I studied three years at Birkbeck for a History of Art BA and then did a further year of study for my MA. The evening set up meant I could still work and the courses were so engaging that I felt refreshed rather than exhausted. The vast majority of the lecturers are extremely knowledgeable and teach their subjects with passion. I could not have got my degrees at a conventional university and am forever grateful for the unique teaching system at Birkbeck.

A poor student experience. My experience of studying humanities and history of art at BBK was incredibly poor. Research and think well if you want to spend your money here. Many of the tutors don’t reply on time. Some admin team members were not the most helpful neither. It’s a shame as there are some amazing people in the department as well. Some head of departments are massively biased and keep promoting politically infused agenda which affects some students experience. My colleagues were afraid to question these ideas for fear of seeming bigots and some tutors want to stir far away from important questions. The study material could be upgraded and more widely available in the library. Assignments are marked inconsistently in my experience and I got higher grades when conforming to pc ideology and less when questioning it. Very poor pathway selections not corresponding to advertised ones. I wouldn’t recommend studying here unless you are going for something other than humanities and the emerging so called grievance studies, so research it really well for its humanities and history of art department to make a highly informed decision.

Not sure what kind of impact this may have, but at this point I am quite determined to have some kind of justice. I can only talk for the Computer Science department MScs: if you are smart and have any doubt, stay away! I am into Data Science/Computer Science MSc, and Birkbeck Uni is terrible, borderline scam. The most glaring issue: randomly assigned thesis supervisors. You've read it right. You will be assigned one randomly with no option to change it. How it works: they make an extremely generic "questionnaire" very late towards the end of the MSc (you should start researching and working on your topic with your supervisor earlier). This "questionnaire" is composed by 1 (one!) multiple choice question with 4-5 options, each indicating an extremely broad area of "potential interest" (like one was "Artificial Intelligence" - that's a whole universe!). Then, based on your answer, they assign you the "best-fit" supervisor for that area. If you're wondering if this means your work on your topic of preference will be revised by a complete stranger that has no experience or knowledge whatsoever in your actual subject of preference, that is correct. Then, the supervisor will be of no help, or rather detrimental, not replying to emails or very late. This is just a way for the understaffed, overworked Birkbeck personnel to "manage" students with less work. Other major issues: extremely lacking and badly combined courses. The Data Science (DS) MSc is put together with a complete lack of vision. Students are not tested for previous knowledge of statistics on admission, and a course in Data Analytics with R is shoved down your throat in the first semester, without any previous introductory course. This resulted in an absolute mess of a course where 30% of the class was completely lost and continuously interrupting the lessons for, guess what, beginner's questions. This was despite the teacher's best efforts in what, anyways, was a messy set of lessons that ranged from elementary to advanced topics. The DS MSc includes two *mandatory* courses that are "envisioned" by the pretentious MSc Director himself, an incohesive mess of copy-pasted material (no joke). Their evening versions are "lectured" by the Director himself, clarifying that not a glimpse at the slides was given, and spoken in a rarely intelligible English. Daytime students were happier about these two courses as they are taught by a talented young lecturer but the lessons contents remains incohesive. The rest are classic CompSci courses stripped to fit the schedule without vision. Essential topics like Data Structures and Algorithms are basically skimmed over, while too much time is spent on basic topics of little use (e.g. boolean calculations by hand). After talking to other students, I gathered that also the optional modules are similarly bad. Realising the mess that DS MSc was midway into it, I switched to Computer Science ("allowed" if you pay extra 800£ for an extra exam). This was also very basic and with little vision. Sometimes they cut material useful for professionals (no UML! Agile course was a joke), sometimes for Academics (prospective PhDs). And again, the final project had randomly assigned supervisor. If you care about any kind of supervision, good luck. If you're happy on doing final project alone, like doing your own app and writing a bunch of thesis pages on it, you'll be ok – then again I can't see why you'd have chosen a MSc degree in the first place. Most students were incredibly frustrated and/or unsatisfied. If you are looking for a DS/CompSci program, I'd go for another Uni. As 2022, the random project supervisor is unique to BBK Computer Science Department. I know for a fact that other BBK Departments (e.g. Psychology) do not have such system (yet). I then learned that City University also has a similar random system, although less bad. Just be aware that the general quality (vision/teaching/support) at BBK is very low.

