University rating
Tell us about your overall university experience so far.
Greenwich is definitely an underrated university. I have loved and disliked every bit of it at the same time. The campus is amazing and you will meet lots of great people. There are lots of societies that will make you feel welcomed as a 1st year uni. However, the university is far from prestigious. It is not the kind of environment where you will meet students whose minds have similar workings like Mark Zuckerberg or Stephen Hawking, most of the students here are free-spirited people who are not academically conventional or messed up on their exams and love to have fun and party, so you will find many outgoing people at Greenwich. But it is definitely far from an innovative[ly] stimulating environment, but not to say that once in a while you won’t meet extremely passionate people you know will make it big and far, because you will. As someone who came from a prestigious school with people going on to attend unis like LSE, UCL, Cornell, UC Berkeley, Imperial, Columbia, there are undoubtedly pros and cons to the lecturers and negative remarks I can complain about the system, but Greenwich is really what you make out of it. Because the university is situated in London, a lot of the lecturers are also visiting lecturers in the other top London unis like SOAS so you will find very highly qualified and good lecturers among terrible ones. Overall, you can have a great time in this university as long as you are active in the Student Union; be part of societies, meet lots of people, go to all the events and take all the opportunities Greenwich gives. People often complain about the university not helping in employability or skills but university is not about where you are placed but what you make of it. If you know the potential that you have, even with the lack of mentoring on skills and employability that Greenwich may bring, you can try to be a helpful asset to your cohort and try to reach out your maximum ways to gain employability and grow your networking during your time at university.
Facilities
How good are your university's facilities?
Standardly good
Student support
How good is the support offered by the uni? Think both academic (tutors/feedback) and personal (counselling, etc).
Decent
Students' union
What do you think of your Students' Union in terms of student representation and facilities?
Facilities are great but the SU can be exclusively centric. You will see the same people or same groups/circles representing the students and this is because the SU is not as spread throughout to the whole university. They are not bad and they are definitely trying their best. They throw fun socials and events but it’s directed towards the same kind of socials and not everyone is informed about it. They could do better.
Local life
Is your university in a good location in terms of distance to accommodation and local amenities?
Amazing location. It is located in Zone 2 London, around 30mins to Central London or even less. It is one of the only universities in central London Area with a campus. Greenwich park and the Greenwich market are all next to campus. It is so easy to get food and so nearby Canary Wharf or Lewisham shopping centre.
Societies and Sports
How would you rate the variety of societies/sports?
Lots of societies and sports to choose from. There is Model United Nations, the Bar Society, Cultural Soc and an array of sports team: football, netball, volleyball, hockey... but if you had come from a prestigious high school or college, there is definitely a limited variety of societies.
Lecturers and teaching quality
What do you like most and least about the way your course(s) are taught?
There are definitely pros & cons of courses in ALL universities but lecturers can be very biased and project their opinions indirectly which is a little unprofessional for a course like Politics. The lecturers definitely try to make the lectures as interesting as they can and surely there are great ones among bad ones, but of course this can be found anywhere. A lot of the seminars are also very useless with time wasted talking about how to properly write an essay. Maybe it is helpful for some people but these are the kind of things that should be expected for university students and do not need to be emphasized. Basically, in an organizational and professional aspect, if you had come from a well taught school, you will find a lot of faults or negatives in the logistics and ways of teaching at Greenwich. Lectures and seminars may not be as academically challenging as some may hope and this is understandable as most of the students at Greenwich are either
1) weren’t the most academic or smartest students but want to go to uni
2) super passionate and motivated students who did horrible on their exams and want to get this degree over with so they can reach their initial goal
3) not smart not dumb rich kids who want to live in london
4) students who failed their 1st year of uni or dropped out and now go to greenwich
How many contact hours per week do you have?
9
Career prospects
How does your uni make efforts to increase your employability (careers department, work placements, transferable skills)?
They always have career talks and invite well known guest speaker. But it really depends between faculties. Overall, the university does a good job in inviting guest speakers.
University halls
What do you think about the safety, condition, location and cost of your accommodation?
I was given a room at one of their accommodations hall, except on their Avery Hill campus and not in the Greenwich area which I deferred for proximity to central London. I opted to live in the Canary Wharf area which is around 10 minutes from university and lots of Greenwich students live in this area. Canary Wharf and Island Gardens can be a really expensive area for rent but is very strategically located, right near the Underground and also connected to the DLR that takes you to the Greenwich campus