreach Officers in UCD Access

and Lifelong Learning and we're going to

present some information about different

ways of getting in to UCD today. So, UCD

is a university for all so our role in

UCD Access Lifelong Learning is to

support staff and students in UCD and

prospective students of UCD so that

the university looks like the world

around us, that it's made up of people

from all different backgrounds, of all

different ages and to make sure that

everyone is welcome.So, there are lots of

people who go straight from straight

from school to university but we want to

let you know that there are lots of

other ways in so there are seven other

ways in. So, there are: to come through the

Higher Education Access Route, the acronym

HEAR is what we use for that, or the

Disability Access Route to Education

(DARE). Coming into UCD after you've done

study in a Further

Education College; as a mature student;

through our University Access Programme;

through Open Learning; and Lifelong Learning.

So, the Higher higher Education Access Route is for school leavers who

are under the age of 23, who are

from a low-income background and are

resident in the Republic of Ireland. The benefit is reduced points CAO offers, so

say a student wanted to study Science in UCD

and the CAO cut off offer was 520 points, if a student was

eligible for HEAR and they

had maybe 420 points they could still

get an offer for that course, and

then we offer supports for

students once they come in and Michelle

will talk about that a little bit later.

We have reserved places in all of our

undergraduate degree programmes that

are held for students who are eligible

for HEAR. After eligible students come in

there is a HEAR Welcome Programme so that you meet other students

who have come in 

through different routes to UCD; there are

one-to-one meetings with staff in Access and Lifelong Learning, social gatherings

with our current

students and some financial assistance

as well. How prospective students apply

for HEAR

is through the CAO in the year that

they're planning to study in university

so if you're planning to study in September

2021 you have to apply to the CAO by the

1st of February 2021. The application form asks for information to

assess your eligibility and we call

those indicators so it asks for

information about your family's income, whether or not you or

your family have a medical card, if

your parents are

in receipt of a means-tested social welfare payment, we ask

the job that they do, the

name of the school that you go to

because maybe it's a DEIS school, and the

area that you live in to find out

whether or not there are lots of people

in your area who have gone on to higher

education and some other information as

well. In late June, people are

told whether or not they're eligible for

HEAR and provided that you meet the

course requirements, so say you have to

have Maths at higher level,  grade 6,

you still have to meet those course

requirements but when you get your offer

it'll be on the CAO offer day and it won't look any different so you

might just notice that the CAO cut off

points are a bit higher than the

offer that you have or you might have

the points that you need for the course

feel so that all the supports that come

along with being a HEAR student so I'll

pass over to Enya for DARE information.

Thanks Áine. So, DARE has lots of

similarities to HEAR. It's the disability

access route so it's an admissions route

for school leavers whose disabilities have

had a negative impact on their second

level education. Yet again it offers reduce

points places into courses

and has post entries supports which

Michelle will talk about. It's for school

leavers under the age of 23 who are resident

in the Republic of Ireland. So, DARE in UCD, as Áine mentioned it's the reduced points

offer so it's the

exact same that Áine mentioned with

regards to the HEAR - if the

Science place was 520 and you had 420 points

you might meet the DARE requirement cut off point if you're eligible at that point so it's

the same system, it just has different criteria.

There's a quota of places held for

all the pathways as well so there are

places held for DARE students. As

soon as you receive your offer so you're

as soon as you receive your CAO offer, we

will invite you to the ALL Welcome Programme.

The Welcome Programme typically

takes place just before the main UCD

orientation and it gives you a chance to

meet the team from Access and Lifelong

Learning, find out what services and

supports will be available to you

throughout your degree, and gives you a

chance to meet other first-year students

who have come into similar pathways. So

it's a way to get you settled in UCD.

As soon as you are settled then after a few

weeks you'll be invited to do a needs

assessment appointment with the

disability team and in this needs

assessment appointment you'll feel

figure out which accommodations are most

suited to you so it might be that you

have some assistive technology so they

might give you a technical pen that

records your lectures for you or that

you're given extra time in your exams. Everybody has different needs and

different requirements that's why the 

needs assessment appointment is so

important. We also have academic

skills workshops which run throughout the

year and you will be invited to. They tend

to happen as well alongside the requirements of your

academic year so when you might be

expected to do a group presentation we

might have a have a workshop on giving

presentations, closer to the exams we'll have a

workshop on

avoiding procrastination which I tend to

dip my hand into. And then as well there's

social gatherings throughout the year,

we'll invite you to those and it's mainly

just to make sure that you're feeling

happy and confident in UCD

and that you've made friends.

