Amazing University. Great place to live, nice size and good atmosphere.

• Facilities 5.0
• Students' union 5.0

The BA primary education course is very poorly organised, particularly now the course has changed as their are too many programmes running parallel to each other. This results in difficulties placing students in school, and a number of students have missed days of their school experience due to still not being placed. With regards to staff, some lecturers are fantastically helpful, however it appears that the staff take on too many roles and are unable to fulfil all of these well. There is a lack of communication between staff and students regarding many issues. University accommodation is adequate but very expensive, and also very noisy. The security staff are very rude and unhelpful. The union is poor, with very little variety of events and nightlife. Bop is a good night but the other nights are not very popular. the city centre has one proper nightclub, which is tiny and costs five pounds entry. The bouncers at the Union are very unhelpful and often aggressive. The strongest point of the university is it's facilities. There are several places to eat, lots of study spaces and good sports facilities. However, it is hard to find a quiet place to study. Having made all of these points, I know that some people love this university. If you like small cliques, knowing everyone, and familiar events, this is the place for you. If you want a diverse and inclusive university experience, this is not.

• Facilities 3.0
• Students' union 1.0

I studied dance and choreography at the university before I had to switch courses before they killed my love of dance completely. If you know anything about dance do NOT study here. There were people on my course who had never danced before and the teaching (if you can call it that) was abysmal. Teachers were rude and publically stated in our first lecture not to contact them out of lecture time as university’s about teaching yourself and if we did they wouldn't reply. The Knowledge of the teachers was shockingly low too with even basic dance terminology getting constantly misused when it was used at all, which it rarely was. The only thing I could say they were good at was regurgitating information about other famous dancers and choreographers. The course set up in general was no technique or dance training of any kind, we were lucky if we did more than roll around the floor for a warm up or one 'teacher' had an obsession with cartwheels. The choreography is a joke you basically get told go make a dance/ a solo/ duet etc. Then you are judged on how much they liked what you did rather than if they could see how ideas and been interpreted and used to form the piece. For example one teacher hated any move that was even slightly balletic which everyone knows dance originated from social dance and ballet so there for every move has elements of ballet in some form in another. Course work was marked in the same way I don’t agree with that point no matter how well it is referenced. I lasted one year before having to switch courses. I switched to event management as I felt it would help me in my chosen career path. Which was an amazing course with passionate teaching with real knowledge. I now run my own dance school but all the course taught me is how not to teach.

• Facilities 4.0
• Students' union 4.0

I love my course - the lecturers for the English language department are incredible. I combined with Media Studies for a term and would not recommend it. A lot of the students doing Media Studies as a combined degree in first year dropped it. Overall, the facilities are great and if you're motivated and just want to learn - Winchester is great.The nightlife, in my opinion, is awful. There are 2 clubs in town which play the same chart music slightly remixed, so if you're a fan of anything other than chart/pop music don't get your hopes up. The student union does offer 1 or 2 alternative nights, and a pub/club called The Railway is really fun but it's not hugely popular. The masses want the pop music so that's what most of the nights include. The only alternative night that is a bit popular is 'Detention' which is kind of pop indie/rock. There are lots of pubs and restaurants, but these are pretty expensive (actually pretty much everything is expensive here, I think it's nearly at London pricing). Basically, if you're looking for a wild time here, you will not get it. That also means, in my experience, that most of the actual students aren't wild. At all. Also they are incredibly cliquey, so make good friends in the first year - it's likely you'll be stuck with them.Having said that, if you are fairly well off and aren't big on partying you would probably enjoy it here. It's only an hour from London (and £30) and is beautiful.

• Facilities 4.0
• Students' union 4.0

I actually was very unimpressed here, having gone to various open days here I thought it was a lovely university, however, I actually felt when I got here the reality was much different. The student helpers were no where near as friendly and the atmosphere was completely different. It was very very dis- organised! And there appeared to be serious communications issues between departments, and generally speaking people were very unhelpful. Also the nightlife is awful, to be honest I felt it was almost non-existent. Which made for a much more isolating experience. The 'freshers' I had was such a mess, the system for tickets etc was again disorganized and somewhat unfair as a lot of the 2nd and the 3rd years seemed to steal all the tickets and this seemed to be a vicious cycle. And the uni seemed to be aware but had done nothing about it. Also you were unable to buy any of the main events online and instead had to wake up at the crack of dawn if you wanted a chance of getting any. The events that I did attend weren't exactly 'wild' nights either just very average. I felt it was maybe more appealing/catered to

• Facilities 2.0
• Students' union 1.0