Student Reviews
SUGGESTED KEYWORDS
Course
Choose one or more
Read honest reviews from real students at this uni
The overall ranking is decided by students from this institution rating them in a 2026 Whatuni review. This forms the basis of the Whatuni Student Choice Awards (WUSCAs for short).
4.03.83.41150 Student reviews
Sort:Latest reviewsgood content, good lecturers and students, facilities are great good computers etc for the tech side of the courses. Stoke on Trent as a location is terrible there's trash all over the streets and literal drunks walking around at night it's pretty scary to be outside this coming from a guy so its probably worse for the opposite gender. got told in 1st year not to go in the park at night by a police officer that visited the uni because it's dangerous and people have been hurt seriously before because they didn't know.
In my opinion, is a great university. The facility and staff are really amazing.
18-24 years
First gen student
in addition to the well designed course i think there are alot of recourses on campus that make student life accessible, inclusive and enjoyable, as someone with a mental health condition , i've found the uni a very enjoyable place to be despite studying away from home. my only issue is the campus is split in two sections with the middle being open to the rest of Stoke, this causes alot of safety concerns however staff have alot of measures in place to protect you, eg the safezone app, and the option to have someone escort you to your accommodation if you feel unsafe.
25-34 years
First gen student
The campus is quite split and isn't the most welcoming or appealing campus. The departmental staff are fantastic for biological science. The university is also making important progress towards becoming carbon neutral and the university is very environmentally conscious. I wish the university valued nature a bit more and invested further in the nature reserve which is a collection of fantastic habitats on university grounds. I also wish the university tried better to retain fantastic staff who unfortunately get offered better-paid positions elsewhere. I also feel like Staffordshire University is in a place to offer more in-terms of environmentally/ecologically focused degrees/opportunities.
Balancing work, home and study can sometimes be hard. The general feel around the uni is great, its clean and vibrant there is plenty of support available when needed
Great facilities and helpful staff who know their topic area amazingly Not much in the surrounding area of the uni
18-24 years
First gen student
I think the courses offered are overall good, there's lots of events but engagement isn't always high. The unis based in an area that isn't all round the safest and the night life here isn't that good due to lack of public transport. I think in terms of overall university experience sometimes you have to go out of your way to get what is 'typical' but the staff are nice and most are obviously interested in their job. I've had some issues with the students Union not taking issues maybe as seriously as they should, or some drama ive heard of in societies. Sometimes i feel work isn't that well explained or hard to find exactly what the lecturers want. Sometimes i also feel information is underexplained or that expectations of myself and other students can often feel ambiguous. Especially in first year, a lot of the documents we had to follow felt confusing or under developed. I wish we had more feedback of our work during the run up to assessments as it feels like some issues could be fixed then but arent.
Cheap city, friendly people great uni
18-24 years
Lovely campus always clean but sometimes not enough parking or equipment available
best is the student union and support they offer students such as free breakfast. worst is the facilities, there’s no microwave or kettle accessible to student who bring their own warm food.
Its a great place to study, lots of facilities both in uni and outside.
N/a
18-24 years
First gen student
Tutors are really understanding and helpful. Location is close to the city centre and train station.
The worst aspects are the crazy lecturers who don't know what they're talking about.
Lecturers are good but overall University's facilities are really bad. Lots of hidden costs. They keep cutting founds, but they can't respond to an email in less than a month. Pointless complaints system.
Student life could be improved however the Leek Road houses are quite nice. Expect to have delivery drivers constantly lost when ordering stuff though...
Location is so dangerous, people getting stabbed or attacked outside of the university, and you get approached by dodgy people passing from one campus to another, and more dangerous at night, shops are a far walk abs the university building’s are old. The students union is nothing, the clubs that were advertised turned out to not exist, with only a couple actually running. So leaving no opportunity to meet people, the nightlife is terrible, with a bad ‘DJ’, and an instagram page saying of what people have done to others on a night out, including spiking their drinks with bleach, purposely spreading STDs, and getting high. The facilities are very small and not built for purpose, including building a huge study building which has a lot of wasted space, and students have to walk far to the library, would have made sense to put their tiny library inside for effective studying. But no one seems to study here so that is probably why.
