Lovely campus and great support

Interesting content but can be challenging

Close to campus

Campus grounds are well kept with many green spacesThere are plenty of study spaces and social spaces. The loss Starbucks was not as heart breaking as that of pizza man. Replacement cafe offer very small beverages for quite a high price. There are many great societies including those linked with courses. Annual balls and Christmas shows were a highlights of some of what went on. I was lucky enough to run the chemistry society for a year. Lectures were keen to get involved and everyone had so much fun. However in organising these events there were many issues with the students union. From the website not working, to support team not responding to emails and even room hiring being changed last minute despite having contracts.

Staff are super supportive and have an open door policy. There is a lot of freedom to direct your own leaning and even options to move onto the MChem course if grades allowed. Small course sizes were beneficial and provided a great learning environment and even smaller project groups made a much more personable experience. The careers and placement support that was available definitely helped a lot of people during second and final year. Whilst on placement the supervising academic would provide support and knowledge development checks throughout the year. This included three visits/presentations and one final presentation at the industry day conference organised by the university. All years are able to attend and so it is a well known event throughout the whole department. Over the years there were several issues with time tabling, especially when modules involved more than one faculty. I appreciate that their job is a difficult one and they did well to coordinate so many modules. One of the issues was an overlap of lectures. we were told to just get on with it and watch the recording after. Another issue faced with the advanced pharmacology module was that we were not equipped with basic background knowledge to be able to begin the learning. This was not communicated until the module had started and resulted in having extra lecture videos to watch on top of our already heavy workload. A lot of this was available in an optional module in first year which many did not take- I believe it has now been made compulsory. Despite this staff did their best to support and even provide extra online support sessions. When the workload became too much the lecturers were very supportive and accommodating even though it made their lives a bit more difficult. Lab facilities were incredible. We got hands on experience with many different instruments that many undergraduates don’t get . The undergraduates and postgraduate lab technicians were so helpful and made sure we got the most out of our time. First and second year involved dedicated lab days. This meant each week involved a minimum of 8 hours in the lab. Final year there weren’t any lab days instead you had to work on your project. This meant organising your time well around lectures as you could go into the lab at any point during the day. Our year definitely struggled with the exams. In first year we had 24hour open book exams, this was then reduced to 4 hours and then eventually 2 hour closed book invigilated exams. The effect of this was reflected in the grades with some exams being scaled up due to the very low grades. Academics tried to support as much as they could but the reliance on the open book to recall knowledge had put us at a disadvantage. L

I stayed in one of the newer blocks and it was like staying in a hotel. Any issues were sorted very quickly by maintenance. Accommodation was in prime location close to Tesco and the sports park