Yet again, DARE is very similar to HEAR with

regard to the application it's all

done through your CAO so by the 1st

of February you have to have ticked that

you wish to be assessed for DARE

eligibility. You'll have then a few weeks

to submit your supporting

documentation so your medical consultant

or your provider will submit an

evidence disability to say which

disability you have and your school and

support teachers will fill out the

educational impact statement. The impact

statement will provide information with

regards to maybe the type of supports

you've had in school and also the

impact your disability has

had on your study so it might be that

you've missed a significant number of

days due to your condition. In late June

you'll be expected to receive your

eligibility and then yet again as Áine

mentioned, the offers will come out in August. The offer will look exactly the

same as the regular offers, it's all the exact

same bells and whistles. With regards to HEAR

and DARE, the main

question that we usually get is what

were the points and how many places

there were. UCD Registry have done a

lovely website and they update it every year. So on this website you can figure out

which course you're most interested in,

have a scroll around and a look around

you'll see the target places so that's the places that they expect to have,  the places

that were there in 2019, and then the

lowest offer as well from 2017 to 2019 so

all the information is there. The points

may not be the exact same coming into

this year but it just gives you

a nice guideline of what to expect. What if

you're eligible for HEAR and DARE? This is good news because places are

prioritised for students with HEAR and DARE eligibility so we'll figure

that out through your CAO assessment and then I

can only recommend that you have a look

on the access college website. There's a

host of information for HEAR and DARE

students with regards to the indicators

for the HEAR pathway and then the

supplementary requirements for the DARE pathway so I would really point you in the direction of that.

Thank you. So then for students who

attend a further education college

and gain a qualification

there, they can also apply through the CAO for

a place and we have reserved places for

people who come in with that further

educational qualification. There are

reserved places on 24 of our

undergraduate degree programmes and again

UCD Registry has all of the information

on the number of places that are

reserved and the requirements that are

needed so, we can see, just as an

example, that there are 30 places

reserved for students with a further

educational qualification coming into

Science and the

requirements that they have to have so

that would be a distinction in a

minimum 5 modules and the modules are

listed so if you were thinking about

studying at a further education college  first then you

might just check that the

module codes match what's on offer at the

college that you're attending.

So you have to have specific

modules and you have to have

distinctions in at least five modules

and you apply to the

CAO and offers come out a little

bit sooner than they would for Leaving

Cert. students

Enya's going to present information about the Access Course.

Thanks a million. So the next one we're going to look at

now is university access courses so

university access courses are a one-year

part-time course and it's designed to

prepare mature students who may not have

any formal qualifications to study successfully in

university so if you think about it it's

kind of a preparation year where you

come into UCD, you learn study skills and

writing skills and it prepares you to

take on a degree. There's two types of

Access Courses that you can undertake

depending on your own interest so one is

Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

stream,  and then the second is Science,

Engineering, Agriculture and Medicine

you'll know yourself which one you want. University Access Courses are

open to anybody who's over

at the age of 22, as I mentioned there's

no formal entry requirements, you may

have an interview just before you

undertake the course. It's a year to test

the water and to build skills and

confidence, so typically people just want

to learn how to navigate their way

around UCD and its campus, and to figure out how to do the referencing before they

undertake a degree so it's just to put a

bit of confidence in your pocket and then

you can use your access

qualification at the end of the year to

progress on to a degree which will be in line with the stream that you studied.

The applications for Access Courses are done

directly to UCD and all the information

is available on our website

www.ucd.ie/all The fees range from €850 to €1800

but we do have scholarships

in place also. The scholarship may reduce

the fee or eliminate it completely. The

best woman to talk to

about University Access

Courses is Thomond Coogan, she's the Coordinator for

both streams. You can email Thomond at thomond.coogan@ucd.ie but there's a

host of information on

the website so I'd point you in that direction too

We also have mature student

entry for people who are over the age of

23 so you have to be 23 by the 1st of

January in the year that you'd like to

enter. We have a quota of places

again reserved for mature students.

