Poor uni course, what to do...?

Take the undergrad degree and bail as soon as possible I'd say. Can always go and get a masters anywhere else which might then allow him or her to choose somewhere that still has the accreditation by IET and could also diversity a with a slightly different but related masters which can look good to employers.

AI and robotics sounds very specialised, do they need a masters or would it not be more beneficial to get straight into industry as quick as they can?

2. How does he complain

Complain about a university degree? It's impossible sadly. It's a massive failure of the model and clearly all designed to protect the vast sums of money involved (even in Scotland they are still paid just not by the student).

1) If they're that bad cut and run and find another uni to finish the Masters at. Might not be easy if they've lost accreditation though.

2) He should have a personal tutor for exactly this reason. Other than that there will be the student council who I'm sure can offer advice.

What uni?

Is the university generally considered good? If it's an esteemed place that's dished up a turd of a degree there's an argument for seeing it out to B Eng (or the equivalent 4 years), given the time accrued.

If it's a lower tier place that was meant to be good at AI and robotics, but in fact is not - that's a tester, there's little to be gained by staying but our system isn't as versatile as some other countries for moving institution.

Sympathies for a very poor situation. I'd say serious complaints on degree content from students are taken seriously, at serious places. But if it's as bad as you say it doesn't sound like people are taking responsibility.

Is there not an ombudsman (Ofsted?) for universities?

This is the course

https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/study/undergraduate/robotics-autonomous-and-interactive-systems-meng.htm

And for an example: halfway through year three and no robots built....

might be worth contacting their admin department and finding out if you can transfer to an alternate uni to complete a course. Throw something in about being nearer to home as the reason, some unis have reciprical agreements with other unis that make transferring relatively painless

Throw something in about being nearer to home as the reason,

He's only half an hour away currently! Anywhere else is further - Strathclyde, Napier or Aberdeen were the only options...

My experience of AI (at Edinburgh, not HW) was that it was very theoretical and computational model based, so no actual robots may not be a great measure of quality. I'd go and speak to someone in management off this list https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/schools/mathematical-computer-sciences/macs-staff/management.htm Director of Learning and Teach or Director of Quality sound like good places to start. Or, if your son has a particular lecturer or tutor they get on well with, talk to them and see what they recommend? In my experience, universities and staff want the students to pass if the students want to put the effort in, and they'll be accommodating when students show engagement/are proactive in the process rather than just ignoring it and hoping something might change.

Complain about a university degree? It’s impossible sadly.

It's not impossible, it is however a waste of time that even Kafka would consider frustrating.

And for an example: halfway through year three and no robots built….

On reputation HWU have a decent enough rep for robotics but mostly through the CDT (so PhD level) and ocean systems stuff.

But on the building robots point, I’m not sure this matters for 3rd years or would be expected, or possibly even advisable. You burn a lot of time with the hardware getting stuff working and probably not a great use of time when you need to learn basics. Certainly not a hinderance working in robotics/AI. You would expect robotics related content in years 4/5 though, or projects - but I’d generally recommend staying away from the hardware if possible and wanting to do well (see time comment, simulation or data based can be a better use of scarce time - unless he’s into the mech eng side?)

In terms of complaining - he should speak to someone who’s permanent staff, one of the profs rather than RA/PhD students teaching. They will care, and interested motivated students who want to engage beyond the norm even to say things aren’t good enough are rare. That said, whether or not they can do anything…

FWIW I’ve worked in academia, but mostly industry, in robotics and AI for 20 years now. Including post doc at HWU* (a decade+ ago), and a lot of hiring since. Doing well at a good degree helps but it’s the extra stuff and interesting project work that stands out.

Any specific questions I might be able to help with ask away.

*so I know people at HWU, maybe I’m biased? I don’t dispute what you say sounds bad though in terms of the exams etc. in terms of exams on stuff not taught - there’s shades of gray there, students can be expected to read around the area.

it looks like the course will not run beyond this year’s intake.

This is VERY surprising, given they just opened the national Robotarium at HWU - have they changed the name of the course perhaps? I find it hard to believe they’d drop undergrad courses with a robotics slant.

The course not running next year is based on rumor and a few staff comments - having lost IET accreditation and unhappy students feeding back....

Fair point from stwhannah and IA about not bolting things together too early, and indeed you are right Hannah that there's been a lot of theoretical, maths and huge coding related to AI things.

I think I'm just listening to him be pretty heartbroken about studying hard (he's a straight A, Dux Medal winning at highest achieving state school in Scotland, 90%+ average at Uni) and feeling like the crap teaching and poor organisation is pulling things down.

