Northumbria Recensioni 12

It is very clear to me that only certain voices are welcomed or heard at this university. In a space that is supposed to be forward-thinking, I was shocked and discouraged by how much bigotry was allowed to persist. I personally experienced blatant ableism and misogyny — both online and in person — and even witnessed the use of obvious dog whistles and bigoted language.

As a result, I no longer felt safe attending or contributing to class discussions. I am paying for this education, yet I was pushed out of spaces that were supposed to be inclusive and accepting. When I put my work forward, I was met with microaggressions because of its content. I eventually stopped communicating with the class altogether because it was clear my voice was not wanted.

This experience has been deeply traumatic and upsetting. As someone living with CPTSD, I felt my concerns were dismissed rather than taken seriously. I was excluded in every way — even when speaking to the lecturer directly, I was repeatedly interrupted by other students while trying to share serious thoughts. It is incredibly disheartening that bullying is still treated as trivial at this stage of education.

When I raised harassment concerns, they were dismissed as “friendship difficulties.” To be clear, I was a transfer student who had only just met these individuals when the harassment started. They didn’t know me at all beyond my name.

Support services are also inadequate. There are only two wellbeing officers for the entire university. One, Sarah, was good. The other was dismissive and unhelpful. When I came to her in distress after being forcibly removed from my accommodation, she brushed me off and told me to “just call Samaritans.” There seemed to be no effort from the university itself to support students or help them remain on their courses — ironic, considering every student who drops out means lost income for the institution.

Overall, I deeply regret coming here. It is obvious students are treated as little more than cash cows. If you write about topics such as being a woman, autistic, or queer, be prepared to face hostility with little to no support from staff. In the modern day, this should not be tolerated. Students should not have to feel afraid to express who they are, yet that is exactly what I experienced.

The university publicly celebrates neurodiversity, women’s rights, and LGBT+ identities, but my experience made it impossible to see these campaigns as anything other than hollow gestures. The spaces that supposedly exist for these communities are in reality hostile and unaccommodating.

The administration is disorganized, communication is poor, and overall there is a culture of apathy. After only a few weeks into term, the campus feels abandoned, students stop attending, and nobody seems to care anymore.

I feel I have completely wasted my time and money here.

They partner with QA for their degree apprenticeships, which is an unscrupulous company that signs apprentices up regardless of whether the course meets their training needs or not. I was duped into signing up for the "Digital and Technical Specialist" MSc Level 7 apprenticeship.

The course materials themselves are very evidently the cheapest possible way to claim to provide a program, with a low proportion of taught content, no technical labs, and completely inadequate guidance in anything resembling a specialist topic. The main topic that is consistently discussed is reflective practice, which forms a part of all the taught modules and is the only thing I actually learned anything about. It is a shame that I have no intention of using academic models of reflective practice, and foolishly expected this course to help me develop digital or technical skills. It was, however sold to me, as a DevOps engineer, as a way to improve my technical skills. It has been a hindrance instead, as my apprenticeship time (plus large chunks of spare time) are now spent writing pointless essays about reflection, innovation, leadership, and personality tests. None of this makes me better at my job and I have lost a lot of time I could spend developing technical skillsets instead of engaging with this rubbish.

When confronted with this, tutors pointed towards the much-vaunted CPD courses that students can select, but these are selected with zero input from tutors, and the skills coaches issued (understandably) lack the expertise in helping a bunch of completely different people select the most appropriate courses for their very specific learning needs. I picked some passable ones in mine, but theoretically I could have picked three courses where I stared at PowerPoints for a day and sodded off. This is in no way adequate for a Masters-level programme, and frankly, wouldn't be acceptable at any level of education.

The fact that the University of Northumbria is willing debase itself and lend its name out to such a blatant cash-grab of a degree completely discredits it as an academic institution. The fact students on this degree deal exclusively with QA shows what a hollowed-out degree mill it is, since oversight of these substandard courses is clearly deemed unnecessary as long as the apprenticeship levy cash keeps rolling in.

