As a member of President you will be part of an academic community, and academic work will be central to your college life during term. The following section is intended to lay out clearly what the College's academic expectations of you are, and how it helps you to meet them.

An Overview of your career at President

So now you are at President…..during the three or four months of your programme, President will support and encourage you in your academic learning. Three or four months is a long time, and you are expected at all times to work hard and to the best of your ability. You will have to pass University/ College examinations either during or at the end of your first year of study at President. The short terms do not mean that you do not need to put in so much effort here. Quite the reverse term is intensively packed with the range of tuition that President offers you: lectures, classes, laboratories (if you are doing a science subject), and, not least, tutorials. In tutorials you will have the chance to discuss specific topics in detail in very small groups with subject tutors in President, or with subject experts who are well versed and specialized in their topics. You will be expected to hand in essays or problem sheets on time every week for tutorials and classes. Your subject tutors will explain the balance of what you need to do, and are always available to help you plot your course through your programme of study, which may involve, for instance, the choice of different options at various stages. You will also need to exploit all the time available to you during the time here.

Matriculation Ceremony

Matriculation is the formal registration by which you are accepted as a member of President College Kuala Lumpur. It only occurs once, at the outset of your President career, regardless of the number of courses you may eventually undertake.  All students of the College, whether pre-university, undergraduate or postgraduate, are termed ‘Junior Members’ of the University: you may notice references to students as ‘Junior Members’ in official College documentation.  In order to matriculate, you are asked to attend a Matriculation Ceremony. It is imperative that you attend the ceremony otherwise you will not be permitted to reside as a student of the College and enjoy any of the privileges or benefits afforded by the College during your time with us or later.

Academic Dress

ORDINARY CLASS DAYS

Academic dress must befit the stature of a student at President.  This means a shirt, dress, skirts above knee length, decent T shirt and long pants or jeans. No slippers or singlet’s are permitted unless unofficial dress days are announced.

ACTIVITIES/FORMAL FUNTIONS/REPRESENTATIVE FUNCTIONS

For men this means a dark suit, dark socks and shoes or boots, white shirt and collar and a white bow tie.  For women, this means a dark skirt or trousers, dark stockings and shoes or boots, a white blouse and a black tie, and if desired, a dark coat.   Anyone who is not properly dressed on these occasions may be turned away by the College Officials.

Tutorials

Tutorials are a major method of teaching in President in all subjects, the main method in humanities subjects and an important part in science subjects. You will have tutorials every week, and will have to prepare written work required by the tutor in advance for discussion at the tutorial. Tutorials are not intended to be a 'mini lecture': lecture courses provide a chance to 'get information'. Nor is it the aim of tutorials to cover all the topics that can come up in the exams. Questions in the exams are set from material covered in lectures, as well as from material covered in tutorials.   The main aim of tutorials is to require you to think actively about the material being covered, dealing with the issues in a constructive and critical way and learning through explaining your ideas to your tutor.  Another aim is to help you improve your written work, through interaction with your tutor during the tutorial. A tutorial will help both you and your tutor assess how far you have mastered the work assigned to you; it will help you solve difficulties which have arisen in the course of that work; and it should offer guidance with a view to further progress. It provides a framework for your study.

Examination entries

You will be sent/advised to undertake on your own the relevant forms from the College Secretary/University/Institution form which your exams are conducted and it is your responsibility to accurately complete and return them in good time to meet the deadline set by the University/College/Institution.  Failure to do so will lead automatically to a late entry fine, currently RM 50 imposed by the College; failure to submit a form at all, leads to exclusion from the examination.  Although the College Secretary does her utmost to encourage you to meet the deadline by sending out at least two reminders, it is ultimately your responsibility.

If things are note going so well what can you do

Obviously, students do sometimes go through some periods of difficulty with their work, and this will be viewed sympathetically by tutors, provided that you do your best to keep up a satisfactory level of work at all times. The tutorial system works best when there is a high level of trust between tutor and student, so do keep closely in touch with your subject tutors, particularly if you are experiencing some difficulties, academic, medical or personal, which may affect your ability to maintain the pressure or standard of work that he or she is requiring. It may well be that you prefer to speak to someone other than your tutor about such matters, and if your academic performance is involved, you are strongly encouraged to speak to the Senior Tutor, who will be able to advise you of the best course of action. For other points of contact in College for personal problems or difficulties, see Section below on Student Support.

Diagnostics

You will find that we will be constantly reviewing your progress in your subject in one sense with your subject tutors through the work which you do with them in tutorials. In addition, in order to help both you and your tutors chart your progress more formally through your course we will prepare diagnostic examinations which mirror examination standards after classes to ensure that you are exam ready.

Academic Feedback

Your tutors will normally mark or comment on your essays and problem sheets every week, unless some other timetable has been agreed. You may also have work submitted for 360 classes marked or commented on.   You will have the chance to comment on the tutorials you have received both in President through a Tutorial Evaluation Questionnaire, which is available at the reception counter. It includes a list of standard questions plus space for additional comments. A separate form should be filled out for each of the tutors who has taught you, including Fellows, College Lecturers, tutors from other colleges and (if applicable) graduate students. Issues emerging from the results of the Questionnaire are reviewed via the College's Academic Committee (the Senior Tutor's Committee), with student representatives present to share in the discussion.

Parents/Guardians will receive an academic report of a students’ progress every two months the student is at President. The report will compromise of the student’s attendance, discipline, 360 feedback, lecturer evaluation, syllabus coverage and mock / diagnostic examination marks.

Rewards for good progress & scholarships

The College is keen to encourage work of a high standard, and offers the award of Scholarships, Exhibitions and College Prizes for those who have been making particularly good progress in their studies and who show exceptional promise, and for those who have achieved an outstanding performance in Examinations. Scholarships and Exhibitions are awarded to students in their second or subsequent terms, and are held to the end of the Academic Year in which they have been awarded. Re-election is conditional on maintained work and progress, and awards may be removed at any time for bad work. Scholarships or Exhibitions may also be awarded at times other than the annual review as recognition of exceptionally promising work. A full list of all awards, including eligibility criteria and value, is available from the College Office, and is also included on the College Web Site. Prizes and scholarships will also be awarded for performances of excellence by our partners. An updated list can be obtained at the Admissions Office.