I agree some could be he needs to think more openly about what to study.

As it stands we've just persuaded him to at least get undergrad and take time out. He can always return, or not, to study for the masters.

I'm of the view an employer won't know these hassles - and a degree at reasonable grade will open opportunities for him.

IME of E&W (not Scotland, I know), future undergrad funding might be a problem if he bails from the undergrad course. "we’ve just persuaded him to at least get undergrad" is pragmatic
Has the IET pulled accreditation for his course or "just" new courses?

a lot of theoretical, maths and huge coding related to AI things.

A robot’s just a computer with wheels (or wings, props or legs). The maths is the important bit, the coding is necessary.

Of all the people I’ve interviewed/hired for robotics roles (about 1/mo for 5 years) I don’t think I recall speaking to one that built a robot as part of the degree (physically). Some did stuff on the side themselves, or as part of jobs. The closest is maybe a phd grad building a quadcopter but their “real work” was the control software.

I have worked in an org more focused on the building the physical robot - most of the roboticists were on the software side whereas the mechanical side was more tradition mech eng, aero eng, sim & modelling engineers, systems engineers etc.

If you/he wants an idea of the (academic) breadth of robotics, have a look at the outputs of the IROS and ICRA conferences, they’re they big ones.

If he or (or you) would like a chat with someone who’s been in robotics/ai a while, always happy to help people getting in to the area where I can.

If he or (or you) would like a chat with someone who’s been in robotics/ai a while, always happy to help people getting in to the area where I can.

That may be worth a shot - he's rapidly losing motivation, for a variety of reasons, but our advice is to stick out next year for the undergrad.
He can then go and travel and ride his bike and come back to things.
But I think he's also looking at a career he thought was physically creating and programming things, and is basically coding sat at a screen and nothing more...

Something else to look into: is there one element of his course that is pulling him down? It’s just about the last week it’s possible to drop one half of a degree and make up the points elsewhere (I dropped the AI part and picked up extra Linguistics courses at exactly this point in my degree). It took a bunch of extra work in my final year and a half doing extra classes to make up for the ones I had dropped, but it was totally worth it.

It's pretty traditional to hate your degree at this point isn't it?

It sounds rough though. Heriot Watt I have found to be generally excellent staff wise but that was a different school.

If he wants to be more hands on tell him to walk through the mecheng building and look down into the workshops. Christ I was jealous on my to concrete design.

Interesting.

My other thought as he is desperate to travel, is to look at doing a year abroad...seems a few similar courses in some north American riding places....

Have you asked the IET why they pulled the accreditation? They must have a reason for doing that based on some info connected to content, teaching, syllabus. May be interesting to gain their perspective and their thoughts going forward.

a career he thought was physically creating and programming things,

This is part of why I do it, the interaction with the real world, and it’s taken me some amazing places. Some glamorous like the atacama desert and, well, underground in north wales in November.

That @AI is what he wants - to be out in real world and doing 'exciting' things maybe in exciting places. So yes @joshvegas, there is an element of third year doldrums...

Have you asked the IET why they pulled the accreditation? They must have a reason for doing that based on some info connected to content, teaching, syllabus.

Apparently the poor teaching and outcomes over the last few years - generally it seems HW has plummeted down all sorts of uni rankings this year. Eldest will still be on IET Accredited, it is this year on (if it runs, which is the rumour) it is not accredited.

As for progressing to year 5 for the MEng, this also appears to include a 6-month industry placement over the summer & first term. Don't underestimate how useful this can be, especially in terms of future employability. It could be worth doing the MEng for that reason alone.

HWU alumni here - albeit it’s a long time since I was there, the student Union will not be the right forum to complain - there was a student council which was represented at the University Court (essentially it’s board).  Departments also had internal committees with reps from each year to feedback on issues.  Every module had feedback forms which together with the marks you suggest mean HOD will already be aware.  Our dept certainly had a HOD, a Head of Teaching, a lecturer assigned to each year group, and each student having an individual lecturer assigned as a “mentor” (the latter was pretty ineffective as they had no training and people who end up as lecturers often don’t have the ideal personality traits) BUT essentially there are lots of routes to complain.  Difficult to see how any will instantly get reform, and going too high too quick may be counter productive.  I’d expect that a third year student considering leaving because he thinks the quality of the course is poor should be able to get 10 minutes in the HOD office to share their concerns.  If the issues are as real as you say the HOD should be interested in solving it.  If he’s not he will have a “boss” who will be the Dean of the Faculty.  Cynically Deans of Faculty were career politicians interested in doing well for themselves not the inconvenience of teaching or staff issues - that requires a different approach so they see how helping you helps them (or ignoring you adds a snake to their game of snakes and ladders).  Learning how this stuff works and how to effectively progress and solve an issue could be the best thing he learns at Uni!  One person complaining will have less impact than a small group.  Cynically overseas students (= big fees) will get more attention than Scots if language is clearly not the issue - so a “delegation” including Scots, English, overseas student is more likely to have an impact.  BUT if HE is floundering HE should go and talk to his mentor 1:1 as well as the wider complaining.

