Music Technology degrees in West Midlands

Overall a lovely place, with great facilities and people, though it is hard to use all of them without proper explanation sometimes, eg. I took nearly a month to understand SOL and where to find my assessment and briefs.

Studying at Birmingham City University in the Curzon building is great because of the modern facilities, comfortable study spaces, and central location, which makes everything convenient. It could be improved by adding more quiet study areas during busy times and better communication about timetable updates.

It is good as there is a plethora of support available for all kinds of needs, however, the learning methods are very monotone and there is no atmosphere in the lessons, but this is largely down to the unenthusiasm of a lot of students. Additionally, the facilities are decent but no better than the ones at I had at college, there is just a greater quantity of them. Given that you have to pay for university but not college, you would expect there to be significantly better facilities at a university compared to a college

It has amazing facilities for recording and rehearsing and is open all year round through summer and holidays if you want to work on anything for yourself or for the courses. It has two studios, lots of mac suites with access to logic pro and production software. It has an amazing community of people and everyone gets along with everyone including the staff who are great to talk to. Staff all have a wide range of experience in the music industry and can give valuable advice and support with your studies and futures outside of ACM. They help with opportunities and live performances and are always happy to help with mental health and well being if you are struggling with their wellbeing team!

The best is the students and the amount of resources the university provides. On the other hand, I expected a bigger workload and more classes for the price that I am paying. Since this is my first time studying something in the creative industries, I am not sure how the studies should be like, but it feels like there should be more tests inbetween the assessments and academic pressure.

Overall great place, very friendly and helpful all around. As a committee member for a society there has been a few issues which could be improved involving the union (as we booked a room months in advance for the event however the day of the event we were informed we weren't allowed to use the space as they did not want to turn the heating on despite approving our request in advance) but other than small situations everything has been rather perfect. Most issues I have would be rather difficult to resolve however, sometimes it is frustrating to be unable to do work unless I am using the university computers due to the software being outdated when I downloaded the same software at home using the provided student services and licenses. I do accept it is difficult to fully update all pieces of software as students are still accessing the versions being provided but there has been times I have started work at home and been unable to open it at the university, making it difficult to work on my assignment unless I work exclusively at home or exclusively at the university. My only other major issue is how loud some of the ventilation can be. I have a very difficult time differentiating sound in my brain and the loud buzzing of some equipment has made it hard to understand what the lecturers are teaching. At most this may simply be distracting to some but for me personally it can make it harder to understand the information being taught if there is multiple locations of sounds (such as the class being taught, sounds of the computers being used, eternal equipment, others talking which the lecture is occurring, etc.). Once again these issues are most likely unable to be solved but I mention them just incase. Finally, some of my courses have put clear information out about AI use and its prohibition of it (for more modern AI developments such as generative for art). While AI is at a point where it is unavoidable, I deeply appreciate that the university is showing its stance on the matter for it is a comfort to know that despite being on a course which AI is attempting to 'improve' by taking the work myself and other artists ate using without compensation, the people behind the course and teaching it are not allowing the use of such AI for our development. I have heard from others than some lecturers are pushing for AI use to be more common in university (which honestly feels rather disappointing as what is the point in paying for this degree if it is not my work behind the grade?), but there has been many efforts to band together to show what stance the students personally have in hopes of not having our work devalued due to AI being used by others. My general experince at this university has taught me a lot and helped me meet others so I can improve as a person overall. There is very little to criticise due to how smoothly everything is ran, outside of small issues which are very difficult to 'resolve' or are commonly caused by my own personal situation which they cannot change. After being here for almost 2 years I feel like I have a solid grasp on what and who I wish to be in the future, thanks to the university's support after being stuck in life after college.