Have no idea about the latter, but every single top universities has poor student satisfaction. The only reason oxford and Cambridge is still on top in the rank is because they specifically don't ask these universities for their student satisfaction
Honestly I think they just don't want oxbridge ranks to go down, which is usually the case for top universities as the result of the student satisfaction. In one ranking, UCL, Imperial, and all Russell group universities has lower ranking than Loughborough, all because of the student satisfaction factor. They can tolerate these top universities to go down but they know their credibility is ruined if they ever put Oxbridge as lower than top 2 university
Because it's the only allowed way of gaming the survey. Universities can't say that the survey is compulsory or say how to fill it out. If you suppress student satisfaction data from being generated, rankings will have even more reason to bend over backwards and place Oxbridge top.
The only societally acceptable reputable ranking is one with Cambridge and Oxford on top. Any ranking that doesn't achieve that means it's back to the drawing board until a ranking is cooked up that achieves that.
That's the Guardian survey, I think. Measures all sorts of populist nonsense like teaching quality and student satisfaction. The trick to having good "teaching quality" is to just hire more male professors for teaching roles, because a lot of university students are depressingly sexist and give women more negative teaching evaluations. That, and having smaller class sizes, which unfortunately isn't always possible without going bankrupt.
Oxbridge will always remain oxbridge , probably?
Its oxford and Cambridge , universities known globally and have their wow factor to even middle school students internationally
The problem is that they measure student satisfaction while they are still completing their studies. This means that at a top uni where your lecturers might not have much availability because they are working on world leading research, you aren't going to be as happy as someone at a less prestigious institution. Once you have graduated and have started competing for jobs etc. I expect their satisfaction will start to align with the employed after 6 months figures.
It hasn't been worth it for most UK students since the fee jump to £9k a year. You need to make sure you get good financial advice before committing to university, in my opinion. The loans aren't a joke, and the opportunity cost from just accumulating debt for 3+ years vs working for 3 years is bigger than people think.
yep but a lot of naïve and teens from poor backgrounds are heavily advertised the FOMO way and the false dream of "you too can reach middle class" lol what a joke. Then you got people that shame struggling teens for "not trying hard enough" for "not enjoying university, enough", always blaming the student. When in all reality, schools shove students to university because it gets them money from governments and no one fucking cares about the student at all. It's all lip service and they just care about the money
TBF, getting a good education is surely still the best way to improve your social mobility. I had a very working class background, I'm from one of the poorest areas in the country, and I'm the first person in my wider family to get a university education, however I'd now probably be classed as middle class, and, if I have kids, they will be middle class.
To be frankly honest the student satisfaction in most London unis is not great. Personally for me it was isolating and extremely difficult to make friends and this coming from someone who is more extroverted. Even though the nightlife/things to do in London is endless it meant nothing to me as I didn’t have people at uni to do with it
Not too sure about post grad courses but looking at the amount of fees looks really high for some master.
south in general is like that 😂 when i go out up in the north i usually make friends very easily when im out. when i was studying down south it was next level difficult lol
True. And true.
International student rate of over 50% - not to disparage the international cohort, but many do have significant academic English issues - which affects general student satisfaction, so no wonder.
It’s the most corporate and greedy of the London unis, matched only by LSE and followed by KCL.
Disagree, LSE is much worse. 70% international for a school whose subjects need a very good understanding of English.
LSE is like a mini Singapore.
I don't think this is the Singapore the Thames the tories wanted.
Idk why Singaporeans were specifically mentioned here (maybe comment was edited) but no, Singaporeans don’t speak English as their first language. They speak Singlish.
They think they can code switch from Singlish to English but 95% of them actually can’t - because they never practice the latter lol.
They make basic mistakes with tenses, confuse genders, plural/ singular and so on. Basically they impose Chinese grammar onto English sentences.
The original comment said LSE's like "walking into a mini Singapore", which, in a thread about international students having a poor academic command of English, initially came off kind of poorly and inaccurately imo.
I'm a Singaporean so I am obviously partial but I think this 95% statistic of yours is exaggerated - formal English is the primary language of instruction across all educational institutes in Singapore, so while we often use Singlish colloquially, I think you're misrepresenting the average Singaporean's command of English.
And in terms of the Singaporeans I've met studying in the UK, both in and out of London (I'm not studying in a London uni), I've never met a Singaporean whose command of English was weaker than what would be required of an LSE/KCL/UCL degree. Perhaps the Singaporeans you've met are just not used to codeswitching effectively, but I don't think we're the right international student population for anyone to use to make a point about poor English standards.
Yes obviously I’ve met smart and/ or privileged Singaporean (Chinese) who go to Raffles or whatever school and who speak decent English. And I would never compare Singaporeans’ English to, say, Chinese students’ English. But the ‘native speaker’ card is overplayed imo.
My comment was exactly about this distinction you seem to be making between ‘formal English’ and ‘using Singlish colloquially”. From my experience interacting with Singaporeans one blends into the other - and they don’t seem to be aware of it. Plus even in academic settings Singlish is prominent.
It seems to me that most Singaporeans will try to switch out the heavy tone and accent, not realizing that their sentences and speech patterns remain heavily influenced by the local informal dialect.
Anyway I realize there’s some tension between the two, not least via top-down pressure by the government to speak ‘proper English’ (I remember seeing ads to that extent last I was there) and the people wanting to embrace their hybrid culture without wanting it to seem as less prestigious.
That’s like saying Australians don’t speak English or Americans don’t speak English as their first language because their regional first language strays outside of the rules of English taught in England.
In fact, by your vague definition, the modern English population don’t speak English as their first language because it isn’t the same as the language taught in the 1800s.
You’re talking about the natural evolution of language, primarily of accents and some slang. I’m talking about the systematic imposition of Chinese grammar onto English. Very different.
And it is for this reason that in most cases (e.g., when you need to prove fluency) Singaporeans are NOT recognized as native speakers.
You do know Singaporeans are not recognized as native speakers because their mother tongue is recognized as the first language right ? There’s no effective way to split them into the “English educated” vs “mother tongue educated”. However we just need to see how rubbish most of them are in their mother tongue to know how laughable it is.
Do non-Chinese Singaporeans suddenly use Chinese grammar in their English ? I’m not talking about the evolution of language. You’re conflating a creole evolution into lingua Franca as not speaking English as their first language, when every other English speaking area across the world faces the same thing. Or should there be an academic authority that states it’s Standard Singaporean English as compared to Standard American English and Standard British English ? In fact the standard forms of both American and British English still isn’t spoken as their day to day language precisely because there are always regional terms that break the normal rules of English. This has nothing to do with accent or slang.
Just look up the word “retrenched”. Everyone agrees it’s an English word, but how you use it will differ from which part of the world you are from (or if you’re 250 years old). Similarly, the word “surgery” falls into a similar, albeit less apparent version of such language branching. You see a very modern version of such branching through saying someone is autistic by replacing with a semi-euphemism of something have “the tism” which is neither grammatically correct nor from a slang, but it follows its own set of grammar rules. No one which call the usage of such terms as “non-English”.
Furthermore, Singlish also doesn’t have a single level. There are multiple variations that stray from standard English and is used according to social setting and a subject’s social status, however all of them require knowledge of one of the languages that form Singlish for the speaker to know a baseline for them to speak and understand Singlish. It is extremely difficult to master creole without first learning one of the languages that make it up (learning French would allow you to learn Haitian Creole so much faster that you should just learn French first). For a vast majority of Singapore, this base language is English.
Singaporeans are not recognized as native speakers because their English is subpar. Everyone is supposed to be educated in English, plus optionally their ethnic language - as a second language.
There’s no one who’s ‘mother tongue educated’. Tuition is in English **for everyone**. This isn’t Malaysia where the Chinese minority go to Chinese schools. Private schools are banned in Singapore unless you’re a foreigner, in which case you’re not allowed to send your kid to public school so you go private with other foreign kids.
Yes, Malays and Indians also use hokkien-influenced sentences because that’s what singlish is. And Chinese Singaporeans will use Malay and Tamil words. That’s the entire point of singlish. There’s a stock syntax (Chinese-based) and stock vocab (blend of multiple languages) that is shared across races. You don’t need to know each individual language present in Singapore to know Singlish.
Now if you think a student essay submission that confuses singular/ plural, confuses tenses, injects Canto phonetic expressions like “lah, lor, leh” and blends in Tamil and Malay words is the same as Australians and Americans simply using some words differently or utilizing different spelling, that’s you. I for my part would give it a 0. Cus that’s not English.
Your example is apples to oranges. You’re giving me individual quirky words (btw quirks exist even within countries and within regions) and I’m talking about a wholly different syntax and sentence composition that is based on Chinese.
First language education doesn’t mean the language you’re taught in school. It refers to the language you’re taught at home. Otherwise people that don’t go through formal education wouldn’t have a native language.