Couple of things to consider though:

-often there is a period of delusionment as students realise half way through their course it wasn’t quite what they thought they were signing up to

-university is not meant to be easy, and it involves a different type of learning from they will have had before; Covid has messed with a lot of the foundations of that.

- part of the challenge of university is learning to balance life and education.

- it’s not uncommon for very good students at school who had to do little effort to be brighter than most to get to second year at uni and discover that learning is much harder than they thought.  (I speak from experience; and my son is just hitting that point too!)

if he really wants to build robots there’s plenty of stuff around these days with arduino, raspberry pis etc that he can do that in his own time.  If his classmates want to do the same there either will be or they could easily set up a university society which will get them a little funding, access to some Uni rooms etc.  that sort of self-starting is likely to impress the staff (and future employers).  It would encourage mixing between the year groups which might also expose if this is a persistent problem.

Uni courses are often oversold.  They are marketing to 16 yr olds, and their parents.  Robotics and AI sounds cool.  Maths and programming does not.  Electronics and Mech Eng (essential for Robotics) are good foundations for lots of stuff but not attractive to the masses.  Unis do have a bad habit (and HWU definitely did this in the 90s so is probably worse now) of advertising a course with a sexy name, getting the students in, filling 75% of the content with stuff they would do on the mainstream course with a dull title and then worrying about how to create the other 25% once the students are there.  The courses often get rebranded a few years later either to stop the “we thought we would build robots” complaints, because the lecturers they found had slightly different specialisms or because lots of other unis copied their sexy title and they need to go one further to attract the students!

Ok that was a very long way to say - go talk to people.  BUT one thing you said did concern me.  He is considering going overseas - great (doing the BSc then going overseas for the MSc could be a great solution).  But he would chose that institution based on where there is good riding.  This is the worst possible way to pick an MSc course (it’s bad even for undergrad).  He’s worked out what he doesn’t like at HWU - he should be picking a course/institution/location that addresses those OR he should train as a guide/coach and go ridge for a few years until he knows what to do but a foreign student on a masters program at a different institution (and who therefore didn’t necessarily get the exact foundations the lecturer assumed on the journey there, and no local network of friends to discuss study problems with) will have less time for playing in the woods on his bike than he thinks!

But I think he’s also looking at a career he thought was physically creating and programming things, and is basically coding sat at a screen and nothing more…

My limited experience in building fairly simple 'robotic' camera moving gubbins (it was a slider, so only 1 dimension), is you send an afternoon designing the mechanical bits, a day fabricating everything, then weeks in the firmware trying to get it to work how you'd want it.

It's like any degree level engineering, you're not fabricating anymore (if you ever did). That's just not a cost effective use of anyone's time for prospective employers.

Gutted to hear about all this- I was working at HW when Matt_Jr started there, in student recruitment and I definitely would not have seen this coming. For some courses sure but not robotics, that was to be a proper high-effort flagship course for the next few years. Something must have gone very wrong... Mind you, when I left, somethings were going very wrong in my department sooooo.

Do complain. It's not pointless, even if it doesn't have any effect for him, it's still important. They still seem to be advertising IET for next year and it still looks to be open for the next cycle so that's a bit contradictory too. I'll see what I can find out, if anything... Not sure I have much network left, in that department!

He should be able to "drop" out of the masters part without any real impact or prejucide, it's designed that way- I always used to describe it as taking out a future option rather than a commitment, and it was commonplace for people to switch between the combined masters and ug only in both directions. It mostly just provides a route of least resistance. I'm too out of touch to comment on whether that's a good idea or not.

and is basically coding sat at a screen and nothing more…

A lot of engineering is just that now, so much complexity is in the software vs the hardware and even the hardware is designed on a computer...

HW did seem to slip a bit during covid, just seemed to not adjust very well. Really avaried approach to how interaction was achieved rather than a blanket "we use teams/canvas/whatever now for all online classes"

I saw the change as i was midway its possible your sons course has suffered from a poor start?

