Best aspects: Supportive lecturers, diverse community, and lots of opportunities to grow academically and socially. Worst aspects: Overcrowded facilities at peak times and occasional delays in communication. Overall: A great place to study with strong support, but could improve by expanding resources and streamlining services.

Best aspects: Engaging teaching style, approachable lecturers, and a good mix of theory and practical work. Worst aspects: Some timetable clashes and heavy workloads at certain points. Overall: A well-taught course with strong support, but could be improved by better scheduling and pacing.

My first year has been so brilliant so far! The opportunities I’ve had through my course to attend guest lectures with industry professionals, the student ambassador scheme, the support from lecturers are all so wonderful. I’m finishing off my first year here incredibly happy and feeling super excited to start year 2. I’ve taken up old hobbies again, such as fencing, I have healthy routines and habits that have only been made possible due to my schedule being so flexible, and I’ve made lots of lovely friends so quickly.

I love the journalism side of my course - the media side however isn’t as enjoyable. The course feels poorly structured, our practical media lectures and workshops feel quite rushed, giving us 3 weeks to learn a new form of media and a new programme. I think if the course focused more on quality of teaching and going into more depth on the major media forms, like photoshop, illustrator etc, it would be more beneficial. I do wish there was more contact hours, only because I love the journalism course so much and find that it would be nice to spend more time doing feature work, as that was only for 8 weeks, however I know I get to do more of that next academic year when I pick my modules.

I have really enjoyed halls, at first it was the only way I really made friends. It forced me to come out of my shell a lot more and I’m grateful for that. I will say, I have complaints about the circuit laundry - the app doesn’t really work very well, it’s incredibly overpriced, and gets very very busy. Because the timers are always wrong on the machine, and the app doesn’t work, it’s always a guessing game as to when our washing will be finished, so sometimes there’s no machines free as someone hasn’t collected their washing - because we don’t know when it’s going to be done. The kitchen spaces are large, however the space we get allocated to put our stuff, is unfairly done. Some students get a big cupboard, others get a tiny little one. It makes storing food and kitchen utensils, very difficult. I often spend ages having to take all of my stuff out just so I can reach the bag of pasta in there. Same with fridge space, but that is more of a first come first serve thing. I had a lot of issues with flatmates, to the point where student complaints had to get involved, but the halls management was so brilliant in the way they handled it all. I was moved out of my flat within the 12 hours of the issue happening, and I’m aware that the situation is being investigated- which some action already taking place. Management and security here is genuinely wonderful.