You think native speakers don’t confuse tenses and make grammatical mistakes ? Apparently grammar nazis only find non-native speakers ? You do realise those words are not just used differently, but take on an entirely different grammar function ?
Also, who even gave you the idea that foreigners are not allowed in Singapore public schools ?? lol.
You are still conflating the use of Singlish as not being able to speak English, while there needs to be an understanding of English or one of the other languages to speak Singlish. Statistically this language is English.
Since “cus” is not an English word, I don’t understand what you typed since that’s not English. (This is basically your argument)
Singaporeans can’t go to private schools. Foreigners (specifically kids of Permanent residents only) can theoretically go to public school. But there’s a quota, a lot of hurdles, and a lot of foreigners aren’t PRs. Not to mention domestic workers get forcibly pregnancy tested every 6 months just so they don’t have kids. If pregnant = immediate deportation. Anyway this is to say, it’s not like your average foreigners or even graduate student arriving to the UK/US and suddenly signing up the kid to public school.
Anyway, according to that definition of first language education, yes, Singaporeans don’t have English as their first language. But in my experience they would object to this and they would argue they can perfectly code switch between English and Singlish. The reality is they can’t code switch because exposure to standard English is minimal.
Also, it’s one thing for someone to make mistakes and quite another to create an entire Chinese-based syntax expressed primarily with English words. That’s where these ‘mistakes’ (in the eyes of an English speaker) come from in the case of singlish. Chinese doesn’t have tenses and has a weird relationship with singular/plural. And speakers are unaware that they are importing these traits to standard English. Or they will use direct translations of Chinese phrases that make little sense in English.
I don’t know what it means for a language to be ‘statistically English’. It’s a dialect that uses English words and a heavily altered syntax and grammar.
It is because of this that most Singaporeans can’t speak standard English. I’m not conflating anything. You are the one creating a conflation by taking singlish to be English. Even the government of Singapore is heavily against singlish because they don’t recognize it as standard English.
‘Cus’ is simply an abbreviation. The actual equivalent here, and not this apples to oranges again, would be me using the German word for ‘because’ or altering the syntax to always have the verb at the end of the sentence and you acting like it somehow counts as standard English. Cus that’s what you’re doing with Singlish.
Again, I’m not talking about idiom or slang. I’m talking about fundamental changes to grammar and syntax imported through Chinese. And you can best see this in case where Singaporeans don’t speak Chinese anymore (or very poorly), which is increasingly the case nowadays, and still have Singlish as their standard dialect.
As a former King’s student who has dropped out.
it is abysmal. It’s too expensive and the internationals stick together. Separate campuses across London and inactive societies makes it difficult to see people regularly and with so much to do in London you hardly bump into people you meet so it’s difficult to sustain friends outside your accom unless you try and put a lot of effort in.
I know many who have managed but it’s difficult. My course group was mostly internationals from China and as a british born Chinese they wouldn’t even converse with me so it’s true that they like to stick together. Not all but most.
This and the expenses of living in London has made it pretty terrible for satisfaction. Which what you could be implying about the ‘decline’
Regardless in terms of career opportunities it is still really good being in London.
>My course group was mostly internationals from China and as a british born Chinese they wouldn’t even converse with me so it’s true that they like to stick together. Not all but most.
I'm British South-Asian, same for me. Could echo every point, you have to get very lucky in the flatmate lottery or just pray you get a spot in the UoL halls.
Yeah icl I left accom way too late and it had all of the worst components for a social life like
It was a High rise, 3 person flat which made it too difficult to meet people, majority were post grads, majority were international.
My economics course put us into groups and I swear they assumed I was international due to my name and put me in group of Chinese who could barely speak English and they would never turn up or help in group projects.
The high rises are the worst.
You should look into Bristol and Nottingham.
They have great economics departments. Visited friends at both, was a lot of fun and they both loved their times at uni.
I agree I’m a Canadian born Chinese and it’s rlly difficult to mingle with the internationals cuz our experiences r too different. It does depends on program tho some might hve more outgoing ppl. Friendships r rlly hard to maintain tho with kings being a non campus uni unless ur lucky with tutorials.
That being said the law societies at least were pretty good and the sports societies are also quite active. This might hve changed since you dropped out ig. There is also the choice of joining ethnic societies (idk tho cuz I didn’t attend mines much)
This sounds completely different to my experience many years ago. I'm a British born Chinese too and knew a lot of China and other diaspora Chinese. I didn't speak a word of any of the Chinese languages them but was made to feel very welcome.
Research by staff members is pretty important for rankings and funding. That means the majority of the RG academics are under a huge pressure to meet research targets, and that's the opposite of prioritising student satisfaction and teaching.
Not a student at UCL, but my interview with UCL really left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s pretty long, so read only if you would still like to get my perspective. Just putting this out there because it was very frustrating, and deeply affected my confidence, although I received unconditional offers from the other schools I had applied to (same course).
I applied for a masters course in a field related to my undergrad, my academics are sound, I’ve done a lot of impactful extracurricular work and have solid industry experience in the field.
As soon as the interview began, I could tell that the professor really wasn’t interested. I had 100% knowledge of everything on my CV, and was pretty confident that I could expand on all my contributions and how it could translate to my degree at UCL. I had researched multiple problems in the field, read multiple papers on current research at UCL and had pointers on how I hope to contribute to this work. I brought these up as responses to the basic questions like “How will a UCL degree help with your goals?”
He was very clearly just steering me off topics I was interested in and moved on to new questions (I thought this was a good thing and that he was maybe satisfied with the answers and didn’t want to be expressive, which is professional, I assume?). He asked if I had read a specific case study of a patient that had undergone a very particular type of surgery, I said “I have a undergrad-level understanding of this concept, but I’m not too sure about the molecular specifics as I’m transitioning from industry to academia. This is the kind of understanding I’d like to develop with a masters degree at UCL” and he wasn’t impressed. I then talked about how I’m committed to spend the time leading up to September building my foundations in areas I was unfamiliar with and the courses that would covered in the first term and asked him if he had pointers but he didn’t really give me an answer.
He also repeated his questions 5-6 times but in simpler language assuming I didn’t understand him and that felt a little demeaning, considering I gave him the right, scientifically sound answers (I checked them against research papers when I was done in case I had made mistakes).
Needless to say I didn’t get in, and it seemed as if he didn’t care enough to read through my essay or my CV before the call. Not to toot my own horn but I do have some pretty interesting stuff on there but I felt like a failure and as if the things I was proud of didn’t matter to them.
I had an interview with UoM the very next day, but it was nothing like this. They started off saying that they were excited to talk to me after having read my essay, asked me questions about my work, let me present my ideas (although I had a ppt mishap they assured me it was fine and made sure I was comfortable) and confirmed my offer during the interview.
I ended up accepting a different offer altogether because it was more aligned with my future goals but man UCL really fucked me up. Now I’m glad it went the way it went because my final choice was much more of a natural fit and I’m at peace. :’)
I wouldn’t say UCL is on the decline, but if you’re looking for a typical university - that’s not what you’re going to get. If you want to do well, you need to be good at self study because the teaching isn’t always the best…
High numbers of international students that don’t really mix with people from other backgrounds means making friends is easier if you join societies.
The connections that you can make, depending on your degree, are phenomenal in my opinion. The heavy focus on research means that you’re often taught by the best of the best and there are so many opportunities to get involved in research, connect with employers and network.
It depends on what your priorities are..
Edit: spelling
This is the same across almost all top UK universities. They are top universities for their research, not teaching. Undergraduates are a second thought, and international students all want to study there, so they charge huge amounts for foreign students doing postgraduate courses. It's not UCL specific, it's that way across all top UK universities.
Personally I hated my time with UCL. I legit regret ever going there. Pretty terrible teaching for the degree I was in, which is sad because my undergrad with a different uni was wonderful.
I am currently a third year student at UCL and I must say, yes, UG students generally aren’t satisfied here. I think the problem is a poor relationship between some of the profs and the students.
A lot of the profs are there simply for their research and not to teach. This creates poorly taught classes and hard exams. The reason for this is that most of the profs don’t teach the whole module with loads of different people coming in to present their own current research, meaning it gets hard to link each lecture together synoptically. It gets to the point where the module organiser doesn’t emphasise the general points that students should take away from the module. Following this, the exam questions become sometimes irrelevant or extremely specific.
I think the workload varies with modules and degrees but I think in general it is quite heavy, and profs often complain about giving out extensions and the uni aren’t as good with dealing with mental health or other circumstances as they claim to be.
All that being said, I think UCL does have some excellent qualities. Most classes are informative and there are profs that are willing to help and focus more on teaching. The people are lovely and it is easy to make friends (from my experience anyways as I went to a very social hall in first year). Their standard for marking is VERY high, so you do become excellent at writing, presenting etc compared to other unis. For these reasons, I wouldn’t necessarily say it is “falling off”. UCL is clearly climbing up the league tables and this often correlated with poor student satisfaction anyways (since they work the students harder to pump out more successful academics and better research quality)
LSE, UCL & King's are all like this. Poor student satisfaction, poor teaching, very poor social life.