If he likes the outdoors and problem solving/engineering I'm sure he would be very welcome to pop into my company and find out what we are about (Flooding, Coastal, Environmental science and engineering stuff, Good R&D)

riding a bike is basically a free pass into employment in our Edinburgh office which is on campus

A lot of good advice on here, but I think that @stwhannah has it. Talking with people your son trusts and/or gets on well with is the first step. I am based at a university (both as an academic and as a chaplain) and it is the first thing I would counsel any student that came to me with such concerns. Take it up the chain only as and when.

Thanks all - it's been greatly helpful, including the PM's. He's home at weekend, we'll have a chat and maybe take up the offers.

Engineering has many different forms, so I can only suggest you research for yourself what
a) graduate jobs
b) professional institution membership
relevent to your son's career goals have to say about Master's degrees.
Sadly, however poor the taught content, that MEng sheet of paper may be worth the time and money spent. Or might not.

I'm pretty sure that HW cocked up an engineering course back in my day. A pal got top marks 85%+ for his whole course but came out with a 2:2. That was th highest degree that year in the course about 50% left with ordinary degrees after honours year.

When i went to HW, it was more renowned as a postgrad uni, than for undergrads. I did my second postgrad there in engineering.

Regardless, I think given the sunk cost already and in middle of 3rd year, as many have said, best advice is tough it out to the end 4th year and at least walk away with a degree.

But I think he’s also looking at a career he thought was physically creating and programming things, and is basically coding sat at a screen and nothing more…

Can't help with specific advice but I would observe (especially based on the diverse group of people on here) that an awful lot of jobs now involve an awful lot of time in front of a computer. I'm a geologist and partially chose that as a degree because of my love of being outside. I do still occasionally get to go outside and look at rocks still but I also spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen writing code.

best advice is tough it out to the end 4th year and at least walk away with a degree.

I'm sorry but that absolutely not best advice. The best advice is not panic, remember that the world won't end if you change tack it also won't be the end of the world if it all goes terribly wrong. But it can suck big time. I would say sticking an extra two years of a maths degree cost me ten years of my life of misery and low level depression and a feeling of total inadequacy and failure.

I now have a degree aged 38 and that was miserable too but at least I had a purpose.

I am sure you already will be but remind him it will be okay no matter what happens.

Your son needs to complain, but also engage to the point he get's an exit award - i.e. UG Degree. Complaints are taken seriously.

Thing is, they are an 'adult'. I'm getting issues with daughter at Uni, same one I work at, but I tell her she's the adult, go ask. I'm not on the academic side, but they all need to ask/query if not happy. As a parent you can't really get involved as they are over 18, so need to advise. I do know the 'covid' years have not helped any student at any level.

The Uni will well know if the course is not up to standard, so get him and the cohort to complain.

There is also a 'shoot load' of self study at Uni - it's not spoon fed. My daughter is getting this, her boyfriend didn't and pulled out of his course after a couple of months (as we expected).

One solution is to switch courses. A lot of engineering and computing courses have significant common ground until the final 2 years.
Does he know people doing computer science, control engineering, electronic engineering or similar? If these courses seem like a better option now he is 2+ years in then swapping is likely possible.
If its a combination of course, people, place then is a swap to another university possible (only likely from next Autumn and may mean 6 months out).
It is quite common to change course after 1 or 2 years and I would hope that the Scottish system of a foundation year would make it easier to do.
I would also say that mid course it always feels a bit meh. I felt a bit like that for a big chunk of my second year at Uni. Third year the course improved and the 4th (masters year) was great.
It would be a shame to fell trapped into plodding through a year and a half of drudge to not do that final year.
No easy choices and good luck to the lad. Worth discussing through and hopefully soon back to being great.

An update: he's dropping to undergrad and leaving.
This year, although better, is still poor from a teaching and learning perspective.

Heriot Watt have lost the IET Accreditation for the course.

He's third year and not yet been in the robotarium. They did last week build and programme thier first robot...and the month before create thier own AI programme however. His three units across two years which were either not marked or not taught properly, and so all were given compensatable fails for, have dragged his average score down massively. Last month he got his first year letter of commendation from the Dean for his performance in first year - it took 18 months to issue something like that, and he won't get it again due to the lecturer's poor show, sums up the delays and frustrations he has.

Undoubtedly there's also an element of his motivation, which has been affected by pandemic and his own mental health too.

So he's going travelling after completing his undergraduate study this time next year.

