I gave into insecurity and could have applied to Durham but instead decided to stay at home and place safe with a Business degree. This review is based on personal experience when I studied there in the late nineties.

Business students are not academic material; they are rough, bullying types who will lie and cheat - some felt they had to knock others down instead of working on their own progress.

No personal tutor was available so there was no-one to turn to for personal problems. They brush bullying under the carpet, although they did suggest counselling.

My biggest predicament was that a harassing sixth form head from a Cramlington school had tarnished my name; I was even told by teachers she 'had plans for me'. There was definitely some suggestion she had contacts in the university especially one little, short man who hung around corridors and randomly asked to see my result paper on one occasion, spewing some rubbish about how a high grade was out of place with my other results. The truth is they do not mark work fairly; some judge based on previous work which means some people may never improve on their final mark. They allow people to bad-mouth other students resulting in their victim being sabotaged. It is obvious some tutors give their favourite students higher marks.

I was told by a member of staff that the business school would attack me as a female if I complained. The fact is I am respectable non-drinking woman so it is scary what they think they can get away with.

I suffered for many years after leaving this hell-hole with only a 'sorry' in a pre-written letter.

This is only a snap shot of what happened to me.

All-in-all, the business school is nothing but a halfway house for thick yobs who drink their way through the three or four years they are there.