Unfair assessment of coursework at Kingston uni (Kingston University in general)

Member Name: bg2003

Product:	Kingston University in general
Date:	03/04/03 (2009 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good place if you would like others to do your work for you, Excellent library

Disadvantages: You will hate this place if you are even vaguely clever, Poor canteen, No community atmosphere compared to other unis since most students live at home

I write this as a final year undergraduate on the BSc(Hons) Computer Information Systems Design course at the Penryn Rd campus of Kingston University.

Kingston generally is a nice town as the other reviews all agree. My only disagreement is that parking in surrounding roads is actually possible if you know where to look and are willing to walk 8-10 minutes (depends what time of day you try to find a space).

As for the university itself, the main campus is fairly bland looking although that won't bother many people. It is extremely multi-cultural (like many London universities). At the main campus, I would estimate that 50% are asian, 5% oriental, 15% black and 30% white (the school of computing courses are only about 10% white). At the other two campuses, Kingston Hill (business and law) and Knights Park (art and design) most people are white. Although there is a ratio of 51% female to 49% male, since the main campus has all the technology courses there are significantly fewer girls at the main campus and more at the others.

I decided to apply for Kingston mainly because I didn't want to move away from home and it was a 10 minute drive away. However, I have since regretted not looking further afield since my A-level grades were way above that of the other students on my course (who had three D grades on average due to the heavy reliance on clearing). There are many serious consequences for joining a university with below average quality students if you are above average.

Firstly, the teachers are of lower calibre than at more prestigious universities, they do not always know their subjects well and there is a very high student/staff ratio (according to the Times it is 23 students per teacher which sounds about right from what I have experienced).

The most serious problem for the able student at Kingston is the way that students are assessed. On my course (and most computing school courses and possibly in the other

faculties too), there is a heavy emphasis on group assessment. While group work is useful in developing team skills, when you are assessed for a module as a group (typically 3-5 students working on a group project), you are given one group grade. This grade will enevitably reflect the average quality of the work from the various group members. So if your work is A standard and the other group members' work is C or D standard you will probably all end up with a C grade. This is a mechanism used by the university to enable its vast numbers of students who would not otherwise pass the year with individual assessment to pass at the expense of more able students whose grades are dragged down.

The only option that I had to avoid having my grades dragged down was to do all the group assessed coursework myself. This has meant that I have already done 3 degrees worth of coursework! Most groups of say 5 members have 2 or 3 students doing all the work because the other members are too lazy/too busy/not clever enough to make a useful contribution. It is scandalous and is a good reason for anyone who is expecting to get grades above the entry requirements not to apply to Kingston if they care what class of degree they are awarded at the end of their course.

In the first and second years of my course, half of all the modules had between 50-100% group coursework as the assessment method.

In the final year, through careful choice of option modules I managed to limit group assessed coursework modules to just one of my eight modules but this severely restricted my choice of module options.

Frankly, half the students who made it to the final year have relied on others doing their work for them through the group assessment system and their grades bear no relation to their ability.

Summary: