Why are students treated like shit?

[StudyBuddy]

I've decided to start a postgraduate course this September and I already regret it. I've not even started yet and I'm so sick of being treated like shit already.
Some examples:

• I need a reference from the university for my remortgage application. I sent a very polite email asking who at the university I should provide as a reference. I got a VERY rude email in response almost immediately saying they won't provide a reference. This response was within an hour even though I emailed that exact same email address for help with something else over a week ago and have had nothing back. The last time I emailed for help before that, I phoned after two weeks and was told I was on "today's list". I got a rude and unhelpful response a week later.
• My offer letter incorrectly stated that my course was an undergraduate level course. I repeatedly asked them to rectify it providing evidence from their own website, a statement from the tutor etc to say it's not undergraduate etc. I needed it to say it was postgraduate for my funding. They spent months insisting it was an undergraduate course before then realising it was a postgraduate course. Their response at that point was to accuse me (in an email thread that showed our entire interaction) of thinking it was an undergraduate and condescendingly explained to me that it was a postgraduate.
• During my undergraduate degree, I was working a night shift in the Students' Union and had a seizure. I was taken by accident to hospital, taken barely conscious from the trolley and put in a chair where I fell to the floor. My husband repeatedly asked the hospital staff for a bed and he and my boss confirmed over and over again that I hadn't drunk anything. No tests were done and twelve hours later (still on the floor), I was told I could go home "if I've sobered up". I had another seizure at a networking event two weeks later (in a suit) and was immediately given a bed and had multiple tests done. Turns out I was epileptic but the assumption is that the only thing ever wrong with a student is alcohol.
• A friend of mine died after being thrown out of a bar and left on the pavement. She's Muslim and doesn't drink but she was diabetic and had low blood sugar - they just assumed she was drunk.
• My undergraduate university have one member of staff assigned to each student to provide employment references. I'd applied for quite literally my dream job and was just waiting on my reference. I emailed her many times requesting that she complete it and the firm extended the deadline repeatedly. Eventually, they withdrew my job offer. The next day, the member of staff emailed me a link to another job (not even close to the same thing) with the subject line "FYI".
• Students in my town must be registered with the university GP, not a local GP - but there are only 5000 spaces at the GP (which has one GP working two and a half days each week).
• I studied a language module during my degree and each week someone had to do an assessed presentation for 25% of our grade. Our lecturer went on strike for three weeks so those three students received 0% for that assessment.

Perhaps my perspective is skewed because of my age and because I've always worked full time whilst studying (and married, with a child etc) but I really notice that in any environment where the person knows I'm a student, I get no respect at all. Otherwise, people are perfectly pleasant. Can someone explain why this is?

I'm talking about putting a carriage return between paragraphs. I.e. leaving a blank line.

Which do not show up on your post whether I read it on my laptop or my phone.

For some people, the lack of adequate spacing makes the text overwhelming, so maybe that's what the other poster meant by it being too long.

Another mature student here.
I find most annoyances is the lack of professionalism from people when say sending emails.
It was all okay when timetables were fixed but with stiles occurring, you get told that the tutor is moving stuff to Friday 20th when Friday is 21st. You then have to email back (3 day turnaround) to ask which day they mean. They then email all students with something to correct the date but give say just the building name and not which room in that building.
Just proof your read your emails!
You feel like constantly you are bugging them by asking these questions!
We are still waiting for feedback for essays submitted in feb, supposed to get pre exams so we can improve before exams but apparently they were locked in a room pre lockdown (when surely Campus security have spare keys).
Do the admin side is not very professional.

Least we can pick our own doctors though!

When I went to IT to report an email issue (emails I knew I should have received were not reaching me), they insisted I must have just read and deleted them and forgotten about it. It tooks weeks for them to investigate properly, and then they caught my abusive partner (ex shortly afterwards) on CCTV logging into my email account in a university computer room. He didn't want me to do anything without him, so he deleted my emails

That's an awful situation but if IT had done their investigations and could find any faults with their systems then there must be human error somewhere along the line and in this instance that was your partner. How was he even logging in to your emails wouldn't be have needed the log in details? You can't really blame IT for that. I've had students complain that they weren't receiving any emails from outside the university and insisted there must be an issue at our end. It then transpired that she had got her uni email address wrong.

I find it bizarre youve had so many bad experiences

Ive never heard of someone being left on the floor in an NHS hospital because they were drunk?! Someone unconcious on the floor would trigger panic even if they thought you were drunk.

Youve have an awful lot of rude emails, maybe consider it might be you whos coming across rude in the first place?

I never had any bad experiences as a student, uni staff were always helpful and polite, hospital staff treated me well even when I was drunk! Never got thrown out of a club on my own. In fact when friends were drunk/passed out in bars had really good care from the bar staff

I had a student come to a meeting outside term time. Her mum had driven her (fair enough) but then expected to sit in on the meeting!

