max Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 Originally posted by garrence It's true (but not politically correct) that if you compare two departments of the same discipline at both, there is a marked difference in quality. Sheffield Uni has better students and world-class research. Hallam is an old polytechnic and does get less-able students. I'd be interested in seeing your source for this truism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikey Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 There would be no competition in the city, so no way. Although they may not compete directly, they must compete on some courses, and definately on geography. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrence Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 Competition is not good for research. Sharing of knowledge is good, and what always used to happen. For teaching, is there much competition between the two? They are in different leagues. I'd have thought Sheffield Uni is more concerned about it's government inspector's ratings, and about competing with Leeds Uni, Nottingham Uni etc, than about competing with Hallam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrence Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 Originally posted by max I'd be interested in seeing your source for this truism. Research quality is assessed in the four-yearly Research Assessment Excercise. Results at http://www.hero.ac.uk/rae/Results/ Academic departmental quality is judged by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. http://www.qaa.ac.uk/ Student quality can be seen from the differences in entry requirements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t020 Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 Originally posted by garrence It's true (but not politically correct) that if you compare two departments of the same discipline at both, there is a marked difference in quality. Sheffield Uni has better students and world-class research. Hallam is an old polytechnic and does get less-able students. My gut feeling is that merging would just bring Sheffield Uni down. Less able? I am in my final year at Hallam and have A levels of AAAB. I just preferred the idea of doing a more relevant course rather than the more academic alternative due mainly to future employment prospects. I'd like to hear what A levels you achieved? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrence Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 I had the same A-Level results as yourself. I was in the top 5 people in the country for one of the A's (they don't tell you exactly where because the results would be so close). I don't know why that's of interest to you though - I did my undergrad at one of the three great universities (Hull). (Blackadder IV) People on a course with lower entry requirements will generally be less able than people on a course with higher entry requirements. There will always be individual exceptions. I think an outright merger would benefit neither institution. Sheffield has many departments performing world-class research, Hallam has none [1]. Hallam has an excellent reputation for innovative teaching and is doing some really good stuff in distance/electronic learning. To bring this thread back on topic, here's one for the discussion. Could Sheffield be made the "City of research and learning"? The decent academics from Hallam move over to Sheffield with the aim of increasing its number of 5/5* departments. Several people have already said that Sheffield is more academic, so what if it plays to this, reduces student numbers a little, maybe gives some courses to Hallam and tries to get a reputation of being a little elitist. I don't like elitism either, but such a reputation would encourage cutting edge companies into Sheffield. Hallam meanwhile cultivates a reputation of "if you hire someone who studied at Hallam they they've got what they need for the job". I'm not advocating this because I haven't thought it through. There may be a way in which that can work, maybe not. I suspect that the instant judgment of the message board will mean that it gets shot down in flames though [1] RAE 2001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t020 Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 I'm not arguing that, overall, the quality of students is better at Sheffield. Just realise that some people go to Hallam through choice and not just because nowhere else would take them with their D in A Level Sports Studies. Some have very good A Level results but prefer a direct career path degree. With regards to the merging; no, I don't think they should merge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kittykat Posted February 26, 2004 Share Posted February 26, 2004 Originally posted by t020 Less able? I am in my final year at Hallam and have A levels of AAAB. I just preferred the idea of doing a more relevant course rather than the more academic alternative due mainly to future employment prospects. I'd like to hear what A levels you achieved? Same here, got the same a-level grades too! and got accepted by so called 'good unis' but still chose hallam which has a 100% graduate employment rate for my course. Its not fair to generalise that hallam has less able students cos that just isnt true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPG Posted February 26, 2004 Share Posted February 26, 2004 Originally posted by t020 but prefer a direct career path degree. For instance me! I want to be able to come out of uni with more than just a degree, but with some certifications as well, I dont think Sheffield offers such training? (or does it?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrence Posted February 26, 2004 Share Posted February 26, 2004 Certifications as in Redhat Certified Engineer etc? Having done a comp sci degree, I don't think there wouldn't be time in the syllabus, tho' it wouldn't hurt to ask the department. Most general Comp Sci courses give you broad grounding in the discipline but cannot teach you a particular skill in depth. They have to cover software design principles, diagramming paradigms, functional languages, object oriented languages, logical languages, formal specification, some hardware, networks, legal issues, etc etc. You might prefer to do, say, software engineering instead of comp sci, as this would miss out bits of theory and cover more software design and programming. What kinda job do you want? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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