Paying for Course syllabus?

[QueenAnnissa]

The ADN program that I will be entering as a first year student on August 19th charges for the course syllabus & guide, which also includes the lab manual and clinical manual created by the instructors at the college. It is a highly detailed and specific 216 page document, there is a ton of information and guidance in this packet. It includes schedules, dates, rubrics for assignments, what is covered in each class, lab and clinical, information on tests, assignments, group projects, lab skills and papers. Etc etc etc. Do other schools charge for this? Do other schools create their own lab manual and clinical manual? I mentioned this in another thread and there were a couple of comments questioning this practice.

[Ikikaeru]

At my school we had these as well but the charge was mainly for printing and the profit of the bookstore which was separate from the school. I would bet if you look close your campus bookstore is run by a separate entity, I may be wrong though, my brain is fried after work lol.

[christina731]

I don't pay for a syllabus but I do pay technology fees and testing fees per hour as part of my tuition. I assume those fees cover my syllabus and such.

I pay those types of fees as well at my college. And they are even higher when the class is online. Maybe that's how I pay for my syllabi. I always called them "B.S." fees Although prior to my nursing classes, most were only a few pages. Now they are hundreds of pages!

[moabgirlie]

I go to a technical college, for our LPN year we were required to pay a nominal $40 ish each semester for the 'syllabus' which included the outlines used in each class to take notes on during lecture. It was holed punched and ready to be put into a binder -or 3.

Our RN year we were emailed the 'syllabus'. Each class was over 150 pages. We were still required to print them and I honestly only saved about $5 printing them at home... And I still had to hole punch them.

Doing my prerequisite classes I spent $100's in paper and ink printing at home. I was relieved to just buy a packet that was shrink wrapped and ready to go!

[RLtinker, LPN]

All I can say is buy a laser printer and buy paper in bulk. It is much, much cheaper.

I don't think supplying all the notes and supplemental would work very well at our school. A typical power point presentation is 60+ slides each (once had a teacher go upto 96 slides ) with usually 16-20 slide sets per class, the syllabus, which are usually close to being the same for each class anyways are usually around 10 pages long, there was usually 4 or 5 pages of supplemental material or assignments each week, a class outline (schedule) ranged from 1 page to 15 pages (some teachers were more detailed) plus whatever assignments we had to turn in for that class. I think I have a 1.5-2 inch binder for each class. We also had a student hand book which was given to us at orientation, which sounds a like what some of you call syllabi. It included fun stuff like the general rules, all the faculty contact information, the scheduled class order (the scheduled of of cohort was predetermined), math rules, associated costs, grading scales and stuff like that. When we had lab or clinical, such as our check offs we had to print off that information too. Hence the 600 or so documents in my school folder.

The other thing is that some of the supplemental information comes from copyrighted sources like text books, newspapers, and magazines. While it is common in academia, I think the publishers would get upset if the school tried to sell this stuff to us. Besides I like haveing this stuff on my computer as a back up when I am studying, paper and notes get lost or messed up all the time. It is like insurance.

[Wrench Party]

Paying for a syllabus? How strange. I suppose we pay for it anyway because the tuition of nursing school pays for the instructors

and they write the syllabi, but no, I never had to pay for just a syllabus.

Now, of course, I dropped several paychecks (and weeks of my life) on the uniforms and shoes, textbooks, clinical supplies, physical exams, vaccinations, paperwork. etc. etc!

[ang13]

Gotta squeeze out as much as they can from us. We also pay for the syllabus for every course. I'm in a diploma program composed of two 16 week courses and the rest 8 week courses for two years. That money adds up fast to say the least!

[mpgj83]

My course syllabus was around the equivalent of 34USD. It's a little more detailed than the syllabi we get for each class at the beginning of each semester, and printed on better quality paper. It's also optional. This was from a school in the Philippines.

[ajjones1322]

I have been attending colleges since 1997 and I have never paid for a syllabus. If it is that amount of detail I would welcome it and pay for it.

[Wrangler156]

I haven't ever had them charge for it.... Last semester they had well idk how many pages I just know by the end it filled up a 1 inch binder and we didn't have to pay for it. They printed it off and gave them to us. They also posted it online. Seems odd to make you pay for it since you are already paying tuition....

[reagansm]

Hardly anything was given to us. We had access to everything on "Blackboard" if we needed to turn it in we usually had to print it ourselves. If you wanted to write on your syllabus you had to print it yourself. I think I would have rather purchased the syllabus, it would have saved me A LOT of time!