CCCU / Canterbury Christ Church Uni - MSc Speech and Language Therapy

1.

My cohort had around 17 people in, however I believe the university has told the course staff that they have to keep recruiting until September. This was the case last year, at least. The ENORMOUS problem this creates is that the university struggles to find appropriate placements for everyone. It has been a bit of a **** show with people having placements cancelled last minute, or being sent on totally inappropriate placements where there wasn't adequate clinical supervision or Practice Educators were not informed about expectations and boundaries. This is my absolute biggest criticism of the course because it puts students into very stressful and unfair situations

2.

Typically, you will be in uni 2 days a week from 10am-3/4pm. Each day will be dedicated to one module (so, for example, Mondays will be DCEL and Thursdays will be APO in your first trimester). In your first trimester I believe there is also some online learning on a different day, but this may have changed

3.

From memory, the modules listed are the ones you will study. Some modules are absolutely miles better than others but overall the content is good/interesting

4.

You do your thesis/dissertation in the first trimester of year 2, which is a super weird time to do it but I quite liked getting it out of the way. Unfortunately, you don't actually do any research and your entire thesis is... a research proposal. An 8,000 word research proposal.

5.

Generally, the administrative side of the uni/course, including communication and information sharing, is poor. However, the course staff often go out of their way to liaise with other departments to resolve issues. The i-zone help desk is quick to respond to emails and the staff on site are lovely

•

The university outsources occupational health to an absolutely abysmal company despite a number of complaints about them. They are disorganised, abrasive, and some of their clinical practices are very concerning (for example, there have been reports of nurses not wearing gloves to administer vaccines)

•

I personally don't think there's enough time dedicated to teaching clinical reasoning/decision making

•

We had next to no preparation for job interviews and basically had to coach each other. We raised this several times and specifically asked for things like mock interviews, but this did not happen unfortunately

•

The teaching is excellent and lecturers have a wealth of experience in quite varied fields. They also bring in lots of guest lecturers from really interesting services

•

Teaching staff will do their absolute best to support you

•

Pastoral care is generally very good and you have a named Personal Tutor throughout the course

•

There is a fantastic sim suite, but unfortunately you don't get to spend a lot of time in there

•

I can't speak for everyone, and I know there have been issues, but I have personally had extremely high quality placements and have felt supported by the uni during placements

•

Medway campus itself is lovely and very safe, and is in a nicer part of Chatham with good transport links

•

The library is great and there is a health librarian, who is brilliant at their job

•

There is a good variety of assessments including portfolios, essays, presentations, reflections, workbooks and one exam

•

Many of us had jobs secured months before we actually finished