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University of Bristol

Bristol

Bristol Second Year: Ask Me Anything

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Reply 20

Random_PC_Errors

Original post by Rabadon

What do you study?

''I'm a Social Science student (Politics and Sociology)...''

:P

University of Bristol

Bristol

Reply 21

anon9615

Hello, why is Bristol's student satisfaction rating so low? I'm starting in September and its worrying me... Does the uni listen to/support students and respond to their feedback or do they just ignore it? :smile:

Reply 22

Random_PC_Errors

Original post by anon9615

Student Satisfaction is very subjective/relative. I can't tell you what goes through the minds of people when they fill out the National Student Survey but it is true that Bristol has low Student Satisfaction. A few things might contribute to this, including the fact that the Union is not Universally adored nor is particularly well used. The low contact hours, or even the fact that there's a lot of students at Bristol who really wanted to go to Oxbridge. The fact that they're now in Bristol is only going to lead to disappointment when they thought that they were going to be elsewhere. Also there's a lot of very low ranked University's that have very high student satisfaction, there's other things you should consider like facilities and graduate prospects because after all someone who's spent 3 years partying and not working is likely to be highly satisfied with their University whereas someone who's worked hard will be tired and worn out.

Personally, I didn't take student satisfaction into account at all (and still don't) but it's your call whether you think it should be a major factor in your decision to come to Bristol just remember that there's other factors you should be looking into as well.

The Guardian puts us 25th in the country and puts heavy weighting on student satisfaction. The QS World Rankings don't take it into account at all and put us at 29th in the World!

http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2015/may/25/university-league-tables-2016

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=

Student satisfaction is a tricky issue for the University, it's your call whether you think it's an important issue or if the other benefits of being at Bristol outweigh the poor ratings.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 23

iamyourmum

Original post by anon9615

Student satisfaction is so low because Bristol has significantly over recruited students which meant at the beginning of the last year, around 100 people had to share a room.

The library is always full - during the exam period, you cannot find a seat at the library if you go later than 10:30 ish. I do law and they don't have enough textbooks to go around even though the law school's policy is to have 1 textbook for every 10 student in the library.

There was also a protest in December - http://epigram.org.uk/news/2014/11/its-official-arts-students-pay-for-science-degrees

Also, for one of my modules, my tutor taught around 60 student but he only offered 30 feedback sessions. I wasn't able to register for a feedback session and when I emailed him to ask if I can meet him during office hours, he told me that I could only get feedback via email.

Original post by Random_PC_Errors

The Guardian places Bristol at 35 (not 25).
And we're placed 74 in the world by Times Higher Education.
https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2015/world-ranking#/sort/0/direction/asc

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 24

Random_PC_Errors

Original post by iamyourmum

Student satisfaction is so low because Bristol has significantly over recruited students which meant at the beginning of the last year, around 100 people had to share a room.

The library is always full - during the exam period, you cannot find a seat at the library if you go later than 10:30 ish. I do law and they don't have enough textbooks to go around even though the law school's policy is to have 1 textbook in the library.

There was also a protest in December - http://epigram.org.uk/news/2014/11/its-official-arts-students-pay-for-science-degrees

Also, for one of my modules, my tutor taught around 60 student but he only offered 30 feedback sessions. I wasn't able to register for a feedback session and when I emailed him to ask if I can meet him during office hours, he told me that I could only get feedback via email.

The Guardian places Bristol at 35 (not 25).
And we're placed 74 in the world by Times Higher Education.
https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2015/world-ranking#/sort/0/direction/asc

I've always been satisfied with Bristol, perhaps it's due to the fact I came from a pretty disappointing school where the facilities were non-existent (I used to revise in a store cupboard most days). You've raised an interesting point in that your expectations of Bristol may vary dependent on what you've experienced in the past, perhaps you went to a good school and experienced better/expected more from the University.

The room sharing wasn't directly due to the increase in student numbers, it was due to the incomplete accommodation blocks that were 'supposed' to provide for the increase in numbers. Everything would have been fine had Hiatt Baker Self Catered been completed on time -_-

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 25

BobbyFlay

What were your A-level and AS results?
If you don't mind me asking.

Reply 26

Random_PC_Errors

Original post by BobbyFlay

What were your A-level and AS results?
If you don't mind me asking.

I only tell people my results under anonymity, I find it unhealthy to go around shouting about how I got in and the moral advantages or disadvantages of Bristol's contextual offer system.

Pol/Soc standard offer: AAB
My offer (contextual): ABB

AS: BBBB (we don't mention the extra E in critical thinking)
A Level: BBB

Please be aware this is significantly sub-average grades for a Bristol student. I never met anyone with grades as low as mine and it really knocked my confidence in the first term.. that's until I started getting 1st's in assessments. This is why I would always encourage someone to apply to Bristol even if they think ''I'm not good enough'' because I've shown how you can really turn your life around once you get to University.

Reply 27

BobbyFlay

Original post by Random_PC_Errors

STUFF

Thanks, I was planning on applying but didn't for the same reason that you just stated. That helped.

