I have recently graduated from this uni, having studied a psychology degree and have to say that I have not been entirely happy with my experience.

As a mature student I did some of my modules at a local college who has an affiliation with the uni, which was great for me and some of my fellow students because as a mature student we all had other commitments - jobs, children etc - and this meant we could study for the degree without having to relocate or travel all the way to Bradford every day. Unfortunately however, when I got into my final year this changed, the uni would not allow and level 3 modules to be done from our college and I then had to start travelling backwards and forwards to Bradford, which for me is an almost 3 hour round trip. I accept that at some point I would have to go to Bradford but what I was not happy with were their reasoning for having to do the entire final year there, when the first two years were completed locally no problem. They basically just said that that was how it was, like it or lump it! There were tutors at our college who were more than happy and more than qualified to teach us the level 3 modules and there were even tutors at Bradford who were happy to travel to our college to teach us the level 3 modules, but the uni still said no. I just found this very inflexible in this day and age and considering they arranged this affiliation with the college in the first place to make uni more accessible for mature students.

In any case, I accepted they would not budge on this and duly travelled off to Bradford for classes during my final year. My next problem was the staff at the acual uni. I have never come across so many unhelpful, unfriendly people in one place in my life. The ladies on reception in various departments wer stoney faced and often downright rude. Upon phoning the uni with a query I was always made to feel like a nuisance and even when handing work in at the appropriate office the staff acted as though I were an interruption. Trying to get any useful information out of anyone there was always a chore, communication was appalling and as a mature student who was not living on campus I felt my needs were not considered at all. I was never offered a chance to be shown round the campus, or the library or where student services is or even be told what student services were available to me such as careers advice etc. I had do find everything I needed to know out by pestering people, being passed from pillar to post and generally bumbling my way through. As a result of their lack of help with using the library facilities, including them not providing me with a student card for a full year (despite me requesting this at least a hundred time) and then sending me the wrong one which wouldn't work in the library and then failing to help me with a basic query I ended up only actually using the uni library twice throughout my entire degree. It wasn't worth the hassle, I just sourced my own reading material elsewhere. My student loan was severely delayed at the start of my third year due to a staff member at the uni insisting I complete a particular type of form, when in fact it should have been another one - which I argued with her about for some time. Timetables for classes and available modules for the next semester were often not made available until a couple of weeks before, making it very difficult to decide and plan for.

I also had some poor tutors. One was actually only a tutor in training, yet she was teaching a level 3 module, which I found incredible. Moreover, she had less idea about the subject than most students in the class. My other nightmare tutor, whilst incredibly knowledgeable, was near impossible to get in contact with. He was my tutor for one module and my dissertation and he would never be there when I phoned, he would never reply to my emails, he would not turn up when I had a meeting arranged with him and he really, really just could not be bothered. How I got through my dissertation I will never know, having only managed to meet with him on 4 ocassions for half an hour at a time.

In addition to this, the area surrounding the uni is just awful, it feels really dodgy and I didn't feel altogether safe when travelling there. The campus itself is nothing special to look at either. I don't have any particular complaints about the facilities as such, but it is not an especially pleasant or inviting place.

To summarise, my main issue with the place is the poor attitude of the very staff members who are supposed to be there to support the students. We are not an interruption or and inconvenience, we ARE your job!!

However, I am pleased to say following all this that I did manage to get a first! So at least I know all the stress was worth it!