Oxford Brookes?

[bournevilleismyfavourite]

Anyone got any experience?

I know this forum tends to be higher tariff universities.

My son is holding an offer for business management. We went to the open day today and liked it despite the weather. He’s a sociable, sports mad boy and really liked the hockey set up.

I was impressed with the business talk - it seemed forward thinking, lots of options for hands on experience with modules and industry experience/placements.

Would love to hear actual experience. Also does it empty out at weekends? He won’t be coming home that often as we’re quite a long way away.

Thanks.

I dont know the university other than by reputation. As long as he's not one of those people that claim to have been to 'Oxford', then I think it's viewed as any other 3rd tier uni from an outside perspective.

I suspect it attracts the unacademic private school crowd for the purpose of saying they've been to 'Oxford' and deliberately misleading people to think they're an Oxford University grad. Honestly, nothing makes them look more ridiculous or more of a wanker.

Saying you've been to Oxford Brookes upfront - fine.

My stepson goes to OB, he’s doing a technical vocation course and he is thriving! The course will completely set him up for his chosen career. He completely aced his GCSE’s and A Levels in a public school by the way so he is by no means not intelligent enough for the more academic universities but he has chosen his career path well. I would definitely recommend OB.

@MightAsWellBeGretel I really have had enough of this private/state rubbish! Do you know what - privately educated people do not need to say they have been to “Oxford” when they haven’t. They choose courses and universities like anyone else! Plus, by your ill-informed stance, why do the 75% (25% privately educated at OB) “unacademic” state school students choose it? Are they choosing 3rd tier mediocrity? Or because they want to boast about being at Oxford? Of course no one does this. So rude about OB students. You do realise the 25% minority from private schools are probably the international students (18%). Pure Nastiness .

In the university sector we have former polys that were dedicated to closer ties with employers and devised courses that especially suited local ones. OB has been great at that. No one thinks it’s an academic hot house. Never has been but it’s better than quite a few of the older established universities I listed earlier that MN often says are very good. OB is pretty good at what it does too, especially in student employability.

@TizerorFizz just ignore the sneering. Not good for the blood pressure on a fine sunny day. Nowadays links with industry and practical employable skills/personality and work ethic get you a whole lot further in life. My son is super sociable, sporty, motivated, interested in people and having fun. He is the best of people. I think OB will suit him. Away from the London/SE bubble we see all sorts of people with all sorts of backgrounds doing brilliantly. I’d actually be worried for my kids if they wanted to be investment bankers. 😂

Thanks everyone for all your insights. The financial stuff is interesting. He’s firmed it now but is having a gap yah 🤣 so we can reassess.

But, @MightAsWellBeGretel - if you don’t know the place at all, what is the use of your uninformed suspicions? (Unless you’ve personally been scammed by people misrepresenting their academic credentials?)

After a lifetime of more or less close connection to the city I now live in Oxford and, while I have a more formal involvement with Oxford Uni, that inevitably means interacting (not just in terms of geography but in relation to research) with OB students and staff. Everyone I’ve known at the latter has been proud of the place at which they study or work - as well as delighting in the lovely locations OB inhabits. (Love an OB conference.)

I can absolutely see that a few unscrupulous people might utilise a confusion over exact university attendance if looking for work or business connections outside the UK - but that really isn’t the vibe here. It’s certainly not something that would impact the experience of any current OB student.

Oh come off it. They're converting half the library into teaching space to try and accommodate the move from Harcourt. Are you going to try telling me that was always part of the plan?

They were planning on redeveloping Harcourt and moving courses over from Headington as courses moved in from Wheatley.

If you know the uni so well perhaps you can explain where all the offices for the Harcourt staff are going to be? How are all the lectures from the whole of Harcourt going to fit into Headington with it's new bit of teaching space? This was never planned and there simply isn't space for it at Headington. It will either mean course closures of fewer lectures across the board.

I have met people professionally who have claimed initially to have gone to Oxford. It later transpires that it was Oxford Brookes. All firmly middle class, privately educated. The older one was definitely on the red trousers brigade. They haven't defrauded anyone in any legal sense, I'm sure their CV states which actual university they attended but they are happy to misdirect people.

I'm taling City and Central London professionals whee I've come across this.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the uni, just those people.