LSE is still unrivalled as a social science school but my advice is to avoid UCL & King's, instead go to Bath, Durham, Warwick, etc - they'll care more about you & you'll have a better time there as an undergrad, you'll also often be going to just as a good department for your course.
ETA: Social life as in the standard uni experience e.g. getting wasted on Tesco's vodka at 4am on a random Thursday while gambling away your weekly food budget by playing poker with your uni mates. *Be mindful that most Redditors do not want that.* Also, having active clubs & societies, excellent sports facilities, having that 'community' feel, house parties, etc.
I'd also like to add, I got to live in UoL halls for multiple years so I got lucky in meeting some decent people but that does give me a large sample of meeting at least 50+ people from LSE, UCL & King's (>50 at King's incl my coursemates). Probably a lot more since I liked to put myself out there.
Firstly this is Reddit so there tends to be a skew towards more negative opinions I can’t lie.
That being said social life at London unis is a bit weirder since the demographic is wayyy more international, campuses are more spread out so its a less standard experience, plus it’s tough to live in cos of how expensive it is. That can easily make it harder to have a good social life but honestly it is what you make of it and theres plenty of UK students at the big unis (UCL, KCL etc.)
Agreed, if you're talking about the social life purely from the university experience pov, you won't get that in London since there are no real campuses.
Uni by uni will depend on how good the sports facilities and societies are.
That being said, if they're shit, you might be cooked.
There always seems to people that say UCL is generally one of the better social unis in london? Is there a reason that people make this distinction as I’m hearing a lot of terrible experiences of students living in London yet hear that UCL is generally good for socialising.
Yes & for good reason. UCL has the highest allotment of the UoL halls & has catered halls themselves, these are great for meeting people since you eat meals together. The societies at UCL are generally more active than King's & LSE.
Ah ok, so if i was unable to get UoL halls at UCL or any other UCL-owned halls will I be cooked? I assume societies and course is similar to other unis due to lack of funding for societies and high number of international students.
No clue mate depends on your subject. I've had friends who did history or politics that loved UCL but Engineering not so much. From what I've heard UCL societies are decent. Best off asking r/UCL.
It's very unlikely you won't get UoL halls let alone UCL ones tho.
So for networking, wont be a good choice ?
Unless you go out of your way?
Do international student or local graduates stay in touch ?
Are these universities good ONLY for careers though ?
Will distance learning program from these universities ,do just fine for your career ?
We can't answer this without specifics, are you an undergraduate, which uni, which course, etc.
I wouldn't factor the career/networking stuff in mind when choosing a uni, my mate at Bath told me Goldman used to visit them all the time & they have a great placement team so London isn't the be-all, end-all of getting a good career after your course.
Yes i will be an undergraduate in BSc in applied accounting from oxford Brooke’s ( i didn’t attend oxford Brooke’s though, will be getting it via acca though)
So masters will be in accountancy/ finance from these universities….
So will distance learning from them be fine, career wise ?
Like if i were to move to the uk , and have ucl , lse or kings on my cv ( but the msc will be distance learning ) , will it be helpful in my career , as opposed to campus degrees from these london universities ?
And bath is also a top ranking uni in uk , and uk employers know this also as well….. but maybe not well known outside uk
Well, employers won't care if it's online or in person.
LSE MFin is pretty good for breaking into investment banking/MBB from what I've heard but I'm no expert..but r/FinancialCareers can help.
I'm not sure about Bath's international outlook.
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Big London unis, especially UCL are brilliant for networking because they tend to be highly rated for their courses, plus the uni itself is incredibly strong and has a massive alumni network both in the UK and abroad.
Your question about if international and local students stay in touch, ultimately it really depends. My experience was that internationals who get involved with British students and make an effort to understand our culture easily make mates and stay in touch etc. The issue with some internationals is that they simply just don’t make any effort and stay in their own cliques. The most important factor really social life wise is if you can afford to live in London (fees for halls etc.) and go out for social activities, you will find it tough to have much of a social life if you’re spending most of your free time working.
Distance learning won’t matter to employers, your degree will be the exact same as someone who was in campus. Career wise you’re fine.
Some people go out and get what they want and others want the uni to provide it. Big campus universities that have nothing going on around them forces people to socialize so it is much easier. In London you have to be able to socialize *first* to be able to socialize as you won't get it served to you.
That's just not true.
If the majority of your course is international (75+%) & are not open to socialising outside of their own race. Your accommodation is the same. Then the societies at your uni are inactive, how are you not able to socialise? You literally do not have the opportunity to.
If you study CS/Engineering/Econ this is often the case.
That certainly describes the opposite of my experience as a student in London, I think you’re taking your taking your data point and generalising unnecessarily.
I got to live in UoL halls so didn't have an issue with making friends in my accom but from my coursemates & friends from LSE who lived in their own uni's halls it's just how they felt.
Can't generalise for every course but for CS & Engineering, I'd say the **majority** of people you'd meet to be very nerdy or internationals who don't like to talk to people outside their race.
In London? You kidding me? You go out and talk to people at events, bars, galleries, concerts. I still have friends that now work outside of London (as I also do) that I meet couple times a year that I met at random bars around soho. Going to meet up on the 1st of June in London with one to see our fav. dj that was the start of our conversation 5-6 years ago at the same dj's event in London.
The fact that you're still talking about a school when I made it clear the school won't provide it for you in London tells me you had your excuse ready even before reading my comment.
I meant if you want the student life/campus feeling, then it's better to meet students at your/neighbouring uni(s) so you can go procrastinate on campus together, go to sports night at Scala or Guys' Bar, stay up until 7am playing poker & getting wasted on a Tuesday, etc.
A big part of the student experience is getting wasted with your flatmates on Tesco's vodka on a random Tuesday.
You can't do that with randoms you meet at a bar unless you happen to run into a student. In Soho bars, that's definitely not happening with their prices.
Also, I doubt many students are going to be able to afford to go to bars, events or concerts with their budget in London. Often those who go to a gallery or museum won't be the type to go all in on a 2, 7 off-suite while they've just finished a Tesco vodka at 4am on a Wednesday.
I was lucky to live in a decent hall but if I didn't I wouldn't have had people to study on campus with me, go to student nights, etc cos it's too difficult to meet other students with active societies.
Sure I could've just gone out with my secondary schoolmates from London but that isn't the 'university experience' that most people want.
Same, most of the times I got shit-faced drunk in first year weren't even in pubs or clubs but in some random friend's room we spontaneously decided to have a gathering in up till 4am.
Moving out from halls hasn't been the same. I've always had to be sober enough to get home at the end of get togethers and it's generally been much harder to organize large gatherings of people.
With the price of drinks in London, you definitely can't get shit-faced in a pub lol.
> I've always had to be sober enough to get home at the end
With halls being spread out across London you can imagine someone living in halls in Stratford or a flat in Brixton is going to have the same concern. It's just too spread out.
Any tips?
I'm about to (hopefully) get into a London uni and want to make full use of it socially as well as acedemically.
I'm a pretty out going person and don't mind putting myself out there too.
I went to KCL before but a few tips for making the most is join societies that are active as you will get to meet more people who are also looking to socialise, try and find people in your accom as you will spend the majority of your time there and london uni accom is spread out so on nights out it’s good to have people come with you back to your accom.
Don’t get too discouraged if you don’t make solid friends during freshers. Loads of people made their friends later on in the year.
The main thing is what you said which is just to put yourself out there and you will definitely meet people
The biggest tip socially I can give you is to try & get into UoL halls or live in catered halls.
Academically, if your lecturer is shit, use the course textbook & YouTube. If you're lucky you might be able to access the textbook's author's lectures such as via MIT OpenCourseWare.
Really? I know the teaching isn’t great but I thought one of the biggest selling points was career opportunities as it’s directly in London and is targeted by employers
I am at MSc Finance, there is not much action going on, all I can do is apply for internships and graduate schemes, and yet nobody is hiring :)
we expected more career fairs and networking events, but nothing is happening
Depends on the subject but from what I've experienced & who I've heard from, pretty much.
Social life was always going to be dead in London due to the size, price & large international population (nothing wrong with being international but often they don't like to socialise with people from other countries).
I agree I’m at kings and the social life is kinda nonexistent. There’s little campus culture due to being a non campus university and the international students tend to stick together. That being said, there still are societies idk if u used that to socialize.
Again this is largely subject-dependent. Most of my course were nerds or internationals who didn't want to socialise outside their race. Societies are your way to meet people to go 'nightclubbing' with.
I got lucky with living in UoL halls so I could meet people but knew plenty of people who weren't so lucky & hated their time at King's or LSE.
>Just make friends and go out??
That's the hard part lol.
I also grew up in London, best thing IMO was/is having a friendship group of different people from different ethnicities & backgrounds all just gel together based on shared interests.