Avoid! I am transferring ASAP. The area is so dangerous, countless stabbings and dodgy looking people around. The campus is split in 2, with one half being a walk away through a dodgy housing road. There is no nightlife here, the LRV has an awful playlist, went once and there was some guy storming in circles around the edge and past everyone like he was on drugs or something. Didn't return. At the start of the year I emailed loads of societies to join, yet none of them were actually on, despite a society fair where they promised all the groups to be on. None were. The teachers are meh, my course I wouldn't recommend. The department is so small, with about 8 people on my course. All mature students who had never even done essays before. For an english course. One student called me a 'slag' and the teacher told me to forgive him. I don't know who they let in this university, but had a 40 year old man join and threaten a boy that he would attack him and had to be escorted out. The accommodation is awful, facilities inside them don't work. Again the questionning of where they get these students from, they are all unsociable and slobs. Yet there's nowhere safe to move to. The support team are alright, have come quickly when our bathroom flooded and had fecal matter all over the floor and carpet. And came fairly quick to the 4am fire alarm. The new building- the catalyst- is just seats and chairs. No smart thoughts about it. I was told the library was moving there, which would have been smart so that students could take books out and study at the same time. The library is very small, and badly placed away from anything at the university. The buildings are all old, and there is no support for career prospects or anything. Whilst my friends at other universities are making friends and having good nightlife, there is nothing here, and nothing outside of the campus as that is even more dangerous. Have even seen someone get stabbed in the centre of Hanley. The support team was helpful in telling me how to transfer, and it seems it is a popular choice here. I do not wish to ever return here or to Stoke. There isn't any food shops close enough. This university is mainly a mature-students university and a games university. So if you are young, and you don't sit on your computer every night, then this university is going to be the death of you. The international students expressed their excitement to finally leave, as well as told me their disappointment as to how bad the lessons are, and how they do not get any work done. I am filled with regret everyday about coming here and have told anyone local I know not to come here. You can do better. I have transferred now to a better university- which is any university.
Starting with the facilities they are probably the least bad aspect of the university. For an engineer student at least you have access to 3D printers and laser cutters, along with some lathes and CNC machines for metal work. However, the rest of the buildings are rather bare and even the new Catalyst building which they boast about being +£40m to build yet it genuinely has nothing in it. Moving onto the location, if you go on Google maps or just know what stoke looks like then I think it really speaks for itself so not much else on that. Student support is very bad from a personal view, there is no offer of actual face to face therapy sessions only over the phone which I think is a bit of a joke, and when it comes to your subject if you don't understand something then don't bother emailing the lecturers as they only tell you to look at the PowerPoints they've already gone through. Student engagement in lessons doesn't exist, but neither does teacher engagement. There really isn't anything good to say about the campus, the buildings are spread out so takes about 10 minutes to get to the old library building from the halls, and it does not feel like a university campus should sadly. Best way to describe it is college just with a different label. The cafes are probably the only highlight of the campus as they are generally empty (what a surprise), and the staff there are usually nice. Don't expect party life to be good either as it really isn't both on campus or in stoke. Especially not on campus as the music playing is the same every Wednesday and Friday, and the DJ might as well be replaced with a Spotify playlist I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Next up is the student life. It's miserable. Don't expect to be taking part in many clubs as they all seem to inevitably die because nobody shows up to them. Making friends can vary from course to course, but as it's a uni aimed at gamers it's hard to actually socialise and make friends with people. Even in the course you will find that half the class don't show up after about a month and the other half are usually quiet and antisocial. However experience there can vary from person to person. Student Union tries with events and whatnot but at the end of the day when the students aren't going to engage in any activities it is inevitably destined for failure.
4.2
I think the facilities on offer are great, I look forward to seeing what else is on offer as I move into the next year's. I think there are definitely issues unrelated to my course as my friends have had funding cut and barely get 2 lessons a week which is embarrassing for the uni as well as their blatant disregard for a lot of their staff specifically the part timers.
I think the course has a lot of great opportunities especially the trip to Ambleside and all the lessons we get to be hands on