I love saying that I’m going to King’s College, to me it sounds prestigious and important, but lately I’ve realised that as much as it has a good reputation it’s nothing more than a reputation, a fictional subjective view of it. My undergrad was done at London South Bank University, the university that is meant to be second last in the University League in the UK. I used to complain a lot about my last university, everything was bad. The teaching, the facilities, the marking, student halls and even the individual lecturers.
However, more than a year after my graduation and since starting my masters at a prestigious university, my view has changed slightly. Well, in fact it has changed rather radically! London South Bank was, and probably still, is a brilliant university! I don’t understand why it has such a bad reputation? As a matter of fact it has brilliant teaching (well in my department at least, which was psychology), we had amazing lecturers such as Dr. Paula Reavy, Dr. Ian Alberry, Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Newton, and not to mention the lady that inspired me most of all; Professor Lucy Henry! I had a brilliant experience, even though there were some struggles and some issues. Which there always are, some bad lecturers (*cough* Dr. Hillary Katz *cough*), and maybe even some other deeper issues, like when half our year failed one assignment due to one lecturer not finding their English up to standard.
Nonetheless, these issues exist at King’s as well. We have already had countless times where rooms have been double booked, where rooms have been to small (two people had to stand!), lecturers haven’t turned up and and when some lecturers have been plain rude to students. We have had problems with computers not working and the library being oddly organised. Every time something like this happens I think “Isn’t this meant to be a good university?”.
So the real reason is for this to be a good university and London South Bank University not to be such a good university is people’s perception. Not to mention that once a place is branded with “good” or “bad” we are more likely to perceive them as such. If London South Bank University wouldn’t have been branded “bad”, maybe I wouldn’t have complained about it as much and actually just got on with my studies, having more energy to writing assignments and revising for exams, and therefore do better and then maybe I would have thought my university was brilliant and not my ability.
I’d like to finish this entry with a little quite from a boy I used to work with; “King’s College you say? But that doesn’t mean anything! We’ve got a Queen now, and therefore it’s just a name, nothing to go by!” to me this illustrates how much meaning we put into a name of something, but when you actually look at it it’s just a word, nothing else.