Complaints procedures are opaque, and I have good reason to believe that QA have outright lied in their responses. For example, according to a recent response to my complaint, they apparently claim 100 percent of students on their programme were "very satisfied". Given that QA higher education sits at 1.5 stars on Trustpilot, I somewhat doubt the veracity of this claim. This gives me absolutely zero faith that the "internal processes" through which QA always finds they did nothing wrong are really being applied.

TL;DR: do anything else, you'll be happier and probably smarter for it.

I’m honestly disappointed with how difficult it is to get anything resolved. Thefinancial department is incredibly slow to respond, and when they do, it often feels like they’re not really listening. Even when the issue is clear and the solution provided by email with the reference number, the response doesn’t address the actual problem just a delay.

My experience with Northumbria University has been nothing short of a nightmare. I applied for a refund of over £12,000 due to a visa refusal in October 2024. It is now April 2025, and I still have not received my refund, nor have I been given any clear answers. Despite dozens of follow-up emails, most of my messages have been ignored or responded to after weeks of silence.

The university’s refund process is chaotic, unprofessional, and completely lacking in transparency. Representatives like Valentina Oprea failed to communicate or provide even the most basic support. I was forced to chase every step of the process while getting no updates unless I begged for them.

At one point, the university refunded my payment in the wrong currency (PKR), causing me to lose over £800 due to conversion losses. Even after accepting this and resubmitting everything correctly, they still didn’t send proper tracking info, leaving me in the dark. I contacted Convera and even they couldn’t trace my refund because of missing tracking numbers.

The lack of care shown by the university is alarming. I missed multiple intakes (January, May, and potentially September) due to their incompetence, and my family continues to ask me about a refund that no one at this university seems to be able to locate.

For an institution that claims to be world-class, this has been the worst experience I’ve ever had with any educational provider. Avoid if you expect professionalism, timely support, or even basic respect.

I did a part time masters at Northumbria (this was my second master). I'll start by saying that I have not learned anything throughout this time, at least compared to my other masters.
The cybersecurity tutor did not even read the assignment(there was no exam ever, just assignments), I've raised this with multiple people at the university, never got an answer (I was only told by the tutor to come in and discuss more which I have declined, provided I've sent him screenshots with his comments stating I have not covered something when it was clearly covered). I have even e-mailed the rector's assistant about this - was told they will look into it to never get back.
The curricula at first said that there JavaScript, HTML and CSS will be covered - we have not even been shown an html paragraph. Some tutors have some attitude (mention here to the "Leadership in Digital Age" tutor - useless subject, awful attitude).
For the "Msc in Computing and Technology" you only do 2 maybe three hours of Java and about the same of SQL. That is it. That is where your money and 2 years invested go. It was the worst experience ever. I have stated my experience on their LinkedIn profile after a post about how great the University is and it was deleted in maximum 30 minutes.

I attended this uni to do a PhD. I have basically studied all my life in order to work to this point. Today I was just booted out of my PhD 1 year before I was due to finish. From the first time I started, they never wanted me to get the PhD. I was funded by a stipend. They have ruined my future career. I have from the off had trouble with my primary supervisor I tried everything to resolve this, Back and forth to graduate school etc.. trying to get a supervisory change and still no go, I was given a bunch of useless excuses like the project had been funded by the primary supervisor and it wasn't possible to change the order of the supervisory team and the secondary didn't have the relevant expertise and my primary was the most relevant person to supervise the project. I battled with them and then ended up failing my progression point twice in my second year. I have basically been pushed out and told to withdraw without any other options. I did every revision the panel asked me for and more and the timeline I put was realistic. they were pushing all the responsibility of progress onto me when I have struggled for two years with not having support around me from postdocs or supervisory team, I got no supervision and got told to do everything myself, this severely hindered my progress and the panel did not even take this into account. Formal complaint were lodged against my supervisor and the investigator threw out most of the evidence supporting my claims saying it was over three months old. this rendered my claim useless and as a result my complaint was not upheld. Please do not attend the uni, your career will be destroyed as well as your wellbeing. I have from previous institutions, a MSc and MRes both with distinction, how can someone with these credentials fail to get a PhD

If I could give less than 1 star I would. As an alumnus of this school, I do not recommend!!!!!! Especially as an international student. They value money more than for you to learn anything. They cannot be bothered about the value you get. For the sake of your mental health avoid Northumbria University at all cost.

