Ara Institute of Canterbury Ltd, City Campus — Attraction in Christchurch

I just graduated with a bachelor's degree in Information and communication technology, and I can truly say that the IT department at Ara is a disaster. Please read this review before you consider studying at Ara, and I strongly recommend you think twice before studying IT at Ara. I cannot speak for any other Ara department and am specifically talking about the IT department. I started at Ara doing a Lv.4 certificate in Information technology before I started my degree pathway of software engineering. Most of the tutors are disconnected from the industry for too long and don’t know what modern requirements of IT professionals are. The fact that they are not teaching GIT and version control at all is devastating and evidence enough. Some teachers are arrogant and condescending while they are teaching and cannot handle any criticism about the content. In some courses it took the teachers months to give the marks back. There was only one course where I received any feedback for my assignments. It obviously common practice in the IT department to not give students feedback on their assignments. All you receive is your mark after weeks, sometimes months. But we all know how important it is to receive feedback on assignments. Another big disappointment at Ara studying IT are the computers. It takes several minutes for the machines to boot and for most programming classes you really need to bring your own laptop if you want to learn something. Very unsatisfying. I have officially complained several times during my studies about a variety of things and always filled out the course evaluation, but I can say that in my three years, things just got worst, and I could not see any improvement. Some teachers are not turning up for class, sending their assistance who are most of the time other students. There is a general lack of interest of the IT department to help students becoming IT professionals. The administration of the IT department is slow and highly lethargic. You do best to directly go to the manager of the IT department if you need any documents early. Don’t expect any of the administration team to invest 1 minute in your time. Sandy is the only person there who seems to be competent. Again, the fact that they are not teaching anything about GIT or version controlling is a disaster and clearly shows that they are not trying to keep up with the industry. However, there are so many more things wrong. I was one of the top students in my class and was in close contact with other top students who all agreed on numerous occasions that they would never recommend studying IT at Ara. The software engineering stream is especially lacking staff and IT practitioners who know of what they are talking about, classes of Lv.5, and 6 courses are most of the time overbooked. Some students had to sit on the floor, bringing their own machines to be able to participate. I was an international student and believe that the tuition fees are a rip off compared to the quality of education you receive in this institution. Even half the price would be too much. I think in general that New Zealand should not take financial advantage of international students. The tuition fees should be decreased soon, but they are increasing it annually. And yes, I know that Ara is not responsible for the fees. The IT department is old, and you can still see the cracks of the 2011 earthquake in most of the classes. 50% of the classes are not having any computers, but some teachers are asking the students to bring their own machines which is a joke in my opinion. As mentioned, the remaining 50% of the computers are way to slow and sabotaging the education of the students who unfortunately enrolled. I could write for hours of what must be improved and this is just the tip of the iceberg. As an international student, I can only recommend choosing another education provider unless Ara’s IT department has shown major improvements. And ARA, please start...

Really bad management and unreliable staff. Teachers are very hit and miss I have some awesome teachers and some bad ones. The ara app is useless and won't work or tell you the right classes most of the time. Exam times are not explained properly and can be located in about 3 different locations depending on the class which makes it very easy to miss if you are sick and not present to be told about them. The first 3 weeks are great but as soon as you get past the last withdrawal date the quality drops significantly and they stop caring about you. Wouldn't ever recommend going. Also about 70% of the chairs are broken and a decent amount of computers have filthy peripherals or they are completely non functional. This has been my experience. When I tried to reach out to staff they are almost always unavailable and I gave up after one staff member got angry at me for trying to findout my timetable for classes(because they couldn't figure out how to find my classes). Bad...

Studying here currently. I have to say the response times from admin staff are a little slow or non existent but that reflects on the funding levels and possible lack of ability to staff these things.

As far as tutors and the overall experience of studying in my chosen field - it is second to none. The tutors in my field are beyond amazing - and even considering just how good some of the expertise on offer in other areas here is - this team may have been the best of the lot (particularly seeing as how it involves human skills and psychology).

I could be happier about parking availability, but there are so many people here daily, and we do have a lot of parking available (In a city like this a) there is never enough space for it, and b) there is a fairly large amount of it)

The on site culinary services on offer are suitable and priced effectively, without any of that "you can't have blue top milk in your coffee" nonsense.

Lovely place. Really enjoyed my...