The Student Room Group

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Reply 1
it put it on my firm 2 years ago if that helps :P
...and what are your feelings about that decison? :smile: can you please share your thoughts about teaching style on the course and the things you like and dislike the most about BM and King's? Students facilities, whether teaching staff is helpful, essays:exams ratio etc?
I am still considering putting King's as my firm:smile:
hic sunt leones
...and what are your feelings about that decison? :smile: can you please share your thoughts about teaching style on the course and the things you like and dislike the most about BM and King's? Students facilities, whether teaching staff is helpful, essays:exams ratio etc?
I am still considering putting King's as my firm:smile:

yehhhhh shed some light on the above :smile:
Reply 4
Yea.. well do be honest, I have gone through a mix of feelings, during the first year I wasn't very content with the system, and it was largely different from what I had expected. Its university, as a student you are one in like 16,000 so you do not get much individual attention from lecturers - it is unlikely that they will know ur name or remember you after having asked them some questions. I came frmo a high school that was extremely small, everyone knew ur name etc. so this was very different for me - I almost felt alienated from the uni, or disassociated. The mentality is very much a do-it-yoirself mentality. The year is filled with 8 modules, each which is weighted by an exam 75% and a coursework 25% (this varies)... in essence you do not have to attend any classes and as long as u do well on those two, you can get a first. This for me was demotivating as it gave me less reason to attend classes and seminars, as the contribution to those didnt have a direct influence on my grade (obviously indirectly they do).. i especially lost motivation to attend classes which were slightly less-organised eg. those taught by phd students who are themsleves still learning. The system is fairly bureaucratic, the management department is disorganised and makes decisions that are poorly communicated to students. overall the communication within the department is poor and arbitrary - e.g. we have ot walk into the office to find out what our grades are - on a sheet on the wall (now imagine 150 students coming in at once to check exam grades). Whilst lecture notes are sometimes posted online, this is by no means consistent with all lecturers, and this onliune interface is hardly used for communication means...

Also last year they made several decisions without the students consent, which greatly affected us. firstly instead of doing 4 exams in in january (covering the pre-christmas modules) and 4 exams in may (covering the post-christmas modules), they moved all the exams to may, so now im faced with 8 exams in may. This was frustrating as they simply sent us an email saying that this was going to be the new system - we were not grandfatherted into teh old system, or asked for our opinion - its a deal with it situation. Also, one of the most look-forward to modules was droppped last minute due to a pregnancy leave, and this was poorly communicated and upset a lot of students.

It remains a good university though, and the courses are quite good. I have learnt a lot but i think the university can do a lot better, esecpially our dpartment. I do not know how our department compares to other departments or other unis, so its hard for me to give a weighted opinion. I expected slightly more from the course and university - i find they are very stubborn and traditional, which sometiems leads to some inefficiencies and moreover, upset students. at the moment I amhappy though and I am glad that i made teh decision to come here, say, over a country side uni - the london factor is definitely a big influence.

I hope this kind of gives an image, thats also ot too negative.. do ask more questions
Reply 5
Facilities at waterloo campus are quite nice, its a fairly new campus and sleek an modern. We have a lot available at our expense (eg. library resources, online reseources etc.) but it takes a bit to uncover it all and understand it all, so i do recommend you go to an infromation systems induction or something - something wihch i didnt do and regret

Most teaching staff have been very helpful, and a lot of them, too, criticize the 'upper' management staff for being so authoritative and crappy about handling situations
Woah... thats a very very good post :smile:. Thanks for that, now I have a real idea of what it'll be like at KCL (if I FIRM it). What module was dropped? Was it Economics?

Thanks for your help man :smile:
Reply 7
Nah unfortunately Managerial economics was not dropped (its a good course but I'm absolutely dying now trying to revise production and cost curves and empirical estimations of demands, and the functions behind first, second and third degree price discrimination). Whilst this may seem simple to some, I myself am not a good economist! hahaha and my math skills have kind of weakened over the last year or so as the course doesn't require much maths in first year! hehe but yea anyway the course that was dropped was Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital :frown::frown::frown:

To give you an idea of the first year courses you'll be doing (note in the first year all courses are compulsory):

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods I
basic stat methods both quantitative and qualitative research methods and ways of analysing and interpreting data

Organisational Analysis
motivation techniques, different theories on the firm, a bit of HRM and what not

Principles of finance and accounting
cover mostly financial accounting principles, drawing up accounts and interpreting them

Principles of marketing

Principles of economics
cover basic parts of micro and macro economics

Social context of work
study works of sociologists, and apply these to the organisational context

Evolution of the modern business
how capitalism evolved - contrasting germany, usa, and japan as polar extremes and examples, quite interesting course

Communication Skills
i didnt take this but its mostly basic communication skills, public speaking, the use of them in organisations etc

Language
You can opt to take a language instead of communication skills
Reply 8
Dutch Stud of the people you know on the course who has the lowest grade
I am predicted An ABBa (Business Media Economics sociology Respectively ) i have alredy banked the a in AS sociology
I was suprised as i didnt even get a conditional offer.
What advice would you give to me on how to get in
Is there nothing i can do sbout it
Did this happen to anyone in your class what did they do to get in
any advice would be much appreciated as i really want to get in
R u suprised i didnt get an offer or were my results not good enough from your experience of what your classmates got in comparison
Reply 9
Well mate to be honest I didn't do a-levels and neither did my friends. From what I understood was that the general grade requirement was AAB, but this varies. I did the International Baccalaureate, and on my application the predicted grade that my teachers had given me was NOT equivalent to AAB yet I still got an offer which was conditional to AAB - which I made in the end. This tells me that if you are 'within reason' to attaining the AAB requirement, and you have an attractive personal statement, they will give you an offer.