Prospective students would apply through

the CAO

and mature students might be asked for

additional information like personal

statements or their CV or any

qualifications that they might have done

before and then some courses will

require an extra entry

requirement so it could be the HPAT for

medicine which is the Health

Professionals Admissions Test or 

the MSAP - Mature Student

Admissions Pathway test that would test your skills and abilities

that would be considered necessary to

succeed at third level education and

then the course requirements again for

mature students are all listed on the

UCD Registry website. So you can see

here that there are the courses and using

Architecture as example and the requirements

that you'd need as a mature student -

whether you need to do the tests or

if you need to have personal statements

and things like that. And then we have Open Learning

so Open Learning is open

to anybody over the age of 17 years old

and what Open Learning does is that it

opens up the university so it allows you

to study alongside a full-time degree

student. There are 300 modules to

choose from in Open Learning and

basically you go in and you study an undergraduate

module. The way to study Open Learning 

is through audit or

credit so if you wanted to do it through

audit it will be just for the pleasure

so maybe you want to hear from an expert

in that field, there is no requirement to

take any assessment or any exams so

you're just dipping in just purely for

the pleasure. And then for credit, people

may decide to do Open Learning to

gain credit for instance one module

would be used in place at the MSAP exam

so as Áine just mentioned it's the

mature students application. People

also use credit for CPD

requirements. There's an option

then to do six modules which will allow

you access the pathway. Open Learning is

a flexible way to study so it's part

time and similar to the Access

Course it kind of gets you up and

running on the campus

to make sure you're happy and

confident to go on to the degree.

For those who do not want to progress on to

the degree after the six modules you can

still continue to take modules

so if you've build it up to 12 modules

you'll be awarded a Diploma in Open Learning.

So really it's another way to dip in and out.  With the six modules,

those who are interested in doing

the six modules as a pathway to the degree

tend to do the six within one

academic year so you might do three in

the autumn trimester and then three in

the spring trimester and then move on to

a degree either in Arts, Humanities,

Social Sciences, Social Policy & Sociology

Law, Science and Computer Science

so it's just another way to

progress on to the

degree using just this qualification.

How do you apply to open learning? Yet again

it's directly through UCD. There are

fees depending on which way you want to assess it

for audit it's €350 and for credit

it's €500. As an Open Learner you have

full access to all the facilities and

services within UCD and there's also

a scholarship available for those who

wish to study the six modules to use

it as a progression pathway. Yet again, 

information on how to apply and the

scholarships are available on our

website, thank you. Lastly is Lifelong

Learning so this is a broad range of

specific interest courses that are

available to anybody to explore

subjects without exams so it

could be things like History or Art

Appreciation or Languages, really broad

range of topics that if you just want to

listen to an expert in their field

without the pressure of exams and just

to enjoy the learning then Lifelong

Learning would be for you. Some of the lectures would take place on the UCD campus

or possibly

online now, but some would also be on

in some other places like the National

Library of Ireland or the Lexicon in Dun Laoghaire

or the Hugh Lane Gallery so there's a couple of places that you can

study Lifelong Learning courses

with UCD. All of the information for

that again is on our website so ucd.ie/all

Thanks very much Áine and Enya, that's an

awful lot of information so as Áine and

Enya said if you have any questions

or you need further information, all

these details are on our website along

with our contact details you were given

a couple of names there such as Thomond

and Catherine, their contact details

are on the website as well so please

don't hesitate to get in touch with us

with any query that you have only get

back to you as quickly as possible so

just a brief recap we have seven

pathways into the university but the one

thing that all the students have in

common when they come in is that every

student is going to require support. The

change and the jump from whether

you're coming directly from school or

whether you've had a break in your

education and you're returning to

learning, coming into a higher education

environment can be quite daunting and

challenging. Every single one of us that

has come through those gates has felt

exactly the same way - we're all thinking

about the new environment, you know. How

are we going to navigate this? How are we

going to learn what we're supposed to

have to do? The University has thought

about that and they've put lots of

supports in place for the students to

avail of. Some of the supports are very

typical and you would expect to find

them in this environment, such as academic supports

in Access and Lifelong Learning, we run workshops as Enya mentioned

and these workshops run once a week.