TL;DR: costly diploma mill with very low education standards and a bullying atmosphere. The whole story: I had the displeasure of working there for 2 years as a lecturer and had to experience: * massive doses of identity politics, with a consistent push to "help" (read: "lower/ignore education standards") for people of specific demographics; * grade everybody more or less the same - in more than one instance I was asked to adjust my votes by non-competent faculty members without a single hour of experience in my area and I was even once set to evaluate with another person (loyal to the line) that wanted to grade all the students exclusively in the 50-70 range; * conversely, students are allowed to act as they please without any fear of repercussion: for example, a student accused me of getting everything in my life because I was a "white male", with noticeable emphasis and disgust on those two words. I still graded her fairly and she passed my class, but I was suggested by other students to report this, otherwise I would have risked trouble (uh? For being insulted?). I did. The faculty told me to be more tolerant and accept other opinions! * completely incompetent people were put to teach in fields they have no real experience in and whenever I (politely) questioned it, it was only to face extremely outraged reactions and told never to speak about it again; * in other instances a prominent faculty member told me that I should not even begin to argue, since he has a PhD! Notice: PhD in history that had ZERO relevance to what we were discussing - a much more technical aspect of the curriculum; * the same faculty member suggested that I had some impact on a student with an unfortunate condition, a PTSD; I told I knew who he was talking to, since we talked about it for a while, but whatever I did in class had no bearing with it and he hurried to change topic, never to bring it up again. Separately, I asked the student if I ever did anything that brought her distress up, but she strongly denied it and was actually quite irritated that her medical condition was brought up without even asking her as a weapon to silence people that the faculty did not like; * student whining about having to, you know, study is ALWAYS welcome: I was told that having a final assignment for a module in a master degree taking up to 4h (but, really, much less if you were active in class and did the intermediate steps, in which case it was less than 1h) was absolutely too much. Plus I should keep simplifying my curriculum because some students (again, with occasional mentions to their demographics) cannot keep up; * on the same note, I was told to stop asking questions to the class during my classes, since it was part of a "humiliating" and "intimidating" atmosphere. Since I actually found it senseless and wanted to keep engaging my class, I easily guessed who was complaining (3-4 students and started not asking them; fast-forward two weeks and the faculty called me back again, now on the ground that I focus only on my favourites (20+ people) ignoring the rest of the class (those 3-4 students who even rarely bothered to greet or ask questions, which anyway I was still regularly answering); * despite accusing me of "bullying" students (with false references to the PTSD-afflicted student and the questions I mentioned above and more), the environment was clearly extremely hostile and biased against people not embracing the dominant ideology there, particularly if coming from my demographic (as I was told openly more than once: so much for inclusion and diversity, uh?!); * the bullying also manifested with blatant double-standards: I was accused of not replying in a timely manner to some students (even when it turned out they were just missing my messages), while some part of the staff, particularly the administrative one, would answer in MONTHS and only if pushed to do so multiple times; * a student could not graduate on time because the administration lost her papers and that gave her immense trouble with her visa - no apologies were ever provided.

Really unpleasant and abusive Admission department. Whatever I guess earlier their Admissions departments are corrupted. Offered me false Offered letter which is unable to get through enrollment process. Harming services they provided, wasting my time hours and hours. Called for open events but still no progress for getting through to enrollment. Says go to UCAS then not to updating UCAS Account for getting enrollment. Culprits Criminals spreaded education departments. Not for funding issues perhaps Students services Curruptions creating individually by the Uni. It is absolutely shocking unbelievable this ways Students abusing intimidating services they are giving in London. My Good luck otherwise after getting Admission definitely will be more current and abusing policies they Organised. The proof of abusing I am facing for several weeks totally no solutions. Abusing is excellent systematic ways Organised. UK lost Good reputations faithful reliable trustworthy services and this is perfect evidence. To show they have Students services they called Open events. Advertisements well fitted. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT please take action to prevent Crimes and Criminals.

If there was a 0 star rating I would have given that. University doesn't even tell the things properly there management is stupid. A kid can probably manage the university better. The lectures were as fast as flash running at top speed and I can't even communicate with staff properly.

This uni is very disappointing. I highly recommend you choose anything else, based on my own experience and opinion as well as many friends that I have met along the way. There are a lot of things that are wrong with this uni in every possible sector that affects a student's performance and wellbeing during the studies. It will leave you frustrated hoping you graduate as soon as possible. The uni has been choosing to do online lessons as long as it was physically possible to, long after other unis have changed back to in-real lessons only.

