University of Exeter — Attraction in Exeter

As a parent i have been pleased with Exeter overall. The teaching has been good and my daughter has had a great time. This is more a comment on the year abroad which is part of her degree. It's all been very disappointing and I would not recommend it. Firstly they were told of options such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea etc etc. They were told places depended somewhat on grades. But as she was a high 2:1 average I assumed all would be OK. Not so. She listed 8 countries and got none of them. Eventually she ended going somewhere very near to home which was an adjustment. Then, largely because of Brexit, the visa process for this particular country was extremely complex and we had no help whatsoever with this from Exeter beyond a letter telling us to contact the embassy (also the wrong embassy they sent us to). It cost a lot of money (£500-600) and the complexity of meeting the visa requirements took an enormous amount of time and was pretty stressful. She was the only one who managed to meet the requirements out of four others who are currently there on tourist visas and face more stress over Christmas or not being allowed back into the country the new year! It won't be the same for everyone, it will depend on the country but don't expect any visa help, it will be met from Exeter with "We can't give out individual visa advice".

I can't complain about individual staff members at Exeter who have been trying but the system really has failed them on their year abroad program. Also worth noting that the Turing scheme is not up and running properly and so funding has not come through so far for my daughter.[EDIT, this money has now come through, 3 months into year]

Other students that i know of have faired better at other Universities but it's not how it was when I was at Uni doing a year abroad. Bear in mind there is no guarantee of going anywhere you would want to and the onus is very much on you to figure everything else out and most will need a LOT of parent support and money up front for visa and travel costs...which prejudices those from less advantaged backgrounds or those not able to borrow money until loans...

Poor teaching for a supposedly “good” university. I was still looking through the work I had done at school well into my time at Exeter because the teaching was far better at my school than it was at university (and yes, I went to a comprehensive). I never even met my personal tutor in my first year.

A lot of the other students, especially those studying history, law, geography, or English literature, went to private school. If you’ve been through the state sector you’ll most likely feel left out.

There was also a large Christian Union - renamed Evangelical Christian Union by force - on campus. I don’t care what people believe but they do try to convert you, and have some pretty strong ideas about sex before marriage and homosexuality.

I had mental health issues in my second year and although on the whole these were dealt with well by the medical team on campus - excluding the doctor I first saw whose first question was, “have you been taking drugs?” and when I was visibly shocked and told him no, he said, “sorry, I have to ask.” What?? - I was given no special consideration by my department, even though other students got delays to essay deadlines for similar issues.

My year abroad was fantastic - but Exeter had very little to do with this as all they did was to tell me how to apply for my job. Everything else was done by the school that I worked at. I paid half fees for this year, and for this I received a handful of fairly useless emails from the year abroad coordinator. When I asked her whether I could extend my year abroad to another year, she basically said that she didn’t know, and then didn’t try to find out.

Alcohol consumption was really pushed while I was there. During my first week, the student newspaper released an article including a discussion about clubs down at the quai. Apparently if you hadn’t been to one of them then you were either lying or “one of those weird teetotal freaks”. One student died of alcohol poisoning and then the university shifted their tone and tried to promote activities that didn’t involve consuming large...

The University of Exeter presents itself as a progressive and inclusive institution, yet my experience — and that of others — reveals a far more troubling reality. Students have been targeted based on hearsay, with no concrete evidence, and subjected to disciplinary action or exclusion simply because ‘someone said’ something. In some cases, private phone conversations have allegedly been used without consent, bypassing any standard of fairness or due process. Far from supporting students, the university has taken thousands of pounds from individuals it pushed out under a veil of moral superiority. This is not justice — it’s institutional gaslighting wrapped in performative virtue. It is time Exeter is held accountable for its contradictions, its treatment of vulnerable students, and its failure to uphold basic standards of law...