Is Sussex Uni dwindling?

Run out of cash?

Fallen to corporate management idiocy?

Or do they just have whiny students who bring their survey scores down?

This is of little interest to most people, I understand, but it's not merely a whinge about league positions - it concerns the sheer scale of Sussex's apparent plunge, particularly in English, its flagship subject.

I knowingly picked Sussex over Nottingham, a more obviously prestigious university etc., because the course looked a lot more eclectic, a lot less prescriptive and a LOT less dreary. I also liked the sense I got from the open day subject talk - the US/Scottish-style interdisciplinarity, allowing you to take modules in various other things you might be interested in, the focus on seminars over lectures, and the generally unconventional and anti-authoritarian attitude they exhibited. Nottingham were pompous, stuffy and traditionalist in comparison.

What gives me pause is this. The Times - and yes, I know it's a nit-witted Murdoch rag - rate Sussex only just in the top 50 UK unis for English. That's low. Below a number of unis I'd literally never heard of. The Guardian puts it 32nd. As aware as we all are of the silly methodology employed in compiling league tables, they aren't totally meaningless.

So has Sussex lost many of its best teachers? Run out of cash? Stagnated somehow? Fallen to corporate management idiocy? Failed to attract brainy applicants? Or do they just have whiny students who bring their survey scores down?

I'm not a prestige whore. I just wonder what this steady decline in ranking means in reality - if it means much. I suspect it's still a great place to study English, with a more appealing course than any of the establishment unis like Oxford or Bristol, but performance-wise has 'officially' been left in the dust of unis it used to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with (Warwick, York etc.).

Any comment on this, however abusive and psychopathic, would be gratefully received.

This may be your problem. You may think it's more appealing than the other, established unis, but most people won't.

Surprising as you may find it, most people will prefer anything, in terms of courses and universities, that's "traditional" these days, lest they be lumped in with Media Studies.

I knowingly picked Sussex over Nottingham

Any comment on this, however abusive and psychopathic, would be gratefully received.

You silly person.

Why? I picked Sussex over Nottingham, Sheffield and York. Anyone who picks their university based entirely on league tables is a bit stupid.

Dwindling in what?

Sussex is not a monolithic entity, rather some subjects rise and others fall. Good lecturers come and bad lecturers go. Newspapers become less and more biased. Students become more and more complaining. Higher education becomes more and more like a cattle market where degrees and personal maturation is brought and sold, and results massaged to improve standing. It's a real shame it's got like this.

I don't believe that league tables - especially those which go beyond individual courses or departments - are remotely useful or relevant.

You silly person.

Which, the uni choice or inviting mentalists to vent spleen at me?

A little more work on your communication skills and you might get a better response

I think the OP will fit right in at Sussex.

Just wondering.. wasn't the English dept totally overhauled just last year?

I would have more confidence in the Guardian/Times until rankings at least a few years after to see whatever results occur