They're usually in the

same timeframe as your academic

requirements if you like in your

lectures so if you're learning about

referencing for your first essay we're

doing referencing in the workshops, if

you are doing citation we're doing

'Citation', if you're preparing for a

presentation the workshop is also

'Preparing for a Presentation'. All of

these workshops are held in a very

informal small group setting, where it's

absolutely encouraged to ask any

questions and bring any queries that you

have to them. In addition to the

workshops, UCD has a Writing Support

Centre and it is what it says on the tin - 

you bring any draft text that you have

with you and the people in the Writing

Support Centre will give you feedback on

your work so far. It's a very, very friendly environment in

which to get positive feedback on the

work that you have done and they'll help

guide you and support you to preparing a

better end product. Those of you that

are doing anything related to Maths - 

there's a Maths Support Centre on campus

as well and that's based in the library

too so you can simply pop along to the

Writing Centre or the Maths Support

Centre and meet somebody there that can

help you or during busy periods you can

make an appointment to meet with

somebody there. In addition to those,

during the academic year it's very

important that you take a break from

your studies that you get an opportunity

to meet friends and that it's not just

all head in the books so we provide a

range of social activities. These can

range from very simple coffee mornings

to pizza evenings and we also do film

evenings so when we get back onto campus

we'll do them in person if you

like but we will have virtual activities

as well for students just in case we

have to continue with the online

learning. Coming to college can be very

expensive. There are a lot of costs that

students know about and then there are a

lot of

hidden costs so in preparation for this

there are also financial supports that

you can avail of. There is a fund called

the Student Support Fund that we will

notify you about, if you're eligible for

it, at the beginning of the year and

there are scholarship opportunities that

you can avail of as well. In Access and

Lifelong Learning we run an open door

policy where one of the major supports

that we offer is a one-to-one

meeting with all incoming students.

During these meetings we'll work with

you to identify the supports that are

most relevant to your learning and your

learning style. At these meetings we'd

also work on a budget to help you

identify costs that are going to come up

during the year and to make sure that

you have the funding in place for those

costs. In addition to these funds there

is also disability support at the

University which is available to

students who have come through the DARE

pathway and also to students who have

not come through DARE. Every session

that you have with the disability

service will be preceded by a needs

assessment meeting and at those meetings

you will meet with a member of the team

who will work with you to figure

out the supports that best support you

in your time at UCD. The most important

thing to remember is that Access and

Lifelong Learning is a centre that is

there. It's placed in the centre of the

university and the staff and the

facilities that are there are designed

to help you and support you to be the

most successful student that you

possibly can be and that you can have an

overall positive student experience. The

best people to talk about this is

probably not the staff but the students

themselves so I'm going to hand you over

now to Larisa who is a Law and

Philosophy student about to go into her

third year and Larisa is going to

introduce you to a panel of students who

will talk to you a little bit about the

pathway that they took into UCD and the

supports that they have best identified

to help them in their learning and their

time in UCD. Again, just to remind you

that everything we have spoken about is

on our website -  all our contact details

are there as well so while we're giving

you a lot of information and it's going

to take time to process it please don't

hesitate to contact us

if you think of anything after this

session. So I'll hand you over to Larisa now

Hi Larisa, are you ready? Yes, all good! Thank you for the introduction Michelle

and it's lovely to be here. My name is Larisa and I will be going

into my third year of Law and Philosophy

and I'll be the moderator for today.

I think the first thing that I

would like to ask is if the panelists

could introduce themselves and tell us

about the programme they are studying and

the pathway that they used and how they

apply for that

We'll start with Favor.

Hi everybody my

name is Favor I'm going into final

year of Genetics. I got in to UCD through CAO

and I got into through the HEAR scheme

so I did my Leaving Cert in  2017

and I'd actually never heard for the HEAR scheme before but I was

lucky because my school were involved in

something known as The Future You programme which

is a community programme run by UCD Access & Lifelong Learning

where they connect with secondary schools in low-income areas and they have mentors from UCD that come in and talk to you and give

you, give you advice and help you out so because

of that I was able to know a lot about

the HEAR scheme and I applied for it and luckily I got it and even though I

missed my points for the course I wanted

I was still able to get into my course

because I was eligible for the HEAR scheme

Hi, I'm Gareth and I came in

through a QQI-FET level 5 PLC and I

initially was actually looking at the Open Learning entry route

which you do your credits over a year

and then you can gain access into your course

if you do it as the credit way.

