This thread is for students who may be thinking of studying a Bachelor’s degree(s) at Western Sydney University. It serves as a comprehensive and unbiased review of the university which will hopefully provide students with a clear perspective of what it is like to study at WSU and assist them in making an informed decision regarding whether to attend WSU. It will cover the university as a whole and will also focus on the School of Business.
Background:
At the time of posting this thread, I am a WSU graduand (a student who has completed his degree but has not yet officially graduated). I studied a Bachelor of Business (Advanced Business Leadership) and majored in Human Resource Management. The selection rank for my degree has typically fluctuated between 90 and 95. The reason that it had a selection rank requirement in this range was that it is designed for high achieving students, who will study additional subjects that encompass further research/coursework (including exposure to MBA coursework, Honours- and PhD-type research), as opposed to students enrolled in the standard Bachelor of Business with the lower selection rank requirement of 70. To me, the degree was a convenient alternative to USyd’s Bachelor of Commerce because the then 2-year-old Parramatta City campus was easily accessible in terms of location and travel time and as someone who wishes to pursue postgraduate study in the future, a degree that included a focus on postgraduate study appealed to me.
Thankfully, I have finished my degree on a distinction GPA/WAM.
Positive aspects of WSU:
There is a multitude of things that I was satisfied with and impressed by during my time at this university. The things that I was satisfied with were:
Negative aspects of WSU:
There are a couple of things that I was not happy with during my time at this university. First, I would like to discuss the stigma associated with WSU. The good news is, it is not entirely accurate that only dropkicks attend WSU. I have met and studied alongside numerous high achievers across both the standard and the advanced degrees, meaning that the university definitely has its fair share of bright students. However, this stigma is not entirely invalid, with some students also being dropkicks or students who are serious about attending university but are low achievers. The reason that I am discussing this is that at university, it is likely that you will be required to complete group assignments, regardless of your degree. I was affected by this in two ways:
This brings me to the second thing that I was not happy with, which is the reason that the first thing exists to begin with. I find the ease with which one can receive an offer to study at WSU unreasonable. This applies to standard degrees with lower ATAR requirements (i.e. anything below 80). Not only are such ATAR requirements already fairly achievable for the average HSC student without the need for adjustment factors, but the university is excessively generous with both adjustment factors as well as the HSC True Reward Early Offer Program. WSU also offers, through The College, pathway programs for students who do not achieve a sufficiently high ATAR or do not have an ATAR which subsequently allows them to progress into the relevant undergraduate degree. This multitude of entry options is unreasonable and is the main way through which low achievers, particularly those who are not serious about attending university and those who identify with the “P's get degrees” ideology can attend WSU and contribute to the distortion of the average perception regarding the university.
Based on this, WSU should seriously consider increasing the ATAR requirements of its degrees that are easy to receive an offer to study by 5-10 points at the very least. The fact that there will be changes made to early entry schemes following NESA’s intervention will also be interesting in terms of the manner in which this will affect the HSC True Reward Early Offer Program. Making this early entry scheme slightly more rigorous would be a welcome change.
What I recommend and do not recommend WSU for:
WSU should be considered as an option for a number of degrees/fields and perhaps disregarded for some other degrees/fields. Based on my knowledge, I would recommend WSU for the following:
Unless it is the only available option, I would not recommend WSU for the following:
Background:
At the time of posting this thread, I am a WSU graduand (a student who has completed his degree but has not yet officially graduated). I studied a Bachelor of Business (Advanced Business Leadership) and majored in Human Resource Management. The selection rank for my degree has typically fluctuated between 90 and 95. The reason that it had a selection rank requirement in this range was that it is designed for high achieving students, who will study additional subjects that encompass further research/coursework (including exposure to MBA coursework, Honours- and PhD-type research), as opposed to students enrolled in the standard Bachelor of Business with the lower selection rank requirement of 70. To me, the degree was a convenient alternative to USyd’s Bachelor of Commerce because the then 2-year-old Parramatta City campus was easily accessible in terms of location and travel time and as someone who wishes to pursue postgraduate study in the future, a degree that included a focus on postgraduate study appealed to me.
Thankfully, I have finished my degree on a distinction GPA/WAM.