The University of Birkbeck made me an offer for its Bachelor in Psychology, which I accepted by summertime. They asked me to pay more than 2,000 pounds to start my visa procedure, which I did by their deadline. Then, they did not process my visa (likely they forgot it) and refused to pay back my tuition fee installment. Will soon start legal process. STAY AWAY FROM THIS UNIVERSITY - DO NOT GET RIPPED OFF. All supporting documents available.

As a graduate, i can say it is Worst Uni. I don't understand why they using name of University of London. I wasted £24,000. Graduate certificate from Birkbeck is useless. Poor lecturer only cares networking rather than class. Other staffs as well. Only librarian works hard. Give me my money back :)

Some good teachers and subject material on the Creative Writing MA. Unfortunately ruined by my extremely negative experience being ‘taught’ by one (prominent) staff member. Don’t spend your hard earned cash here. Goldsmiths is meant to be very good. NB their complaints system also sucks.

My experience overall of studying at Birkbeck has been terrible. While the lecturers are knowledgeable and hard-working, the administrative staff I had to deal with are callous and unpleasant (when they deign to respond to emails). To get around this, rather than address any core problems the school has made it as difficult as possible to call / email department admin directly. None of this is reflected in the many satisfaction surveys you are asked to complete, because these are based on lecturer competency, and therefore feedback ends up being overwhelmingly and misleadingly positive.

Absolutely awful experience with this university. Administrative errors, failure to make adjustment for mental health impairments, unkind and unhelpful responses. Worst academic institution I’ve seen, please think twice if you’re a single parent/ have a mental health disability.

Best adult education college in the world, history department second to none and far better than majority of UK universities who claim they are providing a education for their students when all their interest in his how much coffers they can get out of them. If you live in London or south East and what to study at higher education and especially masters level or above than go to birkbeck and don't waste your time with the other universities especially in north of the country because they don't come near birkbeck college for the range of choices to study and quality of teaching

I've been attending this university and I'm about to go into my second year of my Law LLB. I can confidently say this is the best educational institution I can think of. The tutors on the course are all so good and supportive, I feel like learning so much has helped me attain good grades. Interacting with other tutors and students alike has also really given me so much more confidence. I love my course that I'm on, I love this amazing university and I must recommend it to everyone looking to join uni. Bring on Year 2 Law!

For it is worth, my experience here was quite poor. I think the biggest problem with this University and possibly the rest of UK universities is that they effectively operate as businesses, despite being charities. In the constant search for fresh "blood" (i.e., students), the College will make promises, sell themeselves, spend thousands on marketing just to get your money. Leveraging the availability on student loans, they showed little interest on the student as an investment, but constantly made me feel as a "milk cow" in exchange for effectively a mostly useless piece of paper. The system is broken mind you. I met lots of amazing academics, incredible people full of drive and passion. They, like the students, find themselves in poorly paid, tough jobs. Instead, the students find themselves in debt, stressed and often jobless, event at the end of the course. To anyone thinking of studying here, I suggest you seriously ignore their marketing, their research status and anything else. I am sure there is a lot worse out there, still this education is largely overpriced and if you ask me, mostly useless. Just think, will I get a job after I finish whatever I plan to get myself in heavy debt for? Who is to blame? No one I guess. As long there's demand for it, courses will be supplied. I think the biggest issues is that students nearly always overestimate the actual benefits of formal education, without carefully assessing the financial implications. Student loans are loans, not grants! Good luck.

This is the place if you want to pursue a degree as a mature student or just want to take some courses. Everything is at night so it works around work schedules, but still keeps its academic authenticity. I can't recommend highly enough. I suggest checking out their website for available courses. The location is very convenient if you are in town for work or live here.

very bad experience studying here. would recommend searching for a better university. tutors are least bothered to help students and you will not get extra support. avoid!

