Maybe the UK experience is different than US, but this sounds like 'no child left behind'. Let's make 50% of the students do inane coursework for a year so the other 50% don't feel bad about requiring an extra year to finish university. We'll call it 'personal improvement'. While it definitely takes a year to adjust to being on your own, the average US freshman experience calcifies the mind.

Example: I had 2 dorm friends with 1600 SAT scores that wasted their life away that first year because they already knew the material (like most of us). They got cocky and promptly got a 1.0 the next year when they finally had to work but didn't realize it, losing their scholarships. Freshman year is the best time to pump students with work because they are expecting/wanting a challenge. The first year should be about inspiring students to learn, not teaching them how to deal with insane amounts of free time.

This! Exactly! I'm currently in my first year and bored out of my skull with the material we're covering. Last week we spent going over the Data Protection Act in comp sci... the DPA is part of the standard grade course and I learnt it inside out in S3. I came to uni expecting a challenge - a new level of learning, but I'm so far left wanting.

Which means you are in an excellent position of having too much time and not enough to do. Don't waste this opportunity!

It takes a very long time to become awesome at something, so I'd suggest you start now while you have plenty of spare time.

I agree mostly with this statement, however for most schools (including the one I attended) where you are going for a Bachelor's degree, you are required to take a certain number of general elective credits and required basic classes. Supposedly this makes you a more well-rounded human, more of a broad thinker, what have you.. But for a major like mine (CompSci) it makes you wonder if it's really worth it in comparison to a 2 year degree or tech schooling. Was falling asleep in geology 101 every day for a semester and ending up with a bachelor degree and more loans worth it, when I could have been in the work force 2 years earlier probably doing the same thing? Who knows.... but universities should take more emphasis off general electives (badminton anyone?) and offer more major-related classes to those who are interested.

In the UK it's also likely that the students are living away from home for the first time, which takes a bit of getting used to for some.

It's difficult to strike a balance between not boring the brightest and losing the less bright completely.

The less bright should not be there in the first place.

University isn't supposed to be merely a continuation of secondary education.

Wherever you draw the line on who to take and who not to take, you will end up with a spectrum of abilities being accepted - there will always be the person who just made it in and there will always be the person who could have done it in their sleep. I meant "less bright" as a relative term (relative to the rest of their group) not as a euphemism for being objectively stupid.

Though I do agree that there is a case that too many people are going to university these days. But maybe that's just because I have a degree so I want to create scarcity!

Yeah, if a university education is a gleaming skyscraper the first year is like the foundation that holds it up: often unappreciated, but necessary.

I agree erikig.

1.) A part of it is also that one should choose the university one attends carefully - if that's possible. I went to a pure tech school my first year. There was no concern about wasted time in nonessential classes. We jumped right into the mix, taking what was relevant to our majors along with the typical foundational classes - chemistry, calculus and physics.