I decided that for me personally

QQI was the better option so I graduated with all

distinctions

I moved into Commerce I'm heading into

my final year

hey guys my name is Owen

I'm currently I'm going into my third

year of astrophysics in UCD and much

like Favor, I found out

about DARE through the Future You

programme that the Access Centre put on

and it was a really easy process to

apply for on the CAO website it's just

a digital form and everything's

laid out quite nicely and the only

physical thing you need to do is send in

your supporting documentation and

everything else is through actual CAO

website which you log in with your

student number/CAO number and that's essentially

then how I got into UCD was

through the DARE entry route

Hi guys my

name is Ritchie, I'm a mature student

going into my third year of English and

history my case is a little bit

different from most mature students

because I was actually in UCD before

about ten years ago and ten years ago I

dropped out because I decided the

college just wasn't for me at the time

so I worked for ten years and then

decided that I really wanted to come

back and finish my degree

I applied through

I sent an email to Catherine Tormey

in the Centre

asking whether I was still eligible

because I wasn't sure if it would have

been, so she dispelled all my fears

quite quickly and I applied.

Of course you have to go through the MSAP

route which is the mature student access

pathway and it's a sort of, it's not

really an exam it's an aptitude test

which consists of just brief

exercise to determine whether you can

write an essay or a

vague outline of an essay and also just

reasoning in whatever field that you've

chosen. It's actually not as bad as it sounds so that's

how I came in to be in UCD

Brilliant, thank you, If we could

get the panelists to share with us as well

Hi, I am a mature student and

I came in through the University Access Route so I've

just finished my first year.  I was

doing a Creative Writing course in Blackrock Further Education College and a few

people there had been to UCD and spoke

really highly of it and the teacher

recommended that I do an English degree

so I went on to the UCD website and the

Access & Lifelong Learning website

where I read up about the different

entry routes in and  I filled out

the form online for the University Access course

and then I went to an interview and I

was given a place and that's how I came in.

That's brilliant, thank you all so much

and I think we'll go on to our questions

now and the first one is just about the

pathway that you came into UCD if

you could share a bit more about that

and I'll ask Favor to start with this again

I came into through the HEAR scheme so

I applied for that in 6th Year and like Owen said

it's a really

simple process.

You get some certain documents in order

but when you're

applying for your CAO you apply for

HEAR through the CAO also and you

get an email a couple of months after you apply and

when you get your CAO offer and then

when you got to college

that's how everything went.

That's brilliant, thank you so much.

Gareth, if you'd like to continue

I came through the PLC so that entailed like they were saying earlier you have to

find the course code from the PLC to make

sure it matches with the degree you want to do

I studied in Whitehall College of

Further Education, once the degree

code matches up it doesn't matter too

much.

You have to hit the minimum of five

distinctions and you'll normally sit

eight modules but it's kind of like points

if that makes sense. So you have a

maximum of 390 and the distinctions worth a

certain amount so although most of the time it may say "five minimum" sometimes you do

have to get a bit more, like I had

to essentially achieve all distinctions

but it wasn't too difficult and I found

that a lot of it kind of was like a base

for what I would have in first year in

college and that was it was quite simple

enough you know

Brilliant, thank you and

Richy if you'd like to go ahead

The mature student path is

basically you fill out an application

form. There are requirements

for a mature student, the main one is the

that you have to be over 23.

In order to be eligible for the Free Fees

as well, ideally out of full-time education for a period of five years.

Then you fill out the

application form, once all of that is

accepted by the University you're

invited to attend the aptitude test.

The MSAP aptitude test and then after that you get

a letter in the post basically saying

whether or not you've been successful. So

that's the mature student way in.