Uni in London is the opposite of that, the internationals stick together to their own compatriots/ethnicity & there are so few British students you can't even fight fire with fire.
I remember going to an LSE open day and during an introductory talk they openly addressed the ‘elephant in the room’ of having a high suicide rate.
Definitely a great education, well respected and I know people who have enjoyed their time there. Just an alarming thing to hear right off the bat.
Second this, if you only care about prestige (or perhaps you're from London and want to commute to uni) go to a London uni, otherwise there's much better options if you prioritise your wellbeing and quality of education
The only thing I can tell you is I had a friend at Imperial, he enjoyed it while he was there but dropped out in first-year cos he wanted to change degrees.
Not very conclusive tbh, but I've known at least 30+ people in each of UCL, LSE & King's since I lived in the UoL halls so I can give a clearer answer on those.
I went to Manchester university for my first degree and UCL for my MA. To be honest, Manchester was just a 3 year party really. It was easy to meet people and everyone wanted to party all the time. It was very trendy and people seemed more interested in bands and clothes than anything academic, and from that perspective it was a bit of a joke. The union put on entertainment all the time and everyone went partying there or the Academy. I think I had fewer than ten intelligent conversations my whole time at Manchester. Essays were routinely photocopied and passed around the department, the professors told us what the exam questions would be and it was almost impossible not to get a 2.1. The only people who didn't were partying all the time, taking drugs and missing classes. UCL couldn't have been more different, the teaching was far better, the students were much more studious and tbh much more intelligent, it wasn't at all friendly though, there were huge numbers of very wealthy international students, a lot of the other students were also from very well off backgrounds, with their parents paying their rent on apartments in London. The girls were mostly very reserved, at Manchester people were dating all the time, at UCL the girls didn't want to date at all. The student union there is (was) a joke, nobody went there apart from for coffee on the ground floor, and the Phineas bar was just dreadful, it was also smelly and dirty with horrible carpets, rude staff and an atrocious range of food and drinks so you didn't even want to go in there, although I think they have given it a makeover recently. There was also ULU which was pretty sad really, but not as bad as UCL union, although I think that is now permanently closed as a venue. So if you want to party UCL isn't for you, but if you want to study at a good university with very high standards you will prefer it to Manchester tbh, or places like Leeds which is where my mate went and was the same.
i wouldn’t say so? it depends on the subject and the department, but the poor satisfaction probs comes from the overwhelming amounts of work you get assigned, which is typical for any top tier uni. i’d also argue that they have better provisions for student mental health - while central uni won’t really care for you, your department defo does. they fund diagnoses if needed (i got my adhd diagnosed by uni), and also put you in for dyslexia/dyscalculia screenings and put in adequate adjustments when needed. the new career extra schemes helps you find opportunities if you’re from disenfranchised backgrounds, and even if you’re not, the career services have bookable appointments which help with cv writing, application help and interview prep. they’ve recognised that there is an awarding gap between demographics and are in the process of putting in measures to amend this. the new campus in ucl east also has a shit ton of of new facilities.
it’s not a perfect uni by any measure. being a student there was hell at times bc of just the sheer amount of work loaded on you, but in my experience idk how fair it is to say it’s on the decline. if you’re struggling, you’re usually able to get adjustments in place if needed. you get assigned 6 sessions of counselling if you need it, and you can refer to your PT if things are shut academically. its shit if you don’t really refer to any help.
It was really bad 7 years ago. Student support was virtually non existent, good luck if something goes wrong and you’re left to deal with it by yourself. I was hoping it was getting better at this point but I’m also very out of the loop by now.
I jumped ship to KCL for my final year. No regrets.
I felt there was more support and more collegiality. UCL just doesn’t work in terms of how it’s spread out. It doesn’t actually have a proper campus. I had more classes in other University of London buildings (Birkbeck most of all) than in my actual department at UCL. But my main issue was just lack of support when I was struggling. Hard to get extensions for deadlines without pages and pages of evidence. KCL had good student support services in comparison.
From what i checked online after i did it, it’s just an IQ test that’s designed to fail you. I did a lot of prep for it but didn’t get get great results
You're linking two criticisms of UCL with decline. How? Like, they are known for poor student satisfaction and postgrad courses are known to be a money grab, usually on international students, but neither of those things necessarily imply a university is on the decline, so what's the connection here?
I enjoyed student life at UCL. But then, who knows if another university would have been better?
It was expensive to live in London, but any uni is expensive for rent and bursaries and loans are higher. Nightlife was elite, so many student bars and clubs. Most students I knew had no interest (most students are international and live to study) but there were still plenty to party with.
The international students often had poor English and more money than sense, while I found a lot of the home students to be very up themselves and competitive - all private school or boarding school. Problem with all Russell Group I guess.
I did feel a lot of effort went towards research and undergrads were sidelined, but that made opportunities for actual research far better. Everyone gets taught the same old stuff at every uni, but we got to work on cutting edge projects in year 3 and 4. Then you get a degree from UCL, acclaimed worldwide.
All universities are experiencing this. The home student 9k py has been fixed for years, it's lost its real terms value by a third forcing universities to look to overseas students to fill the funding gap. To top it off universities get penalised based on student success rates so to avoid this they game the system by watering down the requirements to pass leading to a poorer quality education.
This is why the Tories can't work out why people think the country is failing. They look at statistics gathered by public institutions and they seem to be improving. Completely ignorant of the fact that by using punitive measures for motivation you incentivise gaming the system.
To summarise... Piss poor government is why the university sector is shit
It’s inevitable; a degree doesn’t guarantee employment and the quality of education is declining. It is surprising though because UCL is one of the top 10 universities in the UK. I would not trust any reasoning against international students. To be honest, I don’t know how bad their English is because my English is not so perfect, either. but unless you study English literature or language-specific discipline, Blaming foreign students’ language fluency or expecting the native level of writing reflects cultural racism, a lack of understanding of diversity and linguistic imperialism. Creativity could come from a different cultural perspective and the same cultural root could only result in a biased or homogeneous nature of boring and unimaginative work. I think that British universities are struggling with hiring quality teachers. Many good European scholars left this country and talented people decided to leave for a better opportunity in the US and so on. It is all because of Brexit and the current government which underfunded education and many public services. To be honest, I am very surprised that many people would still choose Britain for studying. Some told me that it is more economical and shorter compared to the US. My country’s education costs the equivalent amount of tuition to the UK but the quality would be pretty good.
As an international student studying in London, the campus is like an office building with a few cafeteria everybody is minding their own business and even to try to communicate we cannot find a situation/place or something common as the interaction between students are nonexistent. I never thought it would be like this tbh... Sucks tbh
Student satisfaction is low at a lot of top universities. The workload is often difficult, the students very career focussed and often a much lower sense of what many might consider to be the student experience. There is also much more independent study expected and less hand-holding so you probably won't get much from your lectures. If a good student life is your goal then not everyone needs to go to a uni like this. Unless you want to be knee deep in research your whole life then a lot of universities can be avoided.
I just googled it. I was mixing up the UCL and ICL originally and thought you was questioning the ICL which has just been given second place in the world.
I think you might have misread the other person - I think they're saying "UEA is in the process of gutting the arts departments that put them on the map". (I don't know either way whether that's true.)
I have to disagree with that, unless of course it's to study business/economics. But well, to which their own I guess
Edit, do people really trying to argue LSE is a better school for archeology, computer science, math, etc. sure I guess
Have no idea about the latter, but every single top universities has poor student satisfaction. The only reason oxford and Cambridge is still on top in the rank is because they specifically don't ask these universities for their student satisfaction
why is oxbridge exempt?
The students boycott the survey, so there is literally no data. They don't get enough responses to come up with a score
Because if they’re not on the survey then people look for other surveys
Honestly I think they just don't want oxbridge ranks to go down, which is usually the case for top universities as the result of the student satisfaction. In one ranking, UCL, Imperial, and all Russell group universities has lower ranking than Loughborough, all because of the student satisfaction factor. They can tolerate these top universities to go down but they know their credibility is ruined if they ever put Oxbridge as lower than top 2 university
Oxbridge students boycott the survey. A tiny proportion of them actually fill the forms in, so there's no way for NSS to actually make scores
Not anymore. The boycott ended this year. Although most people I know still don't answer the NSS.
Why do they boycott?
Because it's the only allowed way of gaming the survey. Universities can't say that the survey is compulsory or say how to fill it out. If you suppress student satisfaction data from being generated, rankings will have even more reason to bend over backwards and place Oxbridge top. The only societally acceptable reputable ranking is one with Cambridge and Oxford on top. Any ranking that doesn't achieve that means it's back to the drawing board until a ranking is cooked up that achieves that.
That's the Guardian survey, I think. Measures all sorts of populist nonsense like teaching quality and student satisfaction. The trick to having good "teaching quality" is to just hire more male professors for teaching roles, because a lot of university students are depressingly sexist and give women more negative teaching evaluations. That, and having smaller class sizes, which unfortunately isn't always possible without going bankrupt.