I think it's a good choice - he's lost motivation for the course and passion for learning, plus he could return to a different uni and masters in future.

Sensible decision.

csb
Full Member
Is there not an ombudsman (Ofsted?) for universities?

My own question went unanswered. Anyone know?

Sounds like he is sorted. But don't rule out looking for a job with the undergraduate degree. Best decision my son ever made was leaving univ (Glasgow Caledonian) during his masters year to take a job instead of finishing the masters as he wasn't enjoying it. Software developement field. An ordinary degree and a job may be better than a masters degree and no experience. Many of his cohort who finished their masters were still looking for jobs months after graduating.

12 years out of univ works in Cambridge on £70k+. Moving to Cambridge was probably good career wise. That was just a lucky break. His girlfriend at the time qualified as a nurse and couldn't get a job in Scotland. She went to Cambridge he followed as he could work remotely. Has since worked for several companies in Cambridge. All within an easy bike commute of home.

he’s dropping to undergrad and leaving.

Don't understand this. Is he leaving or is he dropping to undergrad?
If the latter, what does that actually mean?

I assumed it meant his son had signed on for a traditional degree with a masters tacked on so end qual is Msci or whatever the scottish equiverlent is. Now he is just doing the degree part so will leave with Bsc and can do a masters whereever he wants if needed.

If this is the case then seems a better choice anyway. My daughter has just had to make this choice and has plumped for the Bsc just in case this happens to her - afterall if you are good at your course, no uni will turn you away from a masters anyway so you can just make that choice later down the line

There is a difference in how combined masters and a separate undergrad and masters are funded for student loans to be aware of. A combined masters course is funded like an undergrad all the way through - so £9250 course fees and whatever living cost loan you are entitled to. It is then repayable by a single monthly payment, with interest charged at whatevwer the interest rate and threshold is set by the government.

A separate masters loan is around £12k, but this is for both fees and liiving, meaning that for most people they need some other form of income or savings. It is also repayable at a lower threshold than an undergrad loan, and the two payments are cumulative.

Just something to bear in mind

I didn't know that - thanks, very useful

Sensible decision.

csb
Full Member
Is there not an ombudsman (Ofsted?) for universities?

My own question went unanswered. Anyone know?

OIAHE. Set expectations to low.

Tell him to watch the remote lectures and take in course material from Stanford or similar. Too many UK Uni's are a joke for deep tech. Masters is not going to help unless you are at Red Brick. Best lecturers at UK uni's are guest lecturers working in industry. Even then, it's not as if Robert Playter or Sam Altman are lecturing in the UK too often. Industry is simply moving too fast for 2nd rate uni's.

Best just to hot foot it over to SF or London and jump onto a grad scheme at one of the AI or robotic co's asap to learn in the real world.

I did an MSc at a red brick uni after having done an OU undergrad. This was after >10 years in the workplace.

For the MSc as soon as they realised I was self funded the entry requirements went out the window, they were happy to take fairly poor quality students if they were paying. It was a cynical cash grab IMO.

Some of the teaching was great, some (often the most senior academics) was truly awful. A 2 hour monologue without any Q and A should be consigned to the rubbish heap. Why should I travel to listen to that when I can:

Tell him to watch the remote lectures and take in course material from Stanford or similar

If these places were flogging mortgages or insurance we would be seeing a huge mis selling scandal already.

Pretty cool courses out there for £0 too:
https://huggingface.co/deep-rl-course/unit0/introduction

and books:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deep-Reinforcement-Learning-Action-Alexander/dp/1617295434

Some decent resource in this thread too: https://twitter.com/aakashg0/status/1649843909017899009?s=46&t=R3aLIeMacoRQYFHFUqdzVQ

Don’t understand this. Is he leaving or is he dropping to undergrad?
If the latter, what does that actually mean?

In Scotland you can sign straight up to a Masters. Our degrees are usually 4 years, Masters 5 years.
Plus the usual 'come back and do a Masters', most of which are 1 year.
The course eldest was on was MSc, he's dropping the last (5th) year and now gets different teaching for year 4.

Met him yesterday - he's planning on being on Canada by next summer. Likely a couple of years working, riding, mountains and learning to ski...

If these places were flogging mortgages or insurance we would be seeing a huge mis selling scandal already.

I agree.
I've got a relative who works (not in teaching) at another Scottish university. I find it frightening some of the attitudes around foreign students and thier £20k fees, let alone the UK students and thier £9k fees. Apparently 'everyone over sells' so they 'have' to do the same, and students should be grateful for the certificate at the end...