Pre GDPR I think it was easier to feel it was appropriate to contact parents. I've never had to except when a mum rang to tell me her son had broken his leg and was in surgery, I didn't expect the student himself to contact me nor did I ring him on his hospital bed to let him know!

I thought there was a whole problem recently where students couldnt contact parents, and some parents got angry because their DC had had mental health problems and the uni hadnt told the parents

Ive literally never heard of unis contacting parents unless extreme circumstances

All of that sounds grim OP but how can they write you a reference if you haven’t started your programme yet?

@Jjou To say that I'm joining the university and what my funding is. The same way an employer would provide that for someone who's about to start a new job.

To say that I'm joining the university and what my funding is. The same way an employer would provide that for someone who's about to start a new job.

Your experiences sound terrible OP, but I do want to pick up one point. Universities don't ever provide references in the circumstances you outline. An employer wouldn't do it either unless you'd signed a mutually-binding contract first. An offer of a place on a particular university course is not the same as a contract of employment: you're under no obligation to take it up.

A university might say that they've offered you a place on X postgrad course, but until you actually register on the programme there's no way they'd say you're "joining the university". Loads of students don't take up their offers on postgrad courses.

They still should have communicated better with you, though.

Sorry you've had such a bad run of appalling luck. Curious about which university this was?

I think that would be slightly unusual to do that, as geek said above you’re under no obligation to actually start the course, so until you’re a registered student it would be unlikely that they’d commit to a reference for you. There are ways of confirming that politely for you though.

@geekaMaxima An offer of a place on a particular university course is not the same as a contract of employment: you're under no obligation to take it up A PhD contract is just as legally binding as an employment contract. Could you explain why you feel it's any different to an employee from a contractual perspective?
It's not that they've "offered me a place", it's that I've accepted the offer. It's exactly the same as the difference between being made a job offer and accepting that job offer.

@Jjou Thanks for your response. As I said to @geekaMaxima, I'm just as obliged to start this as I would be to start a job. Could you explain why you think I'm not obliged to fulfil my contract?

Tbf you didn’t actually say PhD you said ‘postgrad course’ of which there are many, and not based on a contract. PhD programmes should have their own admin within faculties/schools - can they not be more helpful?

@Jjou I don't see why I needed to clarify what type of course I'm doing. You and another person both stated, very clearly and in no uncertain terms, that I'm not under an obligation without knowing anything about the situation so I don't think it's particularly fair to try to turn it around on me for not explicitly stating in my OP what type of postgrad I'm doing. If you know that one kind of postgrad does have an obligation then it's odd that you were so adamant that I was doing a different kind.
The kind of course that I'm studying is actually entirely irrelevant to my post so I shouldn't need to state every detail of my life in case people decide to tell me I'm wrong about it.
I contacted the correct people at the university.

Ok jeez, well if you take that tone when you’re trying to get people to help you no wonder you don’t get the service you want. I merely pointed out you hadn’t specified PhD, so it would’ve been helpful to know. You also didn’t say you’d signed any kind of contract.

Don’t be so snippy. I’m out.

@Jjou I'm snippy because you decided to try and patronise me on something that's actually irrelevant to the thread and assumed I'm wrong without knowing all the facts. If you didn't know enough information to know if I'm wrong then why not ask for more information rather than stating that I am, absolutely and definitely, wrong. The assumption that you would know more about my own life than I do is absurd - and your argument that it would be "helpful" for you to know irrelevant details of my life because it's the only way for you to know whether you're incorrect with your irrelevant condescension is even more absurd.

What on Earth are you talking about?! Nobody told you you were wrong or assumed to know more about your life that you! Just that based on the information you gave it would be strange to be able to obtain a reference in those circumstances.

I think you’re the one with the condescension so good night.

Yeah, I think we've worked out why you have bad email conversations.

It's on you to provide relevant information; if someone assumes wrongly, don't snipe at them for it - the failure to communicate is on you not us.

Hmm. Sorry pal, think it's maybe you that's the problem!

I'm a mature student (married, house, child etc) and when people find out I'm a student I get nothing but praise on how I'm managing it all and interest in the subject (Biotech).

I've never been treated like shit for being a student. As they say, if everyone around you is the problem maybe you're the problem

It’s a long time since I was a student, but my eldest is currently a student and her institution has been wonderful and very helpful when she was going through some extenuating circumstances. I haven’t heard her speak of any difficulties more generally with her status as a student. Maybe it depends on the university, or the city where you live, or some other factor.

I’m curious about the obligation to start a PhD after accepting the offer. What would happen if someone didn’t hit the books or whatever? Surely they can’t do much more than expel you and cut your funding. Or are there legal implications?

The bullies are in the ring, you go, pal!

My post grad experience was sheer hell. Glad I got the qualification but overall it was an utterly dismal experience in terms of tutors, teaching standard and disrespect.

What uni is it? I have found that the quality of service you get can vary a lot depending on who you are interacting with but that s a lot of poor service from various parts of the uni.

Is there an ombudsman?