University of Central Lancashire - Preston

Metodi Raynov

My daughter has been admitted to UCLan this year. She was so excited and happy until we got there on the first day and got the keys to her room in the campus. When we went to see the living room we found out that someone had been living there and the room was in totally unacceptable condition.
Things got even worse when my daughter went to take a shower and realised that there was no hot water. After that she tried to bake a pizza and WOW: The oven is NOT working.
Central heating is not working either.
So all her excitement disappeared in 2 hours.
One of students from this facility emailed the staff to tell them about all their problems but still no response.
I’m very happy that she is taking shower with COLD water and cannot prepare food herself and stays in the cold room ?
And I pay over £5000 for this.

Day to day Reviews

This is excellent University I strongly recommend to all students who motivated in life
Staff is very supportive
Thank you ?

Sreenu Baiju

The university boasts modern infrastructure, including the Engineering Innovation Centre (EIC), state-of-the-art libraries, and dedicated labs for various disciplines.

Mr Thres

Solid education, but left unprepared for the real world.
While I deeply appreciate the technical knowledge and dedication of my professors in teaching media fundamentals, editing techniques, and theory, I find myself in a bittersweet position writing this review. The quality of instruction was excellent - I learned how to edit videos perfectly, write compelling stories, and understand media theory at a deep level. My tutors were passionate and knowledgeable, always willing to help perfect our projects and explore creative ideas.

However, there's a glaring gap between what we learned and what the industry actually needs. Nobody taught us how to monetize our skills in today's fragmented media landscape. We weren't prepared for the reality that traditional media jobs are disappearing, while new opportunities require entrepreneurial skills we never learned. There was no guidance on building a sustainable freelance career, pricing our services, finding clients, or adapting to rapid market changes.

I graduated with a polished portfolio but no idea how to make a living from it. We should have had courses on business fundamentals, personal branding, and the economics of modern media. Instead of just teaching us to create perfect content, we needed to learn how to survive in an industry where traditional employment is shrinking and everyone needs to be their own business manager.

This disconnect between excellent technical education and complete lack of market preparation feels especially painful now, watching many talented classmates struggle to find sustainable work in media.

P.S. It was in 2015

Damian Phillips

My treatment here at this UK University quite frankly was disgusting ! As a UK Passport holder and British Citizen all my life I have been made to feel completely unwelcome after studying extremely hard!

Please see my review on Trustpilot after spending the majority of my time at UCLAN then Chester with no explanation whatsoever after being on-course for a first class degree.

Please see my review on Trustpilot .
I shall be leaving this review on every University in the World.

I have also never ever been employed by any government in the world.

Concetta El-Badri

During my journey through the BA (Hons) top-up year at level 6 in Professional Floristry and Floral Design, I have experienced a remarkable enhancement in both my floristry skills and academic excellence. The floristry tutors are all immensely talented and experienced, with years of experience in the industry. Given my experience, I highly recommend pursuing the BA (Hons) in Professional Floristry and Floral Design degree.

Sam Sammour

I recently decided to pursue a new undergraduate degree in engineering, and the entire application process, from UCAS submissions to receiving offers and acceptance, went smoothly. All documents and cards were completed perfectly. However, I live nearly 40 miles away and planned to commute to Preston by train. When applying for a railcard, I discovered that a verification stamp from the university was required. Given that it’s an educational institution, I assumed the process could be completed digitally.

Despite emailing to clarify the application process, I eventually had to drive to Preston three weeks before the course began to obtain the stamp. To my disappointment, a staff member informed me that the form couldn’t be stamped until I officially started the course. When I asked how I was expected to commute on the first day without a railcard, I received no satisfactory response, and my request to speak with a senior member of staff was denied. I experienced the same unhelpfulness when contacting student support over the phone.

It seems the university assumes students might misuse the railcard discount, even though my student ID, Tatum card, and email account had already been issued. This approach seems illogical, as I am clearly considered an enrolled student in all other respects.

T.

Toxic

I worked at UCLan as an academic for fifteen years until I found it too demeaning and unpleasant to be associated with the university. In my time the university opened a campus in Cyprus with the help of money from a Cypriot company whose directors ended up in jail for corruption, and was criticised by the UN Secretary General. The university spent millions of pounds for a campus in Thailand that never materialised because of fraud. The current VC's building project (with the sinister name of 'masterplan’) at the Preston campus seemed to matter more than the people who are supposed to use the buildings. Other parts of the campus, especially those that housed subjects the senior management disliked, were neglected.

The management exploited the covid pandemic to find soft targets (especially in non-technical subjects) for job cuts. Managers sent communications about restructuring and job losses a few days before Christmas, obviously timed to cause distress. A manager called a meeting to tell staff about prospective job losses on World Mental Health Day. The university provides good support for students but the efforts of academic staff were invalidated and subjected to ‘gaslighting’. The university 'leaders' and managers seemed inherently hostile to academic staff generally and showed no interest in or respect for intellectual accomplishment.

The most uncharismatic 'academics' ended up in managerial roles. University managers were of a low moral and intellectual standard, and were not held accountable for their actions. Some - such as one who had the university buy a pub for a degree in drama production that never recruited - had huge failures to account for but were promoted! Ideas, however daft, were imposed aggressively from the top by people with no teaching experience. Staff were sometimes obliged to do a lot of work in response to the latest management plan only for the management then to drop the plan. Academic standards fell because of pressure to award more degrees in the higher categories. However, despite the contributions of managers some degree programmes achieved top NSS results, and many students were helped to succeed, sometimes spectacularly, against the odds.

Working there was generally a toxic experience because of the management's hostility to academic staff, especially those in non-technical subjects; I sensed a long-term agenda under the current VC - a former PE teacher - to phase out non-technical subjects by undermining those degree programmes wherever possible.

Universities should be run cooperatively with respect for their mission as producers of culture and knowledge and not as neo-liberal corporations ‘led’ by vicious and unaccountable non-entities attacking the teaching staff. The (mis)management of universities should be subject to sustained public investigation and scrutiny, and some of the former polytechnics, like UCLan, should be stripped of the title ‘university’ given that increasingly they are more like (bad) further education colleges focused narrowly on vocational training. At the very least, universities, especially UCLan, should have to revise their charters to include a commitment to democratic decision-making and to treating all of their employees with compassion and respect.