Assessments at university
Have you been wondering what assessments at university are like?
One of the perks of studying at 成人B站 is that assessments are designed to mirror what you’d get to experience if you had a career in your degree. They’re often, varied, a mix of academic and practical, and offer chances to take control over and create your own projects.
When I was studying Filmmaking and Screenwriting, I wrote screenplays, developed my own TV series and feature film, and worked on short films. They didn’t feel like assessments in the same way as they did for GCSE’s and A-Levels. They were chances to let my creativity go wild and bring to life the stories that meant something to me.
While I studied a creative course, similar experiences can be found across various other subjects.
Below, hear from other students about what they enjoyed about their assessments.
I really enjoyed working on my goal-based assignment during first semester with the assistance of a third-year coach. I had freedom to choose what to write about (I ended up choosing to improve my sleep) which increased my motivation! This was also a great opportunity to find theories, frameworks and research which linked to my goal and help me work towards completing it.
We had slightly more support for this module as we were getting peer coached. This involved weekly meetings for a month with our coaches, discussing our goals, and then implementing our new knowledge. This was an incredibly unique experience which made the assignment fun and personal to work on.
Many of my assessments have been very practical to set us up for the job market. This year we created a portfolio of different stories in different formats, such as radio, TV and social media, and wrote up a learning report to reflect on our work. I really enjoyed learning how to use different equipment and the important things to consider when creating content.
It was helpful, interesting and a great way to get to know different pieces of equipment and collect a variety of my own original work to share with possible employers. As I needed to approach people to interview and constantly observe what was happening locally to find a potential story, the assignment encouraged me to leave my comfort zone. To help me, there were lots of opportunities to talk to my lecturers and have 1-1 tutorials to get feedback on my ideas.
The learning report also gave me the chance to practice my academic writing and develop my skills in including relevant sources and references. The assessment is helped me become better at both academic writing and researching.
In the first semester of my first year, I had a Film History Essay as part of my ‘Fiction: History and Production’ module. We were given a choice of 10 questions to answer; each question was about a different period of cinema. I was already excited about having the freedom to select the content of my essay, so I decided to talk about German Expressionism. I really enjoyed that class and was keen to learn more about the movement.
I got to watch lots of different movies that were important to the movement, and I studied them to pick out key features and themes; I love watching movies, so this was really no chore. Doing the research for the essay was engaging, and I learnt so much about important figures and historical events of that period. The fact that I got to choose the topic of the essay kept me so motivated, as it was something I was highly interested in and keen to learn more about. I was pleasantly surprised by the freedom of essay topic and felt empowered by the independence.
One of my favourite assessments was the Objective Structured Clinical Examination, OSCE for short. It’s a set of six mini exams, each to be performed within a strict eight-minute timeframe, wherein after completing one, you rotate to the next station. Given that this exam style is vastly different from a traditional examination, alongside being relatively more challenging to prepare for, it is often quoted as the most feared examination by medical students.
Ironically, that’s what I enjoyed most about it. Many medical students buddy-up to practice communication, examinations and clinical skills together, helping each other improve, with the collective goal of passing the OSCE. This exam really teaches you that no matter how good you are independently, medicine is a team sport. Peer-to-peer feedback and cooperation is irreplaceable within the medical field, and I love having the chance to practically work with my classmates and sharing the comradery.
In my first semester of my third year, one of my assignments was creating a social media post which analysed a primary source and related it to the topics we were studying. We were given the freedom to decide what to focus our assignment on and how to present it, so I decided to do a blog post as I feel I could be quite creative with the headings to be as engaging as possible.
It was interesting having to balance being academic whilst creating something that can be understood by everyone. I used a mix of informal and formal language to help with this. When deciding what primary source to use, I wanted one that would be easy to relate to the topic of gender, as that is what interested me the most when studying this module. In the end I created a blog post that looked at how gender stereotypes were reinforced by the fight against prohibition in Britain.
Final thoughts
If you’re reading this feeling anxious about what to expect from university level assessments, hopefully this helps reassure you that they can be exciting experiences which offer you the freedom, knowledge and equipment to create your own projects and experience what working a particular job would be like.
Worcester also has lots of sources of support you can contact throughout your degree. There’s, your Personal Academic Tutor (PAT), the Centre of Academic English and Skills and firstpoint – all there to support you every step of the way.