Positive aspects of WSU:
There is a multitude of things that I was satisfied with and impressed by during my time at this university. The things that I was satisfied with were:
- Quality of education - I was satisfied with the quality of education. Most academics in both standard and advanced subjects were definitely highly knowledgeable and delivered the content of their respective subjects at a high standard. I recall reading this thread covering my specialisation, which mentioned that WSU has a good HR program. I can confirm that my experience was indeed consistent with this notion.
- Flexibility – This refers to class times, with an emphasis on tutorials. The university offered good flexibility in terms of class times (including day and night) as well as mode of delivery (on campus and online), which I found convenient, especially since my circumstances and commitments changed fairly frequently, notably in my second year.
- Employment opportunities - Similar to other universities, WSU has partnerships with different companies, which, depending on the degree(s) studied, can give students a good chance of finding employment opportunities through the university while they are still studying. In my case, I was able to work at PwC (a Big 4 accounting firm) for a few months (after which I quit because I did not study a finance-related major but also because I had two jobs and it was difficult to maintain them both). I am definitely thankful for the experience.
Negative aspects of WSU:
There are a couple of things that I was not happy with during my time at this university. First, I would like to discuss the stigma associated with WSU. The good news is, it is not entirely accurate that only dropkicks attend WSU. I have met and studied alongside numerous high achievers across both the standard and the advanced degrees, meaning that the university definitely has its fair share of bright students. However, this stigma is not entirely invalid, with some students also being dropkicks or students who are serious about attending university but are low achievers. The reason that I am discussing this is that at university, it is likely that you will be required to complete group assignments, regardless of your degree. I was affected by this in two ways:
- In the advanced subjects that were part of the advanced degree (which could only be taken by other high-achieving students), I had no issues with group tasks. Think of this as being the selective stream of a semi-selective school. Working alongside other bright students was a pleasant experience and did not pose any obstacles, despite the inherently higher difficulty of advanced subjects.
- In the standard subjects, I faced issues with group tasks in some (not all) subjects. Think of this as being the comprehensive stream of a semi-selective school, where you may be required to work alongside students who are either high-achievers or low-achievers. The problems that I faced were:
- Other group members not putting in sufficient effort into their part(s) of the assignments, consequently impacting the overall group mark.
- Other group members not engaging at all. This happened once in my first year, and the student was given a zero for their lack of participation/contribution.
- Other group members putting in a commendable amount of effort, but not producing good quality work. This is the only outcome that I can personally forgive, because at least the student was willing to do their best to contribute in such a case, despite being a low achiever.
This brings me to the second thing that I was not happy with, which is the reason that the first thing exists to begin with. I find the ease with which one can receive an offer to study at WSU unreasonable. This applies to standard degrees with lower ATAR requirements (i.e. anything below 80). Not only are such ATAR requirements already fairly achievable for the average HSC student without the need for adjustment factors, but the university is excessively generous with both adjustment factors as well as the HSC True Reward Early Offer Program. WSU also offers, through The College, pathway programs for students who do not achieve a sufficiently high ATAR or do not have an ATAR which subsequently allows them to progress into the relevant undergraduate degree. This multitude of entry options is unreasonable and is the main way through which low achievers, particularly those who are not serious about attending university and those who identify with the “P's get degrees” ideology can attend WSU and contribute to the distortion of the average perception regarding the university.
Based on this, WSU should seriously consider increasing the ATAR requirements of its degrees that are easy to receive an offer to study by 5-10 points at the very least. The fact that there will be changes made to early entry schemes following NESA’s intervention will also be interesting in terms of the manner in which this will affect the HSC True Reward Early Offer Program. Making this early entry scheme slightly more rigorous would be a welcome change.
What I recommend and do not recommend WSU for:
WSU should be considered as an option for a number of degrees/fields and perhaps disregarded for some other degrees/fields. Based on my knowledge, I would recommend WSU for the following:
- Any degree offered by the School of Business.
- The Bachelor of Nursing
- The Doctor of Medicine
- Engineering, primarily the Bachelor of Engineering Advanced (Honours)
- The Bachelor of Psychology (Honours)
Unless it is the only available option, I would not recommend WSU for the following:
- The Bachelor of Laws, in which case Go8 universities such as USyd and UNSW would be superior options.
- IT/Computer Science, the only exception being the Bachelor of Information Systems (Advanced). Otherwise, programs offered by universities such as UNSW and UTS are likely superior options.
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