So for the University Access route I filled out

my application form online and there's

no requirements other than that you're

over 22 years of age

and then I was called

in for an interview at the beginning of

the summer with Thomond, where you

just kind of asked to write a short

piece and then you speak

one-on-one with Thomond and then you're

accepted. It was really simple, it was pretty easy and yeah I was

really worried about it actually

when you're called in for the interview

and you're asked that you're going to have to write

something but it was really really

nice like Thomond made me excited

about being there and I left there

knowing I had made the best decision by

applying like it was really really good

I came in through the DARE route

so like I said before it's all done

through the CAO it's pretty

easy I think it's a sub section on the

website I can't remember exactly and

then it's just a digital form so you

just fill out name and just a bunch of

other details and you have the supply

supporting documentation so that can be

anything from a GP's letter

outlining  your

condition or something from a consultant

a previous letter and then you just have

to do

a small statement with it as well

of how you were negatively impact

in school and then it's all handled

through the CAO so once that once that's

done I think the deadlines like the

15th of March the CAO

then like handle it all once

everything's once you sit your Leaving

Cert. and the process for selection starts

throughout the summer and then I think

you get an email in the middle of summer

informing you whether you got DARE or

not

Brilliant, thank you so much. Another one of the pathways just to

remind you is Lifelong Learning and

it's a great way because you just

study things that you want to study,

there's no exams and it is held in

locations all around Dublin so it's

really fun.

Thank you so much for

answering my questions and the next one

is

What supports have you received from

the Access Centre? Because with the HEAR

and the DARE there's

a lot of focus on the Leaving Cert. but

once you finish the Leaving Cert.there is

also continuing support into college so

if you'd like to share what sort of

support you receive afterwards that would be great

and we will start with Gareth this time

Okay, so through UCD and the Access you're able to get so many supports

like I can't remember the exact thing but you're able to sit your exams in UCD rather

than in the RDS and you're given extra

time.

Other supports that I personally would use

would be the Writing Centre, the Maths Support Centre because I've taken so many years

before I went back to college I was like

I don't know how I'm going to do maths

I don't know how I'm going to write an essay so I found

that they we're very helpful and I found

some scholarships helpful because

obviously the costs going back to

college I found was quite difficult. It was something I didn't actually

necessarily plan for as much as I did so

I did find the scholarships like Cothrom na Féinne

scholarship quite helpful.

And they have an on-campus doctor

an on-campus counselling and if you're

not either to be seen quickly by the

counselling on campus normally they will

find you a counselor out of the campus

but it still is at a reduced cost as

compared to normal and they're just some

of the ones I receives I'm sure I have

to leave some options open for everyone

else to talk about.

Thank you so much. Richy, if

you'd like to go?

Yeah, just to echo what Gareth was saying there

The Student Support Fund can refund you

up to 500 euro because as we all know

college is a costly experience

similarly the scholarships -  if you

need them you should definitely apply for them

you obviously

need to apply for them in order to get

them but the ALL Centre can definitely

help you with that

In terms of the supports I would use

I would say that

the the academic Writing Centre is

crucial because you know

very few of us, if any of us, can actually

write an academic essay from the

beginning you know we're not

always perfect like that so it helps to

have an expert eye cast over your paper

before you submit it and these people

that work in the Writing Centre are PhD students

or you know actual academics so they'll

be able to tell you then and there if you're

on the right track, how your essay's

structured, if you're citing properly and

it's also in a very friendly and

non-judgmental way so it's

really really crucial. It's one that

I use a lot

Thank you so much. Hayley if you'd like

to share?

Yeah, the Writing Centre and the

scholarship would have been

two things I would use and actually

when COVID-19 first hit like I came

into really bad technical difficulty and

within a week I was able to avail of the

Student Support Fund and they were

able to give me money towards getting a laptop so

I could continue doing the at-distance

online learning

and then when you're doing University Access you have Thomond

like Thomond is non-stop! You pop in

to her whenever you need to

and she would have had a meeting with

me and kind of helped me to

problem-solve or kind of work through an

issue and and then I was in touch with

ALL so that would have been the

disability support so I would have been

offered extra time and in

exams or like Gareth said to sit

exam in UCD or an extension on

assignments if something happened

They were really understanding

and they really want to support you but

outside of that even the teachers and the

lectures themselves - they're always

responding to emails if you have a

question, they have designated office hours

most of them if you want to pop in

like everyone in the college wants to

support you and there's so much there if

you need it. There are so many

different things you know and you don't

feel like "oh no I have a problem" because

you know like they genuinely want to

help and they want to help you be an

autonomous learner so that's why the

support is there

and do avail of it because you

are made to feel like you're absolutely

entitled to it because it's there to

help you

Thank you so much. Favor if you

have anything to add?