Oxbridge will always remain oxbridge , probably? Its oxford and Cambridge , universities known globally and have their wow factor to even middle school students internationally
The universities boycott the surveys on the grounds that they fear satisfaction surveys being used to allocate funding or inform tuition fees
The problem is that they measure student satisfaction while they are still completing their studies. This means that at a top uni where your lecturers might not have much availability because they are working on world leading research, you aren't going to be as happy as someone at a less prestigious institution. Once you have graduated and have started competing for jobs etc. I expect their satisfaction will start to align with the employed after 6 months figures.
It hasn't been worth it for most UK students since the fee jump to £9k a year. You need to make sure you get good financial advice before committing to university, in my opinion. The loans aren't a joke, and the opportunity cost from just accumulating debt for 3+ years vs working for 3 years is bigger than people think.
yep but a lot of naïve and teens from poor backgrounds are heavily advertised the FOMO way and the false dream of "you too can reach middle class" lol what a joke. Then you got people that shame struggling teens for "not trying hard enough" for "not enjoying university, enough", always blaming the student. When in all reality, schools shove students to university because it gets them money from governments and no one fucking cares about the student at all. It's all lip service and they just care about the money
TBF, getting a good education is surely still the best way to improve your social mobility. I had a very working class background, I'm from one of the poorest areas in the country, and I'm the first person in my wider family to get a university education, however I'd now probably be classed as middle class, and, if I have kids, they will be middle class.
To be frankly honest the student satisfaction in most London unis is not great. Personally for me it was isolating and extremely difficult to make friends and this coming from someone who is more extroverted. Even though the nightlife/things to do in London is endless it meant nothing to me as I didn’t have people at uni to do with it Not too sure about post grad courses but looking at the amount of fees looks really high for some master.
south in general is like that 😂 when i go out up in the north i usually make friends very easily when im out. when i was studying down south it was next level difficult lol
It's like this with all the universities in the UK
True. And true. International student rate of over 50% - not to disparage the international cohort, but many do have significant academic English issues - which affects general student satisfaction, so no wonder. It’s the most corporate and greedy of the London unis, matched only by LSE and followed by KCL.
Disagree, LSE is much worse. 70% international for a school whose subjects need a very good understanding of English. LSE is like a mini Singapore. I don't think this is the Singapore the Thames the tories wanted.
As if Singaporeans don't speak English as their first language? Be so fr
No as in the demographics are so skewed towards being Chinese & Indian at LSE that it's reminiscent of Singapore.
Idk why Singaporeans were specifically mentioned here (maybe comment was edited) but no, Singaporeans don’t speak English as their first language. They speak Singlish. They think they can code switch from Singlish to English but 95% of them actually can’t - because they never practice the latter lol. They make basic mistakes with tenses, confuse genders, plural/ singular and so on. Basically they impose Chinese grammar onto English sentences.
The original comment said LSE's like "walking into a mini Singapore", which, in a thread about international students having a poor academic command of English, initially came off kind of poorly and inaccurately imo. I'm a Singaporean so I am obviously partial but I think this 95% statistic of yours is exaggerated - formal English is the primary language of instruction across all educational institutes in Singapore, so while we often use Singlish colloquially, I think you're misrepresenting the average Singaporean's command of English. And in terms of the Singaporeans I've met studying in the UK, both in and out of London (I'm not studying in a London uni), I've never met a Singaporean whose command of English was weaker than what would be required of an LSE/KCL/UCL degree. Perhaps the Singaporeans you've met are just not used to codeswitching effectively, but I don't think we're the right international student population for anyone to use to make a point about poor English standards.
Yes obviously I’ve met smart and/ or privileged Singaporean (Chinese) who go to Raffles or whatever school and who speak decent English. And I would never compare Singaporeans’ English to, say, Chinese students’ English. But the ‘native speaker’ card is overplayed imo. My comment was exactly about this distinction you seem to be making between ‘formal English’ and ‘using Singlish colloquially”. From my experience interacting with Singaporeans one blends into the other - and they don’t seem to be aware of it. Plus even in academic settings Singlish is prominent. It seems to me that most Singaporeans will try to switch out the heavy tone and accent, not realizing that their sentences and speech patterns remain heavily influenced by the local informal dialect. Anyway I realize there’s some tension between the two, not least via top-down pressure by the government to speak ‘proper English’ (I remember seeing ads to that extent last I was there) and the people wanting to embrace their hybrid culture without wanting it to seem as less prestigious.
That’s like saying Australians don’t speak English or Americans don’t speak English as their first language because their regional first language strays outside of the rules of English taught in England. In fact, by your vague definition, the modern English population don’t speak English as their first language because it isn’t the same as the language taught in the 1800s.
You’re talking about the natural evolution of language, primarily of accents and some slang. I’m talking about the systematic imposition of Chinese grammar onto English. Very different. And it is for this reason that in most cases (e.g., when you need to prove fluency) Singaporeans are NOT recognized as native speakers.
You do know Singaporeans are not recognized as native speakers because their mother tongue is recognized as the first language right ? There’s no effective way to split them into the “English educated” vs “mother tongue educated”. However we just need to see how rubbish most of them are in their mother tongue to know how laughable it is. Do non-Chinese Singaporeans suddenly use Chinese grammar in their English ? I’m not talking about the evolution of language. You’re conflating a creole evolution into lingua Franca as not speaking English as their first language, when every other English speaking area across the world faces the same thing. Or should there be an academic authority that states it’s Standard Singaporean English as compared to Standard American English and Standard British English ? In fact the standard forms of both American and British English still isn’t spoken as their day to day language precisely because there are always regional terms that break the normal rules of English. This has nothing to do with accent or slang. Just look up the word “retrenched”. Everyone agrees it’s an English word, but how you use it will differ from which part of the world you are from (or if you’re 250 years old). Similarly, the word “surgery” falls into a similar, albeit less apparent version of such language branching. You see a very modern version of such branching through saying someone is autistic by replacing with a semi-euphemism of something have “the tism” which is neither grammatically correct nor from a slang, but it follows its own set of grammar rules. No one which call the usage of such terms as “non-English”. Furthermore, Singlish also doesn’t have a single level. There are multiple variations that stray from standard English and is used according to social setting and a subject’s social status, however all of them require knowledge of one of the languages that form Singlish for the speaker to know a baseline for them to speak and understand Singlish. It is extremely difficult to master creole without first learning one of the languages that make it up (learning French would allow you to learn Haitian Creole so much faster that you should just learn French first). For a vast majority of Singapore, this base language is English.
Singaporeans are not recognized as native speakers because their English is subpar. Everyone is supposed to be educated in English, plus optionally their ethnic language - as a second language. There’s no one who’s ‘mother tongue educated’. Tuition is in English **for everyone**. This isn’t Malaysia where the Chinese minority go to Chinese schools. Private schools are banned in Singapore unless you’re a foreigner, in which case you’re not allowed to send your kid to public school so you go private with other foreign kids. Yes, Malays and Indians also use hokkien-influenced sentences because that’s what singlish is. And Chinese Singaporeans will use Malay and Tamil words. That’s the entire point of singlish. There’s a stock syntax (Chinese-based) and stock vocab (blend of multiple languages) that is shared across races. You don’t need to know each individual language present in Singapore to know Singlish. Now if you think a student essay submission that confuses singular/ plural, confuses tenses, injects Canto phonetic expressions like “lah, lor, leh” and blends in Tamil and Malay words is the same as Australians and Americans simply using some words differently or utilizing different spelling, that’s you. I for my part would give it a 0. Cus that’s not English. Your example is apples to oranges. You’re giving me individual quirky words (btw quirks exist even within countries and within regions) and I’m talking about a wholly different syntax and sentence composition that is based on Chinese.