I recently had an extremely distressing experience with an individual named Irina Knazeva (from QA.com), who displayed both racist behaviour and a lack of sensitivity towards people with disabilities. This person should be kept away from any and all non-white students and those with disabilities. I have 30 years of IT experience, and after initially being told that I was a suitable candidate for the MSc Cyber Security course, I was suddenly deemed unsuitable by Irina. When I tried to discuss this discrepancy, she consistently deflected my questions.

As a student with learning disabilities who worked incredibly hard to achieve a 2:1 degree this year, this treatment was particularly disheartening. When I raised a complaint, it was poorly handled. I was referred to another individual, a Bengali man claiming to be from Northumbria University, but who was actually an employee of QA. He assured me that someone would contact me, yet had the audacity to suggest that I follow up if no one did. I had to chase Fahim Uddin (also from QA.com) to carry out his duties. What is this all about? This complaint handling process felt more like a circus than a professional procedure.

It seemed as though QA thought assigning someone of the same ethnicity as me would help, possibly in the hope of downplaying my complaint. So they sent Fahim, who seemed completely incompetent. To all students of colour and those with disabilities, be cautious of this company. Northumbria University, you should be ashamed. Despite sending a formal complaint email, I have not even received an acknowledgement. The lack of response is appalling.

The level of incompetence from Fahim Udding was unreal, he was pretending to be an employee of Northumbria. I had to ask him several times to identify himself before he did. Please see a copy of the email he sent me.

Fehim Uddin
Wed, 26 Jun, 11:36 (2 days ago)
to me

Hi Mo,

Someone will be responding to you by the end of today. If you have not heard anything by 5pm, you can let me know and I will chase them up (I’m working until 5.30pm so I will chase them today). Once a complaint is made by an applicant or student, the relevant individuals are notified who can deal with the specific issues raised. It is one of these individuals who will respond to you today. He had the audacity to ask me to chase him to carry out his duties!

To answer your other question, I am employed by QA to work with Northumbria University’s London campus.

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Fehim Uddin
Quality Assurance Co-Ordinator
QAHE

Most unhelpful contact I have ever made, address is ask 4 help they offer no help whatsoever

if you work in northumbria university quite soon you will discover that most of its success is based on lies and corruption.
Relatives working together as cleaner supervisors taking the best shifts and hiring their friends , hr employers used to threaten people , overtime given always to friends of friends , a cleaner supervisor who got this role without a fair process , famous for bullying people, is working as a representative of unison , disables abandoned in that toxic enviroment .
in Pandon building useless overpaid people who can not do their job.
totally avoid for your piece of mind

The online top up degree is a scam. You will have to wait weeks for responses from tutors. Appalling student support. As usual, quick to take your hard earned money but can't even provide a basic level of support. Utterly useless people.

A legitimate university. However, at least one of its staff have been shown to collaborate on corrupt scientific studies that involve severe conflicts of interest that skew results.

One example of this is a study collaborated on by Northumbria University called "The use of a systems approach to increase NAD+ in human participants" [1]. This study paints a rosy picture of a Nuchido-brand supplement in improving your health. However, this study was partially funded by the very company responsible for producing the supplement, Nuchido.

According to Yale, "Studies sponsored by industry were 3.6 times more likely to have conclusions favorable to industry than studies without that support." [2]

Northumbia University contributes to the scientific industry's "Replication Crisis," a dangerous and human-harmful result of studies performed in unprofessional manners [3], such as by hosting papers written by corrupt authors sponsored to give good results by manufacturers.

While Northumbria University may be a recognized university, it conducts unethical scientific practices and it should be penalized or banned from contributing scientific research to the global scientific community. For the reasons above, do not trust any scientific study associated in any way with "Northumbria University", without doing further research.

[1] Links are not allowed to be posted in some reviews. For direct source, search Google Scholar for "The use of a systems approach to increase NAD + in human participants (September 19, 2023)"
[2] Links are not allowed to be posted in some reviews. For direct source, Google "Does industry funding equal conflict of interest? Often it does, Yale authors claim"
[3] Links are not allowed to be posted in some reviews. Google "percent studies cannot be reproduced"