Reply 28

iamyourmum

Original post by Random_PC_Errors

Good point.
I'm an international student so I guess I expected more since I'm paying more :e

Reply 29

Rubgish

Original post by anon9615

The university certainly do respond to feedback from students. It is obviously not instantaneous and there is still a lot of progress to be made, but things are improving.

My personal opinion on the low satisfaction ratings is that they stem from the fact the university expanded it's intake faster than they expanded the facilities, and that they have only just now really begun to catch up. It meant that previously people ended up moving all over the place for lectures, and some subjects didn't have any proper dedicated study space. The people who didn't have proper study spaces ended up going to other buildings/locations, and so everything got too crowded (e.g. the mention by an earlier poster about the ASS library being full from early in the morning during exam time).

In the past couple of years and/or currently ongoing, they have:

•

Renovated the SU

•

Renovated front & back + study spaces of the Physics building

•

Brand new huge life sciences building

•

Maths moved into the old life sciences building (is this done yet?)

•

Acquired Beacon house & turning it into study space (is this done yet?)

•

New Hiatt Baker accommodation

•

Expanding engineering building

It basically equates to a whole lot more space for everyone and reduces the stress on existing buildings. Obviously it doesn't solve all the problems, but it does go a significant way to improving the overall mood of things.

As an example, previously some maths tutorials took place in converted cargo containers that had been placed in the backyard of the maths building, because there wasn't enough space in the maths building itself. Now they would be taking place in the old life sciences building (which is significantly bigger & nicer than the old maths building). As another example, a lot of physicists used to use the ASS (should probably clarify ASS = arts and social sciences) library, where as now the physics building itself has a lot more study space in the library, and group study rooms/other areas that can be used for study.

I've rambled on quite a bit here, but essentially I think my point boils down to the fact that the low satisfaction ratings are probably not totally deserved. Maybe 50% is the universities fault & they are working on it right now, 20% is the universities fault & they aren't working on it, and 30% is down to students expecting things they shouldn't.

Reply 30

taleri

Hi,

I was wondering how much should I be expected to spend on books for my course (maths) roughly and how much is your avg weekly expenditure as I'm trying to plan my budget?

Thank you in adv :-)

Reply 31

Edwin Okli

Original post by Rubgish

In the past couple of years and/or currently ongoing, they have:

•

Maths moved into the old life sciences building (is this done yet?)

I don't think I'll be at the university to see this completed. The general consensus in the School of Maths is that it is has long been neglected, even before Bristol decided to start letting more people in. I've never once had a lecture in the Maths building because the lecture theatres are too small. My friends who have had lectures in the Maths building told me that they were always full to the brim, sometimes with people sitting in the aisles.

We were supposed to get our own brand-new building along with the new Life Sciences building before the university shelved the plans citing lack of finance which seems just a little untrue given the university's purchase of Beacon House to turn it into a glorified welcome desk.

There are plenty of reasons to be dissatisfied with the way the university does things. They're especially bad at maintaining the buildings that they have; half the converted houses on Woodland Road seem to be falling apart.

Reply 32

martin7

I'll comment on several posts in one go..

Original post by iamyourmum

The library is always full - during the exam period, you cannot find a seat at the library if you go later than 10:30 ish. I do law and they don't have enough textbooks to go around even though the law school's policy is to have 1 textbook for every 10 student in the library.

You don't mention which library specifically (Bristol has 10 of them, I think), but you will always find libraries busy at exam times. It simply doesn't make sense to provide space to meet the peak demand for 3 or 4 weeks a year and have it sitting two-thirds empty for the other 90+% of the year.

Even if Law's policy is to have 1 textbook for every 10 students, that is never going to be enough to go around. (And do Law pay for these, or do they expect the Library to?) The problem with buying textbooks is that (a) they're expensive; (b) they go out of date "Dr A has decided to teach from the 4th edition of the book this year instead of the 3rd edition she used last year"; (c) they need to find somewhere to keep them when they get returned at the end of the year.

Going back to space, if you look at Bristol's largest library (Arts and Social Sciences), remember that it opened in 1975. It was presumably designed in the early 1970s to take into account of what students numbers were expected to be back then. No one could have imagined that twenty years later the government would decided to expand the numbers in the way they did. Bristol (and I suspect a good many other universities), simply have to do the best they can with what they have. (The location of Bristol's precinct area is also a problem -- at least some of it is in a conservation area, which restricts what they can do; it's on the top of a hill, which limits the height of buildings in some areas; and it doesn't have lots of space to put up new buildings.)

I think that realistically, people have to get out of the idea the libraries are the place to do revision, and find other quiet places away from distractions to do it.

Original post by iamyourmum

Also, for one of my modules, my tutor taught around 60 student but he only offered 30 feedback sessions. I wasn't able to register for a feedback session and when I emailed him to ask if I can meet him during office hours, he told me that I could only get feedback via email.

I hope you complained about this formally, via your personal tutor and via your department's staff/student liaison committee.