Ignoring all the not so nice comments.

My DS did his degree there and finished at the end of Covid. He had an fab time and a decent degree. Only downside was it is expensive which caught us out a bit.

The graduation ceremony was so lovely too.

I'm speaking anecdotally about people I have come across. Don't know why you're flying off the handle!

Because it’s divisive and posting such rubbish isn’t helpful to anyone. Not to our country, to students or anyone who relies on a well trained workforce. Even if you hear it, why not filter what you hear instead of repeating it? Most people who repeat what they hear tend to believe it. Or why bother? Even better ask yourself why on earth it’s only privately educated dc do this - in your world? Can you not see it’s ludicrous?

@MightAsWellBeGretel people do that everywhere though. Nottingham/Trent, Sheffield/Hallam etc…

Bath/Spa. Doesn’t bother me really. 🤷‍♀️ There is a lot of inverse snobbery on this thread. Quite funny! I don’t care really. We actually joke about it at home Oxford (Brookes) 😆

@Pearl69 thanks ! Yes accommodation could be ouch, luckily he’s our last to go through.

@bournevilleismyfavourite Yes they do but you cannot just say it’s private school non academic dc who are responsible. It’s nonsense.

Totally agree!

@TizerorFizz people are always going to be chippy about private schools. I hadn’t realised quite how much until all the VAT stuff - some of the comments were totally nasty. I just zone it out. We’re lucky I know that. I don’t waste my energy getting annoyed. It says more about other people than about us and our kids.

@bournevilleismyfavourite Yes, you are probably right! It’s such a common way of thinking on here and, after all, we need to exist together. No one asks a doctor where they went to school? We do grow up at some stage. (Mostly!) I think it’s so sad there’s this attempt to put dc off going to some universities by being rude about who is there and why. We don’t all have academic dc and maybe turning the other cheek is the best policy. As I went there (part time) I do think unfair criticism is annoying though! Plus the jibes at the privately educated. But I’ll try not to rise to the bait! You are right!

@onebrightfawn the weather is too nice for you to keep getting this worked up about one university, restructuring and having to relocate staff. I am so sorry if you are personally experiencing the upheaval at Brookes. A lot of my ex (very senior) colleagues are too and from what I understand it is not a great place to work right now. But. This is happening across most of the HEI sector at the moment. And while the plans and discussions around where Harcourt staff would need to be relocated if they decided to shut it as one option, hadn't been finalised in my days working there, if they had made the decision then relocating staff would have still been an issue and we would have worked through it then.

My advice is to go do something you enjoy and relax. Brookes (as do other large public institutions) have had, and have always had estate plans which are there to adapt and change in response to changing circumstances. It happens everywhere at some point in time. It's not good for your mental health or blood pressure to hold onto this while derailing someone else's thread.

Have a lovely rest of your weekend.

DD2 did her first degree at NTU (Nottingham Trent). Never heard anyone from her friendship group or her sports team try to claim they were at what they call 'Uni of' - they're proud of where they went!

OB is a good university which does some things exceptionally well, you'd be hard pushed to find a better place to study if you wanted to get into motorsport engineering, for example. People who go there should celebrate the fact, no need to pretend otherwise.

How many other unis are closing two of their three campuses? How many other unis are turning half their main library into teaching space?

How will a smaller library effectively serve the massively increased number of students coming from Harcourt?

They've been planning the move from Wheatley for years. It's happened in stages as they've built new facilities at Headington. They just finished the engineering building. Now the move from Harcourt is happening with no planning. It's a shambles.

Urgh just stop now @OneBrightFawn enough enough! Seriously.

Newcastle/Northumbria.

The worst was one of DD's landlords who would only rent to Newcastle students, and not Northumbria students.

He then went on to tell the 2 biomedical sciences students that they should have done medicine.

I am coming to this thread a bit late in the day it seems.

My oldest friend since we were about 7 yrs old, went to OB. She had an excellent time socially and academically. Her subject was Food Science, (which is a subject you could only do at a polytechnic back in the day). It was vocational and quite specific, which is why she chose it. She has kept to this subject in her career, both as a teacher and a business owner of a food related enterprise.

I visited quite a few times when she was there and my experience of OB parties was pretty much the same as the parties I attended at my own RG university.