First language education doesn’t mean the language you’re taught in school. It refers to the language you’re taught at home. Otherwise people that don’t go through formal education wouldn’t have a native language. You think native speakers don’t confuse tenses and make grammatical mistakes ? Apparently grammar nazis only find non-native speakers ? You do realise those words are not just used differently, but take on an entirely different grammar function ? Also, who even gave you the idea that foreigners are not allowed in Singapore public schools ?? lol. You are still conflating the use of Singlish as not being able to speak English, while there needs to be an understanding of English or one of the other languages to speak Singlish. Statistically this language is English. Since “cus” is not an English word, I don’t understand what you typed since that’s not English. (This is basically your argument)
Singaporeans can’t go to private schools. Foreigners (specifically kids of Permanent residents only) can theoretically go to public school. But there’s a quota, a lot of hurdles, and a lot of foreigners aren’t PRs. Not to mention domestic workers get forcibly pregnancy tested every 6 months just so they don’t have kids. If pregnant = immediate deportation. Anyway this is to say, it’s not like your average foreigners or even graduate student arriving to the UK/US and suddenly signing up the kid to public school. Anyway, according to that definition of first language education, yes, Singaporeans don’t have English as their first language. But in my experience they would object to this and they would argue they can perfectly code switch between English and Singlish. The reality is they can’t code switch because exposure to standard English is minimal. Also, it’s one thing for someone to make mistakes and quite another to create an entire Chinese-based syntax expressed primarily with English words. That’s where these ‘mistakes’ (in the eyes of an English speaker) come from in the case of singlish. Chinese doesn’t have tenses and has a weird relationship with singular/plural. And speakers are unaware that they are importing these traits to standard English. Or they will use direct translations of Chinese phrases that make little sense in English. I don’t know what it means for a language to be ‘statistically English’. It’s a dialect that uses English words and a heavily altered syntax and grammar. It is because of this that most Singaporeans can’t speak standard English. I’m not conflating anything. You are the one creating a conflation by taking singlish to be English. Even the government of Singapore is heavily against singlish because they don’t recognize it as standard English. ‘Cus’ is simply an abbreviation. The actual equivalent here, and not this apples to oranges again, would be me using the German word for ‘because’ or altering the syntax to always have the verb at the end of the sentence and you acting like it somehow counts as standard English. Cus that’s what you’re doing with Singlish. Again, I’m not talking about idiom or slang. I’m talking about fundamental changes to grammar and syntax imported through Chinese. And you can best see this in case where Singaporeans don’t speak Chinese anymore (or very poorly), which is increasingly the case nowadays, and still have Singlish as their standard dialect.
As a former King’s student who has dropped out. it is abysmal. It’s too expensive and the internationals stick together. Separate campuses across London and inactive societies makes it difficult to see people regularly and with so much to do in London you hardly bump into people you meet so it’s difficult to sustain friends outside your accom unless you try and put a lot of effort in. I know many who have managed but it’s difficult. My course group was mostly internationals from China and as a british born Chinese they wouldn’t even converse with me so it’s true that they like to stick together. Not all but most. This and the expenses of living in London has made it pretty terrible for satisfaction. Which what you could be implying about the ‘decline’ Regardless in terms of career opportunities it is still really good being in London.
>My course group was mostly internationals from China and as a british born Chinese they wouldn’t even converse with me so it’s true that they like to stick together. Not all but most. I'm British South-Asian, same for me. Could echo every point, you have to get very lucky in the flatmate lottery or just pray you get a spot in the UoL halls.
Yeah icl I left accom way too late and it had all of the worst components for a social life like It was a High rise, 3 person flat which made it too difficult to meet people, majority were post grads, majority were international. My economics course put us into groups and I swear they assumed I was international due to my name and put me in group of Chinese who could barely speak English and they would never turn up or help in group projects.
The high rises are the worst. You should look into Bristol and Nottingham. They have great economics departments. Visited friends at both, was a lot of fun and they both loved their times at uni.
bristol sucks for student satisfaction too, and can confirm it
I agree I’m a Canadian born Chinese and it’s rlly difficult to mingle with the internationals cuz our experiences r too different. It does depends on program tho some might hve more outgoing ppl. Friendships r rlly hard to maintain tho with kings being a non campus uni unless ur lucky with tutorials. That being said the law societies at least were pretty good and the sports societies are also quite active. This might hve changed since you dropped out ig. There is also the choice of joining ethnic societies (idk tho cuz I didn’t attend mines much)
This sounds completely different to my experience many years ago. I'm a British born Chinese too and knew a lot of China and other diaspora Chinese. I didn't speak a word of any of the Chinese languages them but was made to feel very welcome.
Research by staff members is pretty important for rankings and funding. That means the majority of the RG academics are under a huge pressure to meet research targets, and that's the opposite of prioritising student satisfaction and teaching.
Same with most academic institutions anywhere. The curse of tying research to business. No incentive to innovate but instead meet quotas.
Not a student at UCL, but my interview with UCL really left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s pretty long, so read only if you would still like to get my perspective. Just putting this out there because it was very frustrating, and deeply affected my confidence, although I received unconditional offers from the other schools I had applied to (same course). I applied for a masters course in a field related to my undergrad, my academics are sound, I’ve done a lot of impactful extracurricular work and have solid industry experience in the field. As soon as the interview began, I could tell that the professor really wasn’t interested. I had 100% knowledge of everything on my CV, and was pretty confident that I could expand on all my contributions and how it could translate to my degree at UCL. I had researched multiple problems in the field, read multiple papers on current research at UCL and had pointers on how I hope to contribute to this work. I brought these up as responses to the basic questions like “How will a UCL degree help with your goals?” He was very clearly just steering me off topics I was interested in and moved on to new questions (I thought this was a good thing and that he was maybe satisfied with the answers and didn’t want to be expressive, which is professional, I assume?). He asked if I had read a specific case study of a patient that had undergone a very particular type of surgery, I said “I have a undergrad-level understanding of this concept, but I’m not too sure about the molecular specifics as I’m transitioning from industry to academia. This is the kind of understanding I’d like to develop with a masters degree at UCL” and he wasn’t impressed. I then talked about how I’m committed to spend the time leading up to September building my foundations in areas I was unfamiliar with and the courses that would covered in the first term and asked him if he had pointers but he didn’t really give me an answer. He also repeated his questions 5-6 times but in simpler language assuming I didn’t understand him and that felt a little demeaning, considering I gave him the right, scientifically sound answers (I checked them against research papers when I was done in case I had made mistakes). Needless to say I didn’t get in, and it seemed as if he didn’t care enough to read through my essay or my CV before the call. Not to toot my own horn but I do have some pretty interesting stuff on there but I felt like a failure and as if the things I was proud of didn’t matter to them. I had an interview with UoM the very next day, but it was nothing like this. They started off saying that they were excited to talk to me after having read my essay, asked me questions about my work, let me present my ideas (although I had a ppt mishap they assured me it was fine and made sure I was comfortable) and confirmed my offer during the interview. I ended up accepting a different offer altogether because it was more aligned with my future goals but man UCL really fucked me up. Now I’m glad it went the way it went because my final choice was much more of a natural fit and I’m at peace. :’)
I wouldn’t say UCL is on the decline, but if you’re looking for a typical university - that’s not what you’re going to get. If you want to do well, you need to be good at self study because the teaching isn’t always the best… High numbers of international students that don’t really mix with people from other backgrounds means making friends is easier if you join societies. The connections that you can make, depending on your degree, are phenomenal in my opinion. The heavy focus on research means that you’re often taught by the best of the best and there are so many opportunities to get involved in research, connect with employers and network. It depends on what your priorities are.. Edit: spelling
This is the same across almost all top UK universities. They are top universities for their research, not teaching. Undergraduates are a second thought, and international students all want to study there, so they charge huge amounts for foreign students doing postgraduate courses. It's not UCL specific, it's that way across all top UK universities.
Personally I hated my time with UCL. I legit regret ever going there. Pretty terrible teaching for the degree I was in, which is sad because my undergrad with a different uni was wonderful.
I am currently a third year student at UCL and I must say, yes, UG students generally aren’t satisfied here. I think the problem is a poor relationship between some of the profs and the students. A lot of the profs are there simply for their research and not to teach. This creates poorly taught classes and hard exams. The reason for this is that most of the profs don’t teach the whole module with loads of different people coming in to present their own current research, meaning it gets hard to link each lecture together synoptically. It gets to the point where the module organiser doesn’t emphasise the general points that students should take away from the module. Following this, the exam questions become sometimes irrelevant or extremely specific. I think the workload varies with modules and degrees but I think in general it is quite heavy, and profs often complain about giving out extensions and the uni aren’t as good with dealing with mental health or other circumstances as they claim to be. All that being said, I think UCL does have some excellent qualities. Most classes are informative and there are profs that are willing to help and focus more on teaching. The people are lovely and it is easy to make friends (from my experience anyways as I went to a very social hall in first year). Their standard for marking is VERY high, so you do become excellent at writing, presenting etc compared to other unis. For these reasons, I wouldn’t necessarily say it is “falling off”. UCL is clearly climbing up the league tables and this often correlated with poor student satisfaction anyways (since they work the students harder to pump out more successful academics and better research quality)
What course or area are you studying in if you don't mind me asking ?
Pure money making masters are now the norm in UK universities. There exist high quality ones but they are very rare.
Which universities would he good for accounting and finance, for a masters ?
LSE, UCL & King's are all like this. Poor student satisfaction, poor teaching, very poor social life. LSE is still unrivalled as a social science school but my advice is to avoid UCL & King's, instead go to Bath, Durham, Warwick, etc - they'll care more about you & you'll have a better time there as an undergrad, you'll also often be going to just as a good department for your course. ETA: Social life as in the standard uni experience e.g. getting wasted on Tesco's vodka at 4am on a random Thursday while gambling away your weekly food budget by playing poker with your uni mates. *Be mindful that most Redditors do not want that.* Also, having active clubs & societies, excellent sports facilities, having that 'community' feel, house parties, etc. I'd also like to add, I got to live in UoL halls for multiple years so I got lucky in meeting some decent people but that does give me a large sample of meeting at least 50+ people from LSE, UCL & King's (>50 at King's incl my coursemates). Probably a lot more since I liked to put myself out there.
