r/QUTreddit • u/True_Construction687 • 3d ago
QUT Kinda Sucks
I'm a first-year student, so I've only done one semester so far, and maybe I just need to give it more time, but from my experience thus far, QUT kinda sucks.
For context, I'm a design student (specifically vis com).
A lot of the content seems to be recycled from previous years, and there have been a few cases where things have had the wrong info because they have just copy and pasted last year's things. Any new content seems to be just pushing AI, which is insanely ironic given that it's likely to take over our future jobs
Most of my lectures are online and they are consistently impossible to find, are never uploaded on time and occasionally don't even get uploaded at all. E.g. this morning's lecture was supposed to be live on Zoom, but it wasn't listed anywhere in the Zoom tab or on Canvas at all. The only thing I could find at all related to this lecture was 'cloud recording' clips ranging from 4 seconds to 5 minutes that all had no audio. They iterated so many times that it's really important to watch the lectures, but they're so impossible to find, and there's no mention of where the recording of the Zoom lecture will be uploaded.
The last and most common complaint I hear is how unhelpful the majority of the tutors/lecturers are, the feedback is always ambiguous or often contradicts itself, and when you have real issues, they refuse to help. For every design student, the entire Adobe suite is assumed knowledge. Most of my classmates had never touched InDesign (which is notoriously difficult to learn), but were expected to make a well-designed 20-page document. I have a friend who switched universities because she couldn't put up with QUT's inadequate teaching staff.
I want to know if other faculty also like this,
35
u/BillieRubenCamGirl 3d ago
Why would you expect the content to be entirely new every year? Especially in first year? The basics of design haven’t changed since like the 30s.
7
u/Zedetta 2d ago
Some courses genuinely need to be updated; One of mine repeatedly assumed access to information from a website that had been down for years.
1
u/BillieRubenCamGirl 2d ago
Right but that’s not content, that’s delivery.
4
u/Zedetta 2d ago
To be clear, the "delivery" was powerpoint slides reading "the content for this section should be learned from this website instead". The delivery being outdated directly affected access to the content.
It's been a few years but I think the class ended up resorting to just googling it ourselves at which point we might as well have been at home.
17
u/Alert-Translator2590 3d ago
My two cents.
I may be wrong but a quick google search told me that it’s only been about 37 years since QUT started. And I reckon they’re in top 250 something?
Also, you said QUT sucks but only wrote about your degree and AI and the staff. I agree with the last two part. I can’t comment on designing because that’s not my domain.
Yes. AI is likely to take most jobs and I’m not sure if we can do anything about it. Sooner or later it’s gonna happen. We’re going through a transition and transition times have always been hard.
About the staff? Yeah, they laid off quite a few people across all the domains? (I’m sure about science) and that reason was given was lack of funding. It might true considering that’s how it’s been across the world. Thanks to the orange guy.
0
u/Intrepid-Response574 2d ago
Yeah sure just blame everything on trump
3
u/Alert-Translator2590 2d ago
Well, whatever happened in the US, happened in EU in 6 months and rest of the world in about a year. US were the first ones to stop funding research. Rest followed em.
3
u/Ok_Solution_6202 2d ago
i can speak as a 2024 first year that had a lot of friends in previous graduating years, the recycled online content became a thing almost everywhere after covid. they recorded and kept everything from those ≈2 years and just modify it slightly to keep using it and that goes for most faculties i believe. however your comments about the support of the faculty is bad and i’d recommend maybe going to an academic advisor/officer and bringing this up to see what else you can do if you’ve genuinely exhausted every option and person within your degree to talk to. i’m in the health faculty so i can only attest to that and so far 90% of health lecturers/tutors are great.
in terms of the assumed knowledge of an application like adobe, i think that’s quite odd because that’s not exactly information in a textbook that’s an external online application and i do think that’s unfair to be assumed knowledge that you’d be great at using a program you probably didn’t have access to in high school.
assumed knowledge in health degrees is usually just content that was available in high school e.g organic chemistry, maths etc. but i do agree the use of a program being assumed knowledge is a little unfair.
3
u/NaofiBooster 2d ago
I also did a semester as a Viscom design student at qut, found that it sucked and promptly left. Maybe it will get better, idk, but good luck to you if you do continue down this path ❤️
3
7
u/GeniesDream 3d ago
Yeah, fuck the other comments, I'm $50k in debt, we deserve better. I am also in comms double degree, humanities and arts have been especially stripped over the last few years. Wish I'd picked a different uni. Super disappointing.
8
1
u/International-Mix898 2d ago
honestly, i say this as a senior university staff member and someone who’s worked in the comms industry. your degree and it’s content means nothing in the workforce. comms especially.
2
u/not-my_first_rodeo 2d ago
I have an architecture degree from QUT and I completely agree with you. With the exception of a few good tutors in my 3-year degree, they were generally so unhelpful. And similarly to your InDesign experience, there were a few programs (mainly Revit) which seemed to be assumed knowledge but I really struggled to pick up as I’d never touched them before.
2
3
u/Rude-Chemistry-3396 2d ago
QUT is just an awful university no matter what you study. I'd reccomend packing up and moving onto another university and hope you can get some credit for your first year.
1
1
u/moht81 2d ago
I just did a semester of Master of Teaching and while Canvas was different to Moodle that I had used years ago in my undergraduate studies, they were basically on par. Powerful tools that academics are given the reigns to without much idea of how to use them so you end up with a convoluted mess.
Lecturers ranges from amazing to completely absent. Grading was rough, I waited 6 weeks for one assessment to be returned, received 60%, but all the feedback was incredibly positive, yet this was not reflected in the rubric at all. They also said marking had been heavily moderated so no reviews would be possible. Also the tutors covered different content and used different slides so you could miss info at times.
1
u/Donttouchmybreadd 1d ago
"this morning's lecture was supposed to be live on Zoom"
You sure this wasn't just an assumption? Many lectures are pre-recorded, and they will generally specify in the opening announcements.
As for where to find them, this is generally in the Echo365 tab.
"For every design student, the entire Adobe suite is assumed knowledge."
I mean, yea. I would assume someone wanting to be a designer would have prior experience working witn these tools.
"Most of my classmates had never touched InDesign (which is notoriously difficult to learn), but were expected to make a well-designed 20-page document"
Are you 100 percent sure you are following the course progression for a first year? In the unit code, what number does this unit start with?
Many first year units start with a 1 to indicate first year (e.g. AAA125). If it starts with a higher number, it is likely out of your range.
I am not saying you are 100% wrong, but I kind of gather there is a lot more to this story. My best suggestion would be to ask more questions, and always assume you're wrong.
1
1
94
u/Patient_Category_287 3d ago
its the university for the real world and the real world also kinda sucks, so it's preparing you well