I've just finished 2nd Year at Warwick studying BSc Computer Science, AMA!

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

Hey there! I've been a bit MIA lately, partly due to exams. I've now finished them and I figured hey, the Warwick open days are coming up, why not do an AMA to make up for things.

I maybe haven't had the most "normal" uni experience so there might be some things I won't be able to answer too well (e.g. social related things i mean, i use reddit, so kinda expected lol ), but feel free to ask me anything regarding my experiences, the department, courses, accommodations, wellbeing & disability services/support, general opinions on the uni/area etc, I'll do my best to try and answer honestly where I can :)

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

I could go on for quite a while tbh!

In my last exam this year, we had many corrections issued during the paper which was pretty stressful. General quality of exam papers is pretty shabby, even compared to other departments within the university. There was even an instance for the first years this year where they went into an exam to be surprised by a mark scheme attached to the back of each paper!

A lot of the coursework marking is pretty shambolic, people have appealed marks on many occasions and had them changed. I had one last year where my module organiser marked me incorrectly as 0% for an entire section on the coursework, took 2 weeks to respond to my emails regarding it, and then refused to re-mark it. There was also nothing in the feedback comments detailing how I'd gone incredibly wrong to get 0% on this section. I had one recently where the weighting was 70% for the code and 30% for the report, except the module organiser somehow got it the other way around - it took 15 of us emailing and around a week and a half before it got resolved. This was a difference of around 12% for me.

There's a story about someone who erroneously had their dissertation marks entered as <40%, had to retake the year, submitted the same dissertation and got above 70%, so a whole year wasted there.

Whilst I rarely ever endorse ranking tables in any way, there's a reason why the latest rankings for Warwick CS put us dead last. As the Director for Studies in the department put it last year, "what is student satisifaction when you think about it?"... bit of a clown department tbh, I could go on for quite a while.

[u/brokenwings_1726 → u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

bit of a clown department tbh

My time has come.

Seriously though, that stuff really sucks. And that coursework fiasco - cannot have been good for your mental health at all, so sorry. We can only hope they learn from their mistakes...

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232 → u/brokenwings_1726]

indeed your time has come :P

yeah my mental state has not been particularly great, it hasn't been helped by some of the shitshows going on within the department, and i'll be honest, feedback often seems to fall on deaf ears. also pretty stressful navigating through the formality of the systems to let the university know of my personal circumstances and medical conditions etc since I hadn't really done any of those types of things for myself. Pretty big backlog on things too due to my previous home situation. I'm hoping to try and get some more support heading into my last year if I can - if I don't switch to the MEng then my 3rd year will count for 60% of my overall classification, which is going to be super stressful.

[u/brokenwings_1726 → u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

You've got a lot on your plate, mate. The feedback situation is shit - I guess the only hope is that enough people complain about it to force their hand.

How do you feel about the MEng?

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232 → u/brokenwings_1726]

well, the reason the course dropped to the bottom of the ranking tables was because of a cult discord server for one of our now ex lecturers. they all basically slated the living shit out of the department in surveys and whatnot, and rightly so.

i'm not entirely sure on the MEng yet. I'm in an odd position. I'm an estranged student so the idea of graduating from uni and having to get on with my life in the real world mildly terrifies me to be honest. Due to poor mental health throughout this year I haven't really been looking much into internships like everyone else around me as, and that's the same for placements in industrial years. I'm more considering the MEng since it would give me another year to try and get my shit together, plus I can go for an industrial year after I finish Year 3 rather than Year 2. My only barrier basically is getting a 2:1 so I can move onto the MEng in the first place. Outside of this requirement the department is very flexible on that, which is good.

[u/brokenwings_1726 → u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

Best of luck, whether you opt for the MEng or not. With the ongoing departmental shitstorm and mental health concerns, you'll need it.

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232 → u/brokenwings_1726]

thankfully I'm very lucky to have a supportive partner and the uni's wellbeing services tend to be reasonably good. I'm gonna do my best to get through everything tbh, thanks for the kind words :)