I'd definitely say like Hayley said like the

people even in the Access Centre

are very supportive if you

have any questions

I remember in first year, Áine who's on this panel as well, she would meet

with each of us and talk to us about

budgeting and settling into college

and then like even throughout

the years if I need to email them

anything. If I have any inquiries like

they always go above and beyond to like

find the answer and if they don't have

the answer like they'll find somebody

that does have the answer and then aside

from the Access Centre for me the Maths

Support Centre has been really really

great. For me, coming into Science

like it was kind of shocking when I found

out that I still had to do Maths because

I tthought that I had left Maths behind me

so they have been really really helpful

in that because Maths was not my

strongpoint at all

and there's a lot of support

in UCD, it's really great for that.

That's brilliant, thank you so much.

and Owen?

When I came into UCD I met

with the Access Team, just to assess what kind of

what supports I might need during my

academic life and through the Access

Centre, I availed of things such as Assistive Technology

and the opportunity to

meet with

an Occupational Therapist to manage my fatigue and other things

Along with that I use the Maths Support Centre frequently and

any issues or anything I have

within my academic life I can come to

the Access Centre and just ask and

usually everyone's really good at

finding some kind of solution to my

problem and I haven't found a problem

that they haven't had a solution to as

of yet

Is Larisa gone? Do we still have her?

I'm here! Thank you so much.

I'd like to ask what would be your advice to make friends in college?

And we will start with Richy.

Making friends in college can seem daunting at first

especially if

you're coming in through one of these pathways

but really the way to do it is

to join societies essentially that's

something that you get to do within the

first few weeks.

College societies, there's a lot of, especially among mature students I find this, there's a tendency

to think that college societies are

for standard entry students and that

they don't really apply to mature

students or students coming in from

other pathways - that's absolutely not

true

This college experience is your college

experience so you have to make it your own

and you're absolutely entitled to

join those societies.

There is a society for everything in UCD

There's a Food Society,  there's LGBTQ

There are societies around interests,

subjects that you're doing -  French, German, etc.

There's a great diversity of

things to do out there and the way to make

friends is to jump in.

I was the Events Officer this year for the UCD Social Democrats and

that was a huge

huge thing for me to do. I'm not usually

a person that really jumps in but I

found that I've really benefited from

that experience because I've made so

many great friends so yeah aside from

that you can also make friends you know

simply just by being in classes you

might find that strange but you know

it's possible for a mature student and

a standard entry student, you know an

eighteen or nineteen year old, to have a

conversation in class and you find that

you're going to coffees

after the seminar is finished. It it happens very organically but

just to dispel any sort of fears

that incoming students might have

it's a really really friendly environment in

UCD and you should just not be

afraid to jump in

thank you so much, I

think Richy covered a lot of that so

thank you so much

I think we'll move on

to the next question because it's quite

topical given the situation that

we were all in this year so I would love

to hear how you were able to do the

transition to online learning and if

there's any advice you could offer on

this because it might be quite

beneficial for incoming students so Owen

if you'd like to go?

I found the transition

to online, I find

it very difficult personally from going

from the academic environments to

completely online required a whole lot

more energy and motivation I felt.

My advice to anyone that's coming

into college or transitioning

to it for the first time would be

maintain a schedule, keep on top of

your lectures as they come in as if you

were actually in college.

You can find yourself at the end of the week with

only attending two of maybe your ten odd lectures and then you have eight

to catch up on for the next week and it

just piles up and because it's online

and because it's a video, it takes a

lot longer to actually get through

each lecture because you're pausing the

video you're taking notes you're trying

to maybe understand something that can

come out clearly on the actual recording

or if it's over Zoom or something like

that as well it also causes issues so I

found a bit daunting at first attending

lectures online but you do get used to it

and just keeping a

schedule and keeping on top of is very

important, I feel anyways.

