I'm studying Tourism?! (University College of Birmingham)

Member Name: bkecky

Product:	University College of Birmingham
Date:	25/06/09 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good accommodation, central location

Disadvantages: Poor communication throughout the staff, not enough societies, very cliquey

Over the past two years that I have studied here I have enjoyed my time immensely, although that is not to say that it is due to the college that I feel this way but more to the people I met here and the student life in Birmingham. The college is very central to the city centre as are the accommodations, which cuts your cost of transport by quite a lot!

My course is Tourism with Modern Languages and so I can really only comment on the Tourism and Languages Departments.

The University College of Birmingham has recently undergone a name change when it gained university status so it used to be known as Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies. The college specialises in Beauty Therapy, Childcare, Sports Therapy, Tourism, Culinary Arts, Hospitality and Business degrees. Although it is possible for GNVQ and BTEC qualifications for those of leaving school age.

I was very disappointed with this college as I had heard good reports but everyone on my course was dissatisfied and demotivated. Considering we were studying Tourism we only had one tourism module and then one personal skills and one IT type module. Consequently I feel that over the two years I know little more about tourism that I knew when I started and having done an A level in IT I felt that it was a bit of a "Mickey Mouse" course for people who couldn't do a proper degree.

On the languages side of things, I had to study one main language with a subsidary. You have a choice of French, German, Spanish, Italian or Dutch. Or so the prospectus says. When my friend and i enquired about Dutch they said no there are only you two wanting to do it. Same said friend asked to do advanced Italian and they said no we are not offering it this semester (this friend is half French Swiss and half English, so she speaks all of the given languages at a high level and found that she was unable to do anything except sit through intermediate lessons). I chose German as my main language and having lived in Regensburg, Bavaria, for 8 months previously I took intermediate German only to be told to go up into advanced German by the lecturer. After I had completed my Advanced German I received an email telling me that I could not do advanced German if it is my main language because to go on my placement abroad I needed Intermediate German. This baffled me as to why I needed to prove I could pass the intermediate if I had just passed the advanced course. So I went back and did intermediate. An utter waste of my time when I could have been improving one of my other languages.

There was then the issue of my placement abroad. The Erasmus programme, which the college is involved in allows students to study in a university in another country for a semester. The idea of this thrilled me especially as I would be going back to Germany that I missed so much. But no. Austria is the only option. Great Vienna I thought. No a little mountain village with a population of 600, no hospital, one bar, one supermarket, no pharmacy, 2 trains and 2 hours train from Vienna. I spoke to a girl who had just came back and she warned me don't go because there is no internet and you are completely isolated and it is an international college so you speak English all the time. So my thought was what was the point? So I ask about any colleges in Germany. No they tell me, the syllabus is different. Luckily (well not really luckily!) I had pneumonia in November and therefore I was unable to go to this mountain hideaway and instead I was sent to France. So i receive my modules and what do I discover? That I am not even studying my course in France because the college does not do that course. So I am doing Communications! And that is the same syllabus?! So having been through all this I was originally going to Austria, then was told I could go to Barcelona, then told that my Spanish wasn't to a high enough standard so I could go to France, then told no you can't go to France by someone else and then finally accepted that I was going to France after I threatened that I wanted to speak to someone higher up in the college. Complete lack of knowledge and communication on the part of the college. No one seems to know what they are doing or what the rules are and it all leads to a very frustrated student.

Not only this but it was a sort yourself out job on the erasmus placement. I arrived very early and the other are arriving in September, but there was no accommodation list and when I went to the bank I didn't even know what my school was called! I passed on the information to the others and now they are ok but without my boyfriend from France pointing me in the right direction i would have been completely lost. And to add to this 2 days before I was meant to leave I went to see the Erasmus co-ordinator and I wasn't even registered to be going on Erasmus! Good job I checked and didn't just turn up at the french college on the day!

Having said all this they do have a board meeting with all student course representatives but when our rep went with a huge list of complaints they told her that they our cancelling our course anyway so she can leave if she wants to. So we paid our £6500 fees for a college experiment. But in response to why we are not doing more tourism and only business we were informed that actually our course was supposed to be called "Tourism Business Management with Modern Languages" but it looked too long in the prospectus. Once again all talk and no trousers.

My year tutor although slightly misinformed has worked really hard to get everything right and she has been very efficient with all of our requests, which is good for her, just a shame she seems not to be informed of what is going on.

The college has two halls of residence, The Maltings and Cambrian Hall. Cambrian is very old-fashioned with shared bathrooms but the Maltings is modern and has a bar and shop on site. This is probably the best part of the college! There are also many erasmus students so you meet a lot of different people from different countries and usually they are far more fun than the English because all they want to do is party(sorry!)! They do have an international society for them but its expensive to join and not very active.

On the society's front this college is all about sport and if you don't play a sport or you don't want to play a sport you are reduced to the outsiders and there is not a lot else to do. There are Rugby, Football, Hockey, Cheerleading and Women's Football. These groups stay very much together and the bar on a Wednesday night is full of drunken rugby boys by 9pm.

If you do culinary arts it is a good college because they do a lot and there are extra wine tasting courses and competitions where we have had Gordon Ramsey come to judge. The students work in the restaurants in the college where members of the public come and similarly there is also a Spa where the beauty and sports therapy students work to gain practical experience. The treatments are dirt cheap and its quite nice to get a £5 facial or haircut or £2 waxing (if your brave enough to have a trainee!!). there is also a gym with a membership fee of £35 per year, although it is not very big and busy periods should be avoided.

Overall I was not impressed with the academic side but I met some amazing friends from all over the world and I don't regret it but for my third year I am looking to transfer somewhere else.

Summary: Where are the tourism classes?!