Lack of support from university as a third year - is this normal?
Hey guys, so basically I'm a third year Sociology with Criminology and Criminal Justice student at University of South Wales (I know it's a *****y uni) and am yet to have any communication from my university about anything post-graduation. No talks about how this is our final year, no prompts or advice on postgraduate study, and no careers appointments or guidance about graduate jobs. Luckily I have taken it upon myself to apply for internships and look at postgraduate open days, but I feel as though I really lack support from my university at the most important part of our degree. I just wanted to know if this is typical of all universities? Surely myself paying them for my degree should entail some kind of advice on deadlines for applications for jobs/post graduate study etc. what about the people who haven't taken in upon themselves to look for opportunities post-grad that have already missed job application deadlines or open days for post grad study? Granted there is the option to book a careers appointment, as there is with all students should you wish to, but there is no real encouragement or highlighting of the importance to do so, I feel like I'm going into this all so blind, and really do feel so unsupported by my university.
I should highlight that I have struggled throughout my degree with my university's organisational issues, timetable clashes, insufficient lecturing and just all together lack of enthusiasm to sufficiently support it's students. I really do regret choosing this university and wish I had cared more when I was applying to universities about the reputation of the uni...safe to say I am applying for a different university to do my postgraduate study.
Would be useful to hear anyone else's experiences with this, is it just another thing to add to my university's long list of organisational issues or is it true of universities across the board?
Thank you guys
(sorry its a bit long winded)
I should highlight that I have struggled throughout my degree with my university's organisational issues, timetable clashes, insufficient lecturing and just all together lack of enthusiasm to sufficiently support it's students. I really do regret choosing this university and wish I had cared more when I was applying to universities about the reputation of the uni...safe to say I am applying for a different university to do my postgraduate study.
Would be useful to hear anyone else's experiences with this, is it just another thing to add to my university's long list of organisational issues or is it true of universities across the board?
Thank you guys
(sorry its a bit long winded)(edited 5 years ago)
Eh, it's not hugely surprising. Some universities have better industry connections in general or seem to put more effort into placing students around (e.g. Strathclyde and Loughborough, for engineering anyway) than others, but my impression is in general it's very much dependent on the student to pursue different strands of enquiry (although the usefulness of these strands e.g. careers fairs or services, placements and so on might vary a lot between universities and departments).
I think (for engineering at Exeter) we had one or two lectures by the professional bodies in the latter half of second year in a vaguely related manner but, nothing particularly specific or useful. There was a general careers fair, but nothing specific to the subject that I remember being advertised. There was also a careers service, but again this was generally available to all students, and you had to arrange an appointment yourself if you wanted to (and when I did they weren't terribly helpful - just variations of "have you looked at the resources on the website/looked at job listings online?").
On the academic side in second year we had an email circular inviting students to apply for an EPSRC summer project, which I did - it turned out only two people, myself included, applied for three places, so obviously not hugely popular and the only reference to it I believe was a single email being sent. The only other thing was my BEng project supervisor asking me if I was going to apply to a PhD there as the deadline was coming up (a moot point anyway since I withdrew a couple weeks later lol...), which was down to her specifically and nothing to do with the uni/department overall.
I think (for engineering at Exeter) we had one or two lectures by the professional bodies in the latter half of second year in a vaguely related manner but, nothing particularly specific or useful. There was a general careers fair, but nothing specific to the subject that I remember being advertised. There was also a careers service, but again this was generally available to all students, and you had to arrange an appointment yourself if you wanted to (and when I did they weren't terribly helpful - just variations of "have you looked at the resources on the website/looked at job listings online?").
On the academic side in second year we had an email circular inviting students to apply for an EPSRC summer project, which I did - it turned out only two people, myself included, applied for three places, so obviously not hugely popular and the only reference to it I believe was a single email being sent. The only other thing was my BEng project supervisor asking me if I was going to apply to a PhD there as the deadline was coming up (a moot point anyway since I withdrew a couple weeks later lol...), which was down to her specifically and nothing to do with the uni/department overall.
Original post by sianabananas
Hey guys, so basically I'm a third year Sociology with Criminology and Criminal Justice student at University of South Wales (I know it's a *****y uni) and am yet to have any communication from my university about anything post-graduation. No talks about how this is our final year, no prompts or advice on postgraduate study, and no careers appointments or guidance about graduate jobs. Luckily I have taken it upon myself to apply for internships and look at postgraduate open days, but I feel as though I really lack support from my university at the most important part of our degree. I just wanted to know if this is typical of all universities? Surely myself paying them for my degree should entail some kind of advice on deadlines for applications for jobs/post graduate study etc. what about the people who haven't taken in upon themselves to look for opportunities post-grad that have already missed job application deadlines or open days for post grad study? Granted there is the option to book a careers appointment, as there is with all students should you wish to, but there is no real encouragement or highlighting of the importance to do so, I feel like I'm going into this all so blind, and really do feel so unsupported by my university.
I should highlight that I have struggled throughout my degree with my university's organisational issues, timetable clashes, insufficient lecturing and just all together lack of enthusiasm to sufficiently support it's students. I really do regret choosing this university and wish I had cared more when I was applying to universities about the reputation of the uni...safe to say I am applying for a different university to do my postgraduate study.
Would be useful to hear anyone else's experiences with this, is it just another thing to add to my university's long list of organisational issues or is it true of universities across the board?
Thank you guys (sorry its a bit long winded)
I should highlight that I have struggled throughout my degree with my university's organisational issues, timetable clashes, insufficient lecturing and just all together lack of enthusiasm to sufficiently support it's students. I really do regret choosing this university and wish I had cared more when I was applying to universities about the reputation of the uni...safe to say I am applying for a different university to do my postgraduate study.
Would be useful to hear anyone else's experiences with this, is it just another thing to add to my university's long list of organisational issues or is it true of universities across the board?
Thank you guys
(sorry its a bit long winded)Sounds standard to me based on my experience at a different (better ranking) university. We had a careers talk in our first year that hardly anyone bothered to turn up to and after that it was entirely up to us to work out what to do and access any help/support if we needed it.
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