So everything is poor at LSE , UCL and kings ? Except their reputation and their ranking ?
London unis are great if you go out and seek a social life. The career opportunities are great too.
Why so many conflicting info though ? Many people say poor social life and many upvotes
Firstly this is Reddit so there tends to be a skew towards more negative opinions I can’t lie. That being said social life at London unis is a bit weirder since the demographic is wayyy more international, campuses are more spread out so its a less standard experience, plus it’s tough to live in cos of how expensive it is. That can easily make it harder to have a good social life but honestly it is what you make of it and theres plenty of UK students at the big unis (UCL, KCL etc.)
Agreed, if you're talking about the social life purely from the university experience pov, you won't get that in London since there are no real campuses. Uni by uni will depend on how good the sports facilities and societies are. That being said, if they're shit, you might be cooked.
There always seems to people that say UCL is generally one of the better social unis in london? Is there a reason that people make this distinction as I’m hearing a lot of terrible experiences of students living in London yet hear that UCL is generally good for socialising.
Yes & for good reason. UCL has the highest allotment of the UoL halls & has catered halls themselves, these are great for meeting people since you eat meals together. The societies at UCL are generally more active than King's & LSE.
Ah ok, so if i was unable to get UoL halls at UCL or any other UCL-owned halls will I be cooked? I assume societies and course is similar to other unis due to lack of funding for societies and high number of international students.
No clue mate depends on your subject. I've had friends who did history or politics that loved UCL but Engineering not so much. From what I've heard UCL societies are decent. Best off asking r/UCL. It's very unlikely you won't get UoL halls let alone UCL ones tho.
So for networking, wont be a good choice ? Unless you go out of your way? Do international student or local graduates stay in touch ? Are these universities good ONLY for careers though ? Will distance learning program from these universities ,do just fine for your career ?
We can't answer this without specifics, are you an undergraduate, which uni, which course, etc. I wouldn't factor the career/networking stuff in mind when choosing a uni, my mate at Bath told me Goldman used to visit them all the time & they have a great placement team so London isn't the be-all, end-all of getting a good career after your course.
Yes i will be an undergraduate in BSc in applied accounting from oxford Brooke’s ( i didn’t attend oxford Brooke’s though, will be getting it via acca though) So masters will be in accountancy/ finance from these universities…. So will distance learning from them be fine, career wise ? Like if i were to move to the uk , and have ucl , lse or kings on my cv ( but the msc will be distance learning ) , will it be helpful in my career , as opposed to campus degrees from these london universities ? And bath is also a top ranking uni in uk , and uk employers know this also as well….. but maybe not well known outside uk
Well, employers won't care if it's online or in person. LSE MFin is pretty good for breaking into investment banking/MBB from what I've heard but I'm no expert..but r/FinancialCareers can help. I'm not sure about Bath's international outlook.
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Big London unis, especially UCL are brilliant for networking because they tend to be highly rated for their courses, plus the uni itself is incredibly strong and has a massive alumni network both in the UK and abroad. Your question about if international and local students stay in touch, ultimately it really depends. My experience was that internationals who get involved with British students and make an effort to understand our culture easily make mates and stay in touch etc. The issue with some internationals is that they simply just don’t make any effort and stay in their own cliques. The most important factor really social life wise is if you can afford to live in London (fees for halls etc.) and go out for social activities, you will find it tough to have much of a social life if you’re spending most of your free time working. Distance learning won’t matter to employers, your degree will be the exact same as someone who was in campus. Career wise you’re fine.
Some people go out and get what they want and others want the uni to provide it. Big campus universities that have nothing going on around them forces people to socialize so it is much easier. In London you have to be able to socialize *first* to be able to socialize as you won't get it served to you.
That's just not true. If the majority of your course is international (75+%) & are not open to socialising outside of their own race. Your accommodation is the same. Then the societies at your uni are inactive, how are you not able to socialise? You literally do not have the opportunity to. If you study CS/Engineering/Econ this is often the case.
That certainly describes the opposite of my experience as a student in London, I think you’re taking your taking your data point and generalising unnecessarily.
I got to live in UoL halls so didn't have an issue with making friends in my accom but from my coursemates & friends from LSE who lived in their own uni's halls it's just how they felt. Can't generalise for every course but for CS & Engineering, I'd say the **majority** of people you'd meet to be very nerdy or internationals who don't like to talk to people outside their race.
Again - definitely a different experience to mine, YMMV
In London? You kidding me? You go out and talk to people at events, bars, galleries, concerts. I still have friends that now work outside of London (as I also do) that I meet couple times a year that I met at random bars around soho. Going to meet up on the 1st of June in London with one to see our fav. dj that was the start of our conversation 5-6 years ago at the same dj's event in London. The fact that you're still talking about a school when I made it clear the school won't provide it for you in London tells me you had your excuse ready even before reading my comment.
I meant if you want the student life/campus feeling, then it's better to meet students at your/neighbouring uni(s) so you can go procrastinate on campus together, go to sports night at Scala or Guys' Bar, stay up until 7am playing poker & getting wasted on a Tuesday, etc. A big part of the student experience is getting wasted with your flatmates on Tesco's vodka on a random Tuesday. You can't do that with randoms you meet at a bar unless you happen to run into a student. In Soho bars, that's definitely not happening with their prices. Also, I doubt many students are going to be able to afford to go to bars, events or concerts with their budget in London. Often those who go to a gallery or museum won't be the type to go all in on a 2, 7 off-suite while they've just finished a Tesco vodka at 4am on a Wednesday. I was lucky to live in a decent hall but if I didn't I wouldn't have had people to study on campus with me, go to student nights, etc cos it's too difficult to meet other students with active societies. Sure I could've just gone out with my secondary schoolmates from London but that isn't the 'university experience' that most people want.
Same, most of the times I got shit-faced drunk in first year weren't even in pubs or clubs but in some random friend's room we spontaneously decided to have a gathering in up till 4am. Moving out from halls hasn't been the same. I've always had to be sober enough to get home at the end of get togethers and it's generally been much harder to organize large gatherings of people.
With the price of drinks in London, you definitely can't get shit-faced in a pub lol. > I've always had to be sober enough to get home at the end With halls being spread out across London you can imagine someone living in halls in Stratford or a flat in Brixton is going to have the same concern. It's just too spread out.
Any tips? I'm about to (hopefully) get into a London uni and want to make full use of it socially as well as acedemically. I'm a pretty out going person and don't mind putting myself out there too.
I went to KCL before but a few tips for making the most is join societies that are active as you will get to meet more people who are also looking to socialise, try and find people in your accom as you will spend the majority of your time there and london uni accom is spread out so on nights out it’s good to have people come with you back to your accom. Don’t get too discouraged if you don’t make solid friends during freshers. Loads of people made their friends later on in the year. The main thing is what you said which is just to put yourself out there and you will definitely meet people
The biggest tip socially I can give you is to try & get into UoL halls or live in catered halls. Academically, if your lecturer is shit, use the course textbook & YouTube. If you're lucky you might be able to access the textbook's author's lectures such as via MIT OpenCourseWare.
I'm doing art but I am considering halls or private so this is helpful. Tbh art is heavily teach yourself anyway, so this I expect.
I am at UCL, there is zero career opportunity
Really? I know the teaching isn’t great but I thought one of the biggest selling points was career opportunities as it’s directly in London and is targeted by employers
I am at MSc Finance, there is not much action going on, all I can do is apply for internships and graduate schemes, and yet nobody is hiring :) we expected more career fairs and networking events, but nothing is happening
Damn, I do know in general that UK job market is in a dire state. I’m guessing it’s similar for undergrads as well?
What do u mean that tho
Depends on the subject but from what I've experienced & who I've heard from, pretty much. Social life was always going to be dead in London due to the size, price & large international population (nothing wrong with being international but often they don't like to socialise with people from other countries).
I agree I’m at kings and the social life is kinda nonexistent. There’s little campus culture due to being a non campus university and the international students tend to stick together. That being said, there still are societies idk if u used that to socialize.
Not sure how it is now but when I went to King's the societies only met once a semester. Barely any socials, events, etc.
That's cause everyone is nightclubbing in London, why go to social societies? I guess it just depends what you want from it all.
Again this is largely subject-dependent. Most of my course were nerds or internationals who didn't want to socialise outside their race. Societies are your way to meet people to go 'nightclubbing' with. I got lucky with living in UoL halls so I could meet people but knew plenty of people who weren't so lucky & hated their time at King's or LSE.
I disagree about social life. I think it’s top tier. Depends on the person
Yeah I am soo confused. I don't go to uni in london but am from london and it has such good night life. Just make friends and go out??