Original post by Rubgish

To be honest, I think the idea of subjects having dedicated study space is a luxury that can't be afforded these days. Moving all over the place for lectures is nothing new; I did it when I was a student in the 1990s (and it wasn't at Bristol). I was a Science student, but many of my lectures were in the main Arts faculty building.

Original post by Rubgish

In the past couple of years and/or currently ongoing, they have:

•

Renovated the SU

•

Renovated front & back + study spaces of the Physics building

•

Brand new huge life sciences building

•

Maths moved into the old life sciences building (is this done yet?)

•

Acquired Beacon house & turning it into study space (is this done yet?)

•

New Hiatt Baker accommodation

•

Expanding engineering building

... and the Arts and Social Sciences building was refurbished within the last 5 years or so, and the ground floor again in the last 2 or 3 years (converting some space used by Library staff into student study space).

Original post by Edwin Okli

I don't think I'll be at the university to see this completed [moving Maths into the old life sciences building] . The general consensus in the School of Maths is that it is has long been neglected, even before Bristol decided to start letting more people in. I've never once had a lecture in the Maths building because the lecture theatres are too small. My friends who have had lectures in the Maths building told me that they were always full to the brim, sometimes with people sitting in the aisles.

We were supposed to get our own brand-new building along with the new Life Sciences building before the university shelved the plans citing lack of finance which seems just a little untrue given the university's purchase of Beacon House to turn it into a glorified welcome desk.

Realistically it's going to be another couple of years before Maths moves into the Fry Building. It's an enormous building and it needs to be gutted and fully refurbished. It's Grade II listed. I'm sure it'll be great when it's finished, but it'll take time.

Yes, there was a plan to build a brand new building for Maths. My understanding was not that the University couldn't afford it, but that the city council told the University that they wouldn't grant planning permission to build on the site.

My understanding is that Beacon House was paid for (at least partly) with money from the sale of Burwalls, and that's only happened in the last year or so. (I don't understand why the University bought Beacon House; I'm not convinced it was a good move.)

Reply 33

Rubgish

Original post by martin7

*snip*

I think them buying Beacon house was partly a response to the whole study-space thing (as far as I can tell it's basically just going to be an assortment of study rooms?), and partly because it tries to bring the SU closer to the rest of the university. From a strategic point of view it's an overall good location to pick up as well, so that may have factored into it, even if they don't have any real purpose for it right now. I can also speculate that it'd been empty for what, 3 or 4 years, and so might have been been very good value for money.

The whole study space aspect in and of itself is a bit strange. For a lot of subjects, the advent of the internet means there isn't really any need to be close to a library. I've done an entire physics masters without using a book from the physics library, but with plenty of looking stuff up on wikipedia/google scholar instead. So to that extent, it doesn't really seem like more study space is needed.

However what I have noticed, is that an awful lot of people want to work with their friends around them, even if it's not the same work they are doing. This obviously means that they need somewhere to do that and it's usually provided study space that ends up being used. So there are a lot of people who end up doing 90-95% of their work/revision in provided study spaces/libraries, and really they don't *need* to be there at all, they just prefer it that way. Obviously this can very much have been true in the past as well, and naturally I don't have experience to compare it against, but I think that it's certainly a big problem at current and puts a lot of strain on the system for no real benefit. I also think that the university isn't really required to provide such a space, as it's not actually assigned group work.

Bringing it back to the satisfaction point, a lot of the people who do work in groups feel that the university should provide such space, which they should to an extent, for things like group work/group projects, but not necessarily for what amounts to individual work that happens to be taking place in a group. When this kind of space isn't available, people get annoyed and say that the facilities are overcrowded and they don't have what they need.

With respect to your point about ~10 libraries, I think a big point too is that people treat the ASS like a central library, even though it's really not intended to be that way.

Reply 34

Random_PC_Errors

Why you'd want to work in the ASS during the day is beyond my comprehension. It's just too loud/hot/ugly/crowded to use. I've found the Wills library much better as it seems people can't be arsed to walk down Queens road to get to it. Although I've always lived in the Hawthorns so haven't need to carry books half way across Bristol to get home, I tend to just go into the library and get what I need so that I can study in my own small space (probably due to the fact that I spent most of my free sixth-form time revising in cupboards/storerooms/server rooms as we had very little dedicated study space). It's probably the best thing about the Hawthorns in that you have your own private study space within the precinct.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 35

PaigeTaylor

Hi!I'm a bit confused about how freshers week? I'm living in a unite building in the city not on halls, and apparently you buy wristbands through halls so does that mean I can't go? And will people talk you through all the id cards and online set up and what you do on the first week?
I guess I'm getting a bit nervous now its closer!

Reply 36

Random_PC_Errors

Original post by PaigeTaylor

apparently you buy wristbands through halls

It's that time of year again! I posted a lot about this last year, I'll do it once again this year though, might save a few people money. So basically don't buy anything unless your JCR or the Union is running it. Half of the Facebook groups you'll find are run by club promoters who'll try to sell you tickets and whatnot. So just keep an eye out when buying anything to make sure it's official, before you spend money on an event no one else from your hall is going to.