Birkbeck - good or bad?

I have just finished a Law (LLB) at Birkbeck and here are the pros and cons:

Pros
- Teaching and lectures are brilliant
- Awards a University of London degree
- Very diverse in terms of age, so lots of different ideas are being brought to the table
- Acts on feedback (more on this in "neutral")
- Tailored people who work in the day and is the only evening University in London

Cons
- Admin staff for the first two years were horrendous, I was put on the wrong optional modules and they did not answer the phone so I had to physically go there to sort out the issues, which they got wrong AGAIN
- If you work in the day, the day may seem incredibly long
- Based on the reviews above, the teaching quality does seem to vary from course to course. I can only speak for Law, which has been brilliant

Neutral
- However, the administration team got A LOT better in my final year. They answered the phones, assessments were marked within 4 weeks of doing them and they were very approachable.

This is just my experience, so your mileage may vary, but I have been very impressed with Birkbeck and would recommend it.

My college in india have planed one month classes in birkbeck college london for which they are charging hefty amount of money. Do you think i should go for the college or just stay out of it?

Hi, thank you for sharing your experience. Out of curiosity could would you state which course you partook in?

Terrible lazy teaching. Birekbeck student myself,it is so bad i decided to tranfer to other uni. Lecturers are full of themselves and are absolutely useless. Seminar tutors are bit better this is the only place where you learn. There is no such thing as Teaching in Birkbeck,you have to learn everything yourself and make your own research,run after tutors if you want some extra info but even this will be like a hassle and barely heplfull.However they mark your work with the perspective they have taught you something. If you have to study at Birkbeck my suggestion make sure you make good usefull friends who you will be collaborating with all the time,it is the only people who will help you,otherwise if you have parents,grandparents who studied the same subject and willing to help you then it should be fine. TUTORS DON'T TEACH,they prepare misserable slides and read it really quick ,too much information in the same time which is cramped up in 1 hour session. It definetly doesnt feel like you learn there anything you couldnt learn yourself at home.

Hi Karrowse. I am a former student at Birkbeck so I hope my contribution can be helpful. Unfortunately, many of the negative reviews which you find online, reflect my own experience, that is a very negative one. The only reason why I may consider Birkbeck is because of their evening studies, but only for short 1 year courses, never an undergraduate degree. They don`t have a campus, just a building which is shared with other institutions. If you are looking for a real university experience, please do look elsewhere because they target more mature students. Anything outside London is recommendable. The quality of teaching at Birkbeck was quite poor, with basic facilities and no support from the academics. Some individuals were either rude, or really not qualified to teach. Regardless, they charge like all London Universities, so I don`t really see the point of going to this university. One things that they do really well is marketing themselves, that is adopting various strategies to make students believe that they are better, more desirable and academically sound than the are. Again, unless you have other options, I would not study here. In terms of students` satisfaction, I would take any survey results with a pinch of a salt (especially when they are published by the Universities). They are often biased and non reflective of real experiences. Most of the students in my course were quite unhappy about the course, but they wanted a London degree, so they did keep things to themselves. Overall, I wish I had studied somewhere else, as studying here made me, in fact, worse off. I do not recommend it.

Please I'd need a review by anyone who has either studied philosophy or computer science at bbk. How bad can it be for international students applying to studied for either of these courses at undergrad level at BBK

Hey,

Looking for a good quality Online MSc Computer Science program.

How would you guys compare Birkbeck, University of London (actually UoL offers through Birkbeck) VS University of Wolverhampton VS University of York VS Keele University?

Bro .. it looks and sounds awful .. if you can avoid it i recomend you do

im definitely not going here, and judging by these comments, i dont think anyone else should either.

FYI Im doing Law LLB

Sorry, this is an old thread but I have just stumbled across it as a current LLB student at BBK, and I have to say I'm so surprised by all of these comments?! I have found the university to be excellent this past year, of course, the material isn't spoon-fed to you and you have to do lots of your own research to get good grades but that's the same at any decent institution. Furthermore, I have been to many law firm events this past year and met people from other London uni's who are shocked by how much support we get at BBK in terms of skills development workshops for writing essays etc. which doesn't seem to be offered anywhere else. Someone above says that BBK doesn't have a campus which isn't true, there is a main square with just BBK buildings which have good facilities including a huge library and a really good restaurant. Some of the seminar rooms are shared with other Uni of London institutions such as UCL but that's standard for any London Uni. I have found 60%+ of the LLB teaching staff to be extremely helpful and dedicated, there are a few useless ones but I imagine that's the same with most faculties and one of the things I love about BBK is that if you don't get along with the way your seminar tutor teaches it's extremely easy to move seminar groups online by pressing a button! The only thing I would say is that nightlife is definitely not as good as at other uni's just because of the fact that it's an evening uni targeted to people who work during the day, saying that, 30%+ of my class are 18 year olds who share uni accom. with other UoL students. Please don't let these other comments put you off studying Law at BBK because they have not been my experience at all, happy to answer any more specific questions if you have any!