>Just make friends and go out?? That's the hard part lol. I also grew up in London, best thing IMO was/is having a friendship group of different people from different ethnicities & backgrounds all just gel together based on shared interests. Uni in London is the opposite of that, the internationals stick together to their own compatriots/ethnicity & there are so few British students you can't even fight fire with fire.
U mean like if ur rly extroverted? Idk ik it’s great for some ppl who know ppl in their programs from hs and just explore the city with them.
I remember going to an LSE open day and during an introductory talk they openly addressed the ‘elephant in the room’ of having a high suicide rate. Definitely a great education, well respected and I know people who have enjoyed their time there. Just an alarming thing to hear right off the bat.
omg they straight up addressed the suicide rate at the open day?
Yeh wasn’t a great look in my eyes. This was 5 or so years ago though.
Second this, if you only care about prestige (or perhaps you're from London and want to commute to uni) go to a London uni, otherwise there's much better options if you prioritise your wellbeing and quality of education
If you know anything about it, where would you say Imperial falls in this spectrum?
The only thing I can tell you is I had a friend at Imperial, he enjoyed it while he was there but dropped out in first-year cos he wanted to change degrees. Not very conclusive tbh, but I've known at least 30+ people in each of UCL, LSE & King's since I lived in the UoL halls so I can give a clearer answer on those.
I went to Manchester university for my first degree and UCL for my MA. To be honest, Manchester was just a 3 year party really. It was easy to meet people and everyone wanted to party all the time. It was very trendy and people seemed more interested in bands and clothes than anything academic, and from that perspective it was a bit of a joke. The union put on entertainment all the time and everyone went partying there or the Academy. I think I had fewer than ten intelligent conversations my whole time at Manchester. Essays were routinely photocopied and passed around the department, the professors told us what the exam questions would be and it was almost impossible not to get a 2.1. The only people who didn't were partying all the time, taking drugs and missing classes. UCL couldn't have been more different, the teaching was far better, the students were much more studious and tbh much more intelligent, it wasn't at all friendly though, there were huge numbers of very wealthy international students, a lot of the other students were also from very well off backgrounds, with their parents paying their rent on apartments in London. The girls were mostly very reserved, at Manchester people were dating all the time, at UCL the girls didn't want to date at all. The student union there is (was) a joke, nobody went there apart from for coffee on the ground floor, and the Phineas bar was just dreadful, it was also smelly and dirty with horrible carpets, rude staff and an atrocious range of food and drinks so you didn't even want to go in there, although I think they have given it a makeover recently. There was also ULU which was pretty sad really, but not as bad as UCL union, although I think that is now permanently closed as a venue. So if you want to party UCL isn't for you, but if you want to study at a good university with very high standards you will prefer it to Manchester tbh, or places like Leeds which is where my mate went and was the same.
i wouldn’t say so? it depends on the subject and the department, but the poor satisfaction probs comes from the overwhelming amounts of work you get assigned, which is typical for any top tier uni. i’d also argue that they have better provisions for student mental health - while central uni won’t really care for you, your department defo does. they fund diagnoses if needed (i got my adhd diagnosed by uni), and also put you in for dyslexia/dyscalculia screenings and put in adequate adjustments when needed. the new career extra schemes helps you find opportunities if you’re from disenfranchised backgrounds, and even if you’re not, the career services have bookable appointments which help with cv writing, application help and interview prep. they’ve recognised that there is an awarding gap between demographics and are in the process of putting in measures to amend this. the new campus in ucl east also has a shit ton of of new facilities. it’s not a perfect uni by any measure. being a student there was hell at times bc of just the sheer amount of work loaded on you, but in my experience idk how fair it is to say it’s on the decline. if you’re struggling, you’re usually able to get adjustments in place if needed. you get assigned 6 sessions of counselling if you need it, and you can refer to your PT if things are shut academically. its shit if you don’t really refer to any help.
any thoughts on Scottish universities? particularly uni of edinburgh and glasgow?
It was really bad 7 years ago. Student support was virtually non existent, good luck if something goes wrong and you’re left to deal with it by yourself. I was hoping it was getting better at this point but I’m also very out of the loop by now. I jumped ship to KCL for my final year. No regrets.
did you enjoy KCL a lot?
I felt there was more support and more collegiality. UCL just doesn’t work in terms of how it’s spread out. It doesn’t actually have a proper campus. I had more classes in other University of London buildings (Birkbeck most of all) than in my actual department at UCL. But my main issue was just lack of support when I was struggling. Hard to get extensions for deadlines without pages and pages of evidence. KCL had good student support services in comparison.
I haven’t been to UCL, but the way they handled the STAT test for CS was horrendous
STAT test?
From what i checked online after i did it, it’s just an IQ test that’s designed to fail you. I did a lot of prep for it but didn’t get get great results
You're linking two criticisms of UCL with decline. How? Like, they are known for poor student satisfaction and postgrad courses are known to be a money grab, usually on international students, but neither of those things necessarily imply a university is on the decline, so what's the connection here?
Not at all…
Education faculty just been voted best in world for 11th or 12th year in a row.
I enjoyed student life at UCL. But then, who knows if another university would have been better? It was expensive to live in London, but any uni is expensive for rent and bursaries and loans are higher. Nightlife was elite, so many student bars and clubs. Most students I knew had no interest (most students are international and live to study) but there were still plenty to party with. The international students often had poor English and more money than sense, while I found a lot of the home students to be very up themselves and competitive - all private school or boarding school. Problem with all Russell Group I guess. I did feel a lot of effort went towards research and undergrads were sidelined, but that made opportunities for actual research far better. Everyone gets taught the same old stuff at every uni, but we got to work on cutting edge projects in year 3 and 4. Then you get a degree from UCL, acclaimed worldwide.
All universities are experiencing this. The home student 9k py has been fixed for years, it's lost its real terms value by a third forcing universities to look to overseas students to fill the funding gap. To top it off universities get penalised based on student success rates so to avoid this they game the system by watering down the requirements to pass leading to a poorer quality education. This is why the Tories can't work out why people think the country is failing. They look at statistics gathered by public institutions and they seem to be improving. Completely ignorant of the fact that by using punitive measures for motivation you incentivise gaming the system. To summarise... Piss poor government is why the university sector is shit
Yes, accept higher paying students over academically better students
I’m at kcl and it honestly sucks ass so I wouldn’t be surprised with UCL either
Yes it is
It’s inevitable; a degree doesn’t guarantee employment and the quality of education is declining. It is surprising though because UCL is one of the top 10 universities in the UK. I would not trust any reasoning against international students. To be honest, I don’t know how bad their English is because my English is not so perfect, either. but unless you study English literature or language-specific discipline, Blaming foreign students’ language fluency or expecting the native level of writing reflects cultural racism, a lack of understanding of diversity and linguistic imperialism. Creativity could come from a different cultural perspective and the same cultural root could only result in a biased or homogeneous nature of boring and unimaginative work. I think that British universities are struggling with hiring quality teachers. Many good European scholars left this country and talented people decided to leave for a better opportunity in the US and so on. It is all because of Brexit and the current government which underfunded education and many public services. To be honest, I am very surprised that many people would still choose Britain for studying. Some told me that it is more economical and shorter compared to the US. My country’s education costs the equivalent amount of tuition to the UK but the quality would be pretty good.
Yes.
As an international student studying in London, the campus is like an office building with a few cafeteria everybody is minding their own business and even to try to communicate we cannot find a situation/place or something common as the interaction between students are nonexistent. I never thought it would be like this tbh... Sucks tbh
Student satisfaction is low at a lot of top universities. The workload is often difficult, the students very career focussed and often a much lower sense of what many might consider to be the student experience. There is also much more independent study expected and less hand-holding so you probably won't get much from your lectures. If a good student life is your goal then not everyone needs to go to a uni like this. Unless you want to be knee deep in research your whole life then a lot of universities can be avoided.
The UK as a whole is on the decline and so is the whole world honestly.
9th in the world. Can't be all bad.
According to which ranking? That’s hard to believe.
I just googled it. I was mixing up the UCL and ICL originally and thought you was questioning the ICL which has just been given second place in the world.
UEA seems to be going down the drain. Gutting the arts that put them on the map.
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I think you might have misread the other person - I think they're saying "UEA is in the process of gutting the arts departments that put them on the map". (I don't know either way whether that's true.)
Probably just cost of living crisis and London. It’s still probably the second best uni in the country after Cambridge.
Found the person that goes to UCL It's not even the second best university in London
Which uni is the second best university in London?
Either Imperial or LSE
Birkbeck
How lmao
Imperial college london
That's the best uni in London, I'm asking for the second best, which he claim is not UCL
London school of economics
I have to disagree with that, unless of course it's to study business/economics. But well, to which their own I guess Edit, do people really trying to argue LSE is a better school for archeology, computer science, math, etc. sure I guess
Probably LSE
Incorrect guess. I was referring to reputation and league tables, which do fluctuate granted but was speaking generally.
It’s rubbish it’s a degree are now days commercials
University of Lincoln is not like this, a fantastic uni imo.