I'd have asked for my money back! (Thames Valley University in general)

Member Name: fizzle

Product:	Thames Valley University in general
Date:	10/10/01 (1367 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ealing is a nice place. I got a job at the end of my course.

Disadvantages: Bad reputation. Teaching not of a high standard. Appalling administration.

Thames Valley was actually founded as an institution in 1860 but only received university status in 1992. The university has a strong emphasis on vocational courses, in particular the following subject areas: music, digital arts, management education, hospitality and healthcare.

I attended Thames Valley University for a year in 1998/1999 studying for an MA in Information Management. Thames Valley is split between two main campuses, Slough and Ealing. My entire course was based at the Ealing campus.

I have to admit I was a bit dubious about attending Thames Valley University. I hadn’t exactly heard great things about it but it was one of the only universities in London to offer me a bursary (tuition fees paid, plus a maintenance grant) which is what swung it for me and so 1998 saw me duly enrolling at their rather chaotic registration day.

* The Campus *

The Ealing campus has good travel links, with various tube stations being only a short walk away (Ealing Broadway and South Ealing). The M4 motorway is only a few mintues drive away. The main campus buildings are conveniently situated close to the town centre (so easy access to those vital pubs and shops!).

The Ealing campus has a number of separate buildings in different locations in Ealing. The majority of the teaching is at the main St. Mary’s Road site (this is the only campus building I used apart from when I had meetings with my tutor). The St. Mary’s Road campus consists of one main block with teaching rooms, a canteen and a shop. Also on the campus are the Learning Resource Centre and the student union bar. Unfortunately the campus doesn’t have any grounds.


* The Courses *

I can only really comment on the course I did and I have to say I wasn’t very impressed. The lectures were pretty hopeless and we never felt like we were learning anything particularly useful. I was enrolled on a full time course but in reali
ty this consisted of less than two days of teaching (we only had to go into college on two days per week and even then they weren’t full days). I wasn’t complaining about this at the time because I’ve always been pretty lazy so the idea of hardly any lectures to get to was appealing but I’m not sure how happy I would have been if I’d been paying tuition fees.

The coursework didn’t seem to be at the level you would expect from a postgraduate course. For example, I managed to pass one module after only showing up for one seminar (the first one in which the coursework brief was given out). The course lecturers were quite approachable but I didn’t think their teaching was of a high quality.

There was a big scandal whilst I was there because the University had performed very badly in an external quality assessment report and the Vice-Principal resigned. We were actually given a letter to take with us to prospective job interviews explaining that although the university had fared really badly in the report, it hadn’t said that there was anything wrong with our particular course. As you can imagine we weren’t particularly keen to attach that to our CV’s!

* Learning Resources *

The university prides itself on its sparkly new Learning Resource centres (the one at Slough has won an architectural award) and on our interview day I can remember this being a big feature of the tour. I always found it hard to find my away around the building at the Ealing campus and the resources weren’t great. The books for our course seemed quite outdated, the shelves always looked a complete mess (I’m a librarian so they have my sympathy on this one) and the staff weren’t exactly helpful.

It was a major achievement however if I managed to gain access to the building at all. There’s a strict security system in place and access to the Learning Resource Centre is by s
wipe card only. My damn card refused to work for practically the entire year so gaining access was always a major battle.

Trying to log onto the computers was also an uphill struggle. They didn’t have the complicated start up process in operation for most of the first term so you could just log on with a generic username and password. Once this was changed I never managed to get myself set up with an individual username and password because the stupid thing always refused to work.

* Accommodation *

I didn’t live in Ealing because I commuted in from my home in Kent. I’ve had a look at the website and there aren’t any halls of residence. However the university does run an Accommodation Scheme with a register of available properties to help you find privately owned accommodation.

* Administration *

This deserves a category all to itself because it was so abysmal. We seemed to spend most of our time traipsing from one office to another trying to sort out various admin problems.

Thames Valley University has a cunning scheme going where you have to pay a £50 deposit when you accept your offer of a place. This charge is then refunded when you take up your place and enrol on your course. However, there was never any mention of how to get our money back once we’d started. The postgraduate office said it was the responsibility of the finance department, the finance department sent us back to the postgraduate office. It was always a case of the person we needed to speak to being on their lunchbreak (no matter what time of the day it was) or on holiday. This went on for days, then weeks, then months. In the end, a large group from our course decided to go into the office together to demand our money back and only then were we successful.

Those of us who were fortunate enough to get a bursary had the fun task of trying to get our grant cheques at the start of each term. These could onl
y be given out in certain time slots, the time slots being cunningly designed to fall on days when we weren’t required to be in college. I was living in Kent and it was a four hour round trip to get in so I wasn’t too happy. It escalated into a ludicrous situation with us going to the desk to ask if we could pick them up on a day when we were in. We could actually see the cheques for our course sitting on the desk and there weren’t any queues, yet the woman behind the desk adamantly refused to hand them over because it wasn’t our allotted time slot.

* Social Life *

Ah, at last something positive! I really liked Ealing. There’s a good mix of shops (including a fab charity shop down the road from campus), loads of pubs and lots of places to eat. We spent most of our time between lectures in one of the local pubs. There’s also a student bar opposite the Learning Resource Centre (think it’s called the Studio Bar) which we made good use of (once I’d managed to talk my way in, pesky swipe card playing up again!). Because I was living so far away, I didn’t get to sample any of the proper nightlife so I’m afraid I can’t comment on that side of things.

I have to say I never felt involved in university life whilst I was studying at Thames Valley. To be fair this was probably because I was doing a postgraduate course and was only there for two days a week.

* Conclusion *

I have to say (and you’ve probably guessed this by now) that in my opinion Thames Valley is a pretty shoddy institution. However, surprisingly enough I don’t regret having done my MA there. I got the qualification I needed which now means I’m a fully fledged and officially qualified librarian/information scientist and I didn’t end up with huge debts which I would have done if I’d gone elsewhere and had to pay the tuition fees.

As I said earlier I’m pretty
lazy and so doing a course which required somewhat minimal effort was quite attractive. I’ve seen friends slaving away doing the same course at more reputable places such as City University and UCL and didn’t envy them. This is probably the wrong attitude so if you want somewhere which provides a top notch degree then don’t go here, I felt the degree I got wasn’t really worth the paper it was written on. However, I secured my first professional post straight after completing the course, which was my main objective. However, if I’d actually paid for the course at Thames Valley University I think I would have asked for my money back!

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