Hayley, if you'd like to offer your advice on this as well

Yeah, I would definitely say have a routine in place

so like you're setting times to

go in and do what you need to do online

and kind of remember everyone is in

the same boat so like everyone's

learning how to do this so don't put all

that pressure on yourself to just kind

of take it easy and kind of

navigate your way online like the University Access

course offers you a module in how to do

things online and how to manage it

better but I just found like keeping the

routine and going in and just

telling myself like I will kind of get

used to it and I'm just learning and not

putting that pressure on myself like I

found it easy then after a while I

was like this is absolutely fine and I

did miss the social aspect but it was

absolutely fine and I'm a big worrier and I was not good online like

I couldn't even get into this Zoom video

like there's things I find really

difficult but like after a while I was

absolutely fine so just kind of try and

keep your mind easy about it and

you will eventually figure it out and

you will enjoy it I think.

That's brilliant, thank you so much

and just one last question - what advice

would you, as leaders, give to you students

that are thinking about coming in UCD?

What advice would you have, Favor?

I think the advice that I would give is

just try to get as much

information as possible. If

there are Open Days, if there's

stuff like this like webinars, if there

are people that you know, I think it's

just really good to get as much

information as possible because I feel

like that was something that I probably

should have done like a lot more even

when it came to like my course - I

remember on the first day they were

telling us so many different things

about our course and the way things

would go and I was genuinely

shocked because I'd never actually like

read on my course as much as I probably

should have so just take

every opportunity that you have to get information just take it because

it's going to be really helpful along

the line

That's brilliant

Gareth,  what advice would you have?

I think there are probably multiple things

but one of them would be to absolutely just enjoy it while you can.

It's such a great experience going to college.

I was something I never thought

I would do.

I always thought "ah, college isn't for me" and now that I'm here

I think it's one of the best things

I've ever done. It's about not being

reserved, being open to change so like

just doing things that may not be in

your comfort zone is probably one of the things I would say to do because

you can open up so many opportunities

and as well lecturers are probably one

of the most understanding people you'll

meet. They're not these big bad scary

people that just give you a lecture and that's it,

It's up to you to understand them - 

it's not like that all, they're very

understanding. Like personal stuff happens

and they can extend

deadlines and all this. I had a

Lecturer and she

had this rule like you get 24 hour

response -  within 24 hours she would

respond to you no matter what the time.

Like you would you get emails from her back at

like 4:00 in the morning like the woman 

 must have never slept

but like she's so understanding,

you could go up to her at the

end of class and you could spend 10 minutes asking

her a  question and she would go

through it with you until you understood it

it wasn't "Oh, I gave you a

lecture, it's up to you to understand it in your own time"

so it's not like secondary school where

teachers will baby feed you

you do also have to do the work yourself

but the lecturers are there to help you. If they know you're putting in the work

they will very easily help

you to try to understand

Thank you so much.

Yeah I think that's the most

important thing for people to remember

that are coming into UCD that it is

filled with friendly faces especially

the Access Office and it's so

important if you need help just go and

ask. I think that's a very

important part of it.

and yeah I think this is us done for now

thank you so much

for listening and thank you to the

panelists for participating that was

great

and I will move on and pass the ball to Michelle now

Thank you very much Larisa

and thank you again to all the students - your experience and your knowledge of the supports

that are available and how you explain it

gives much more information than we could ever possibly do from where we're sitting

so thank you very, very much and thank you for being part of the panel as well.

So we're about to wrap up this webinar now and

I'm going to let you know again that all the information and everything that we've spoken about

is on our website along with our contact details.

If you were a little too shy

or a little too hesitant to enter any question into the chat function for this webinar

please don't hesitate to contact any one of us

with a question that you may have arising out of this afterwards.

so, on behalf of Áine, Enya and everyone at Access & Lifelong Learning

and particularly a great big thanks to the student panel,

we'd like to thank you for taking part in this today and we hope to see you at another webinar very soon.

So, Áine or  Enya, have you anything you'd like to sign off with?

No, thanks for logging in and hopefully we'll see you on campus too!

Thank you!

Take care! Bye!

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