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Further Education Colleges in England
offer a variety of courses that can lead on to university,
jobs or further training. Courses range from Business
Studies to Horticulture, and just about anything else
you can think of. Nearly all courses are made up of
a number of small parts called modules or units, which
usually cover one subject such as Marketing. Some of
the units are compulsory and must be done to achieve
a qualification, while others are optional, and offer
you a wider choice within your chosen subject area.
This means that if you do a course in Hotel and Catering,
for example, and although you have to cover the basics,
you can pick a set of subjects that most interest you.
This makes courses available in Further Education colleges
in the UK very flexible for anyone aged sixteen or over.
The most popular courses for studying
post-16 are Business Studies-related; more students
study this subject than any other. But what do you actually
study on Business Studies courses? There are nearly
always compulsory units on marketing, human resources,
the business environment, business finance and business
at work. In addition, you can study customer service,
business law, IT in business, and management accounting.
You will also be encouraged to do work experience while
studying for your qualification, either for two or three
weeks together, or one day a week for the whole year.
This will normally be work in a company, where you get
the chance to explore how organisations operate and
experience working life. During work experience, you
will be visited by your lecturer and keep a diary; you
may also be asked to research an aspect of the company
such as the Health and Safety arrangements, recruitment,
marketing or publicity.
Every college student is supported by
a tutor, so you will have one specific person that you
can talk to about your studies and progress. They will
also be available to give advice on more personal issues
such as money or health. As well as the tutors, colleges
also have specialist advisors who are able to assist
with many problems, such as housing or legal problems.
In addition, many colleges offer activities to students
which are outside normal teaching. These could include
sports, music, drama, languages, first aid or community
work.
Another very popular area of study in
the UK is Leisure, Recreation and Tourism. Increasingly
large numbers of people are employed in the leisure
and recreation industries, and these courses cover a
wide range of things you need to know if you want to
work in this area. You are likely to have some compulsory
units on investigating leisure and recreation, safe
practices in the industry, the sports industry, marketing,
and customer service. You can then decide on further
options such as exercise physiology, sports coaching
or hospitality.
For Tourism courses, there are similar
core units related to the industry, but your options
are varied and could include travel agency operations,
staging conferences, business travel, tour operations
or entertainment. It is also useful to take additional
courses for the travel industry, such as ticketing or
air travel, as these could increase your chances of
finding employment. Many UK students study a language
as well, such as Spanish or Italian, as that can help
them into the job market.
These courses always involve trips and
visits, which can help students to compare two completely
different tourist spots, such as the English Lake District
and Brighton; or how different leisure centres are run
and organised such as a golf club and swimming pool.
In addition, students on travel and tourism courses
usually have at least one trip outside the UK to study
tourism in a different setting. They are also often
advised to take First Aid courses and, if working in
swimming pools, a Pool Lifesaver award. Leisure and
Tourism courses offer wonderful opportunities to get
jobs, travel or move on to taking a degree in management
of either sports or tourism. There are some occupationally
specific courses known as NVQs that relate exactly to
the sort of job you want to do. These cover a wide variety
of areas, and include hospitality service, reception,
retail operations and restaurant management.
Another popular area of study is
engineering – there are a whole range of different
courses, from electrical or software engineering, to
motor vehicle engineering or construction. Depending
on your particular interests you will find differences
in course content, but you will have to study mathematics,
IT and engineering principles, as well as learning to
apply all of these. There are general courses that offer
the opportunity to study elements of engineering, such
as the engineering business environment, application
of new technology, engineering materials, applied science
or maths for engineers. Alternatively, you can study
a very specific course, such as aircraft engineering,
engineering assembly, production engineering or fibre-optics.
Whatever you do, each course has a high practical element,
and you will spend plenty of time in workshops. You
will be encouraged to do some work experience in an
engineering company, as this gives you a much better
insight into the real life of an engineer. You can get
technician jobs with the qualifications you receive
at college, but they also open the way onto degrees
in engineering at University. You will, however, be
expected to have a good level of maths and IT skills.
This is only a small sample of the enormous variety
of subjects you can study at English FE Colleges –
so why not try one?
Author
Maggie Greenwood
Development Advisor (Qualifications)
FEDA
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