Perhaps I was lucky, i'm not sure. But from what I have heard you can try Extra or Clearings and see if you get any luck with that. If you really want to go to king's then u can wait a year and try again, or do a course elsewhere?
Sorry to hear you didn't get an offer.. it could be for several reasons, it doesn't mean that you are not an attractive candidate - it could mean for example that they have filled up the quota of students in your category.. eg. they have a quota for for EU students, quota for UK students quota for International students etc. Best of luck!
Reply 10
Thanks for that
Dutch Stud
Do u know whether Kings Put business management up for clearing
Have they done it in the past
How low do they bring down the grade
I tried extra but its not there
Reply 11
I'm not sure about the clearing mate, you could try to call them and ask them. It might be a good idea to show some initiative anyway, show that you're keen and stuff, it might help.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/mgmt/contactdetails.html
Thanks Dutch Stud, it really gives good image..
Now I feel depressed...:frown: maybe you have heard something about careers after graduating and employers views on alumni? (from what older friends say after interviews..)
And I am also curious about chances of going abroad for second year to Uni of Toronto.
I've got offer from Nottingham and I am still waiting for Warwick's reply. I am not sure if King's would be the best.
Reply 13
hic sunt leones
Thanks Dutch Stud, it really gives good image..
Now I feel depressed...:frown: maybe you have heard something about careers after graduating and employers views on alumni? (from what older friends say after interviews..)
And I am also curious about chances of going abroad for second year to Uni of Toronto.
I've got offer from Nottingham and I am still waiting for Warwick's reply. I am not sure if King's would be the best.


I applied to Nottingham and Warwick as well but I ended up going to Kings partly because of its location. I mean London is absolutely amazing and the opportunities here are immense. If you are interest in finance then its clearly best to be in London. I know that many companies do recruitment events and talks at all unis, regardless of whether they are in London or not, but the events are definitely more accessible if you are in London.. its just unbeatable for networking. The career service at our uni is very good, they offer lots of events all year around, and free advice for which they often charge £40++ per hour for non students. If you do come, make sure you make of this service as fast as you can, learn about the resources.. thats something I didn't do and left very last minute and this also means that this year I havent been able to secure an internship. But either way should u decide to come I would be more than happy to help you.

As for Toronto goes, it is interesting that you mention that because I was the only student that applied for it in my year.. I did a lot of research and such and got accepted but did not go in the end because I was a bit lazy in my first year and didn't secure a 2.1, which is the required grade. But i'm happy I stayed because im thoroughly enjoying the year. But yea Rotman school of business, at the University of Toronto is a good school and is in the centre of the city, but u don't have to worry about that until 2nd term of the first year. If you really want to enquire more about it before you make your final decision then I can tell you a little bit more, or I can give you an appropritae contact to email.
Reply 14
Oh, and in addition to that, I know plenty of KCL people getting fantastic jobs all over - that includes law firms, investment banks, or even in other industries in companies like Unilever or P&G.
Reply 15
zvp1989
Dutch Stud of the people you know on the course who has the lowest grade
I am predicted An ABBa (Business Media Economics sociology Respectively ) i have alredy banked the a in AS sociology
I was suprised as i didnt even get a conditional offer.
What advice would you give to me on how to get in
Is there nothing i can do sbout it
Did this happen to anyone in your class what did they do to get in
any advice would be much appreciated as i really want to get in
R u suprised i didnt get an offer or were my results not good enough from your experience of what your classmates got in comparison

um i had AAA in Maths Bio che Chem and didnt get an offer.

so don't be too surprised lol. oh and International students can get in more easily as they pay like 3 times OUR fees
Reply 16
Investment Banks? i though that it was Uncommon to see KCL people in Top IBs? is the course easy?
Bleached
Investment Banks? i though that it was Uncommon to see KCL people in Top IBs? is the course easy?

As Chassez personally told me, KCL grads and IB's are very rare, but not impossible.. you just need to work twice as hard and stand out.

It's a very competittive course to get onto, with 40+ applicants per 1 place this year. I got an offer and I really do wonder how when I see the other users on this forum with a far supirior skillset and academic background when compared to myself (GCSE: AAAAAABBBDD ; A-Levels: BTEC National Diploma for IT Practitioners [software development] - and no further a-levels). Shocking - I know. The personal statement really did the trick though. :biggrin:
Reply 18
unknownFluency
As Chassez personally told me, KCL grads and IB's are very rare, but not impossible.. you just need to work twice as hard and stand out.


Hmmm well it is definitely more rare than LSE and maybe OXBRIDGE but it's not THAT rare. I've seen those above my leave off to Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and BARCAP to name a few, and those that perhaps didn't make it, or had other desires, left to PG, UNILEVER, and some consulting like DELOITTE, PWC (and accounts ofcourse) to name a few. Definitely not a lack of graduates going into finance thats for sure. but yea we gotta remember that KCL isnt oritneted towards finance an economics, whilst LSE is. Maybe we need to organise better networking opportunities with the banks, and publicise things some more. :smile:
Reply 19
person above, is it Front office though? cos i think UF is talking about FO no BO