A university that's happy to host thousands of students for welcome week events but will not provide graduation ceremonies! 2021 graduates were denied a ceremony, and were not given the option to defer to the following year's ceremony. Allegedly, the decision to cancel our ceremonies "was taken by the Vice Chancellor’s Executive Team and only after a detailed analysis of the risks, impacts and issues". However, within 48 hours of being told this, I erroneously receiving a Welcome Week invitation email detailing an event which would host “thousands of students”. This blatant disregard for alumni, and tactless prioritisation of new students (and with them, new finance) was heartbreaking to see. Despite this being over 2 years ago, I still feel a great sense of disdain towards the university and the staff that handled this situation, and feel bitter when I see posts on social media of current graduation ceremonies. I worked extremely hard during my time at university, as did my peers, even during lockdown where the quality of teaching dropped significantly. I have at no point asked for compensation for this, however my anger over the lack of empathy from the university over this situation is leading me to feel as though it might be my only way of having some sense of closure over this chapter of my life. The lack of respect from Birkbeck has totally marred my time studying there, and I have since made a point to dissuade any of my friends or family from even considering applying. I sincerely regret choosing Birkbeck.

The worst study experience psychologically (Computer Science department MSc). Terrible course content. Unhelpful and unhappy tutors. Grading was awfully awfully slow. It was a waste of my time and money (self funding). I just hated that fact that I wasted my time and money. Even after a year later, our results aren't still being graded.

Unfortunately this University matches the standards and expectations of a developing country! Although I am sure there are developing countries with way better universities! The lack of care and interest for the students' wellbeing is appalling!

A good place to meet with professional people. The pace of evening classes is wonderful. The staff are very helpful and they quickly consider any concern. To be recommended for sure if you want to have a professional experience during the day, and pursue your Master s degree at the same time.

Long-standing campus in central London. People who I know have gone here have had good experiences. The cafe is a nice meeting point for a coffee and snack.

You can find a better university, don’t settle for this place where the teaching is below standard, decision making is unfair and the course unorganised and information incorrect. Don’t waste your money, time and education here.

Student bar was a good evening with some real old school tunes, a good evening. Drinks aren't too expensive & staff are polite & friendly.

The George is one of the finest places in London. If you are privileged enough to have access, don't waste it

Birkbeck, University of London commonly known as London Met, is a public research university in London, England. The University of North London (formerly the Polytechnic of North London) and London Guildhall University (formerly the City of London Polytechnic) merged in 2002 to create the university.

Would definitely not recommend this university. I did not feel welcomed at all, i felt like an outsider. The only time i felt included was in the classrooms, once in a while, when people noticed that i wasn’t talking. Even when i tried to communicate, i still did not feel involved in my classes. Most of the time i was by myself. When i emailed for issues, it would take a week or two weeks until i hear back from them, so ridiculous! I even emailed to the student complaints, and i have not heard back from there lol. They are not fast at responding to inquiries, barely received any help from my teachers, on their website they have the courses but it does not look like a lot of courses. I was meant to be doing two courses, i did one full course (both short courses) and i did not want to continue one of the other courses. I told the department MONTHS before and politely, and i was told to contact the fees service and i was eligible for a refund . Firstly i would like to say that the fees department were rude, blunt, and not straightforward. One woman even shouted at me when i asked her why can i not receive my refund, and i stayed calm on the phone. She kept saying “You will not receive it” without any proper reason. I emailed the department again, and they told me more than 3 times, i am eligible, and i have not received it so i left it. Then later on i receive an email from the department that they have taken the money from my details, so that is why i did not receive a large amount of money in my account as refund. Miscommunication honestly ! Why did you let me know that i was eligible for a refund at the start just to find out months later after requesting for a refund that i am “apparently” not eligible, without any proper reason. Avoid this uni.

If you have any alternative options, skip it and don't do this mistake; otherwise you will have high probability to lose your money and time! I have very bitter experience with them; it is normal for them to do not provide supervisory assistance for postgraduate students and consequently just dump you and ruin your studies with lost one year and left with devastating financial casualties. This is even serious breach of contract, as they are supposed to provide supervisory assistance and opportunity to submit master dissertation as this is agreed in contract (which is legal document) and included in our tuition fees and we paid for this! Administration is totally dysfunctional: they are not responding to letters and requests for any help. They are not even investigating official request to terminate studies. They are interested in students as long as they are paying tuition fees and after this you are simply not needed there. As someone here commented before, maybe they are focused on so called "positive discrimination" and some demographics are not very welcome in this college. It's even strange how this college is part of so called "University of London" group, as it supposed to be prestigious and respectable...

History of art department and humanities is a joke in all its entirety. Constant misandry in classes, identity politics, very low iq students and teachers part of the be kind brigade constantly saying "white", "male", "all males" and full of blm and hamas supporter in the classroom. The standard is indeed very very low. It's worrying! Far left has completely taken over this place. I feel sorry for the few real academics within these departments.

Great university, highly recommended.