York College

I am currently in my third year of York college studying a level 3 course in health and social care. I would not recommend this course to anyone else, on open days we were told we would have the chance to go on placements that would build up our experience in health and social work; this is especially important to those of us who wish to go to university as health and social care subjects often ask for experience in order to gain a place on any of their courses. I have one week of this course left and not once have I, or any of my classmates been given the opportunity to go onto a placement; this has affected many of my classmates as they do not have enough experience to be placed onto university courses.
Throughout my time on the course many pieces of my work have been lost by my tutors, this has caused me to frantically try to reprint all the work in time for it to be moderated so I do not miss out on high grades, this is difficult as many times I have already used my printing credit by printing work out the first time and have had to pay yet again to reprint work that I did not lose.
Although the tutors are friendly our lesson is often interrupted by our tutor discussing information that does not relate to any of the coursework we need to do that day in order to meet the deadline, if you want to do your work this will damage your ability to do so however if you want to talk about drunk stories and animals then you're definitely in the right room.
I have had a number of tutors throughout my time on the course as many have been asked to leave for not marking work correctly or have called in sick for months at a time and appropriate cover for their lessons has not been arranged, we have been given tutors who do not know anything about the subject and have just told us to entertain ourselves, only one of my tutors has been consistent throughout my time on the course.
Quality of teaching is poor, on the occasions we have had tutors that are aware of subjects we must be taught we have been placed in front of power-points that have lots of sentences written on them, we are not taught in any other way and it has seemed that tutors do not have the effort or desire to make the topic interesting and teach us in a way that does not involve them sitting behind a desk reading words off of a screen, out of date worksheets are also a common favourites of tutors for this course.
Safety and security of the college is poor, any individual can walk in or out of the premises without being stopped, it appears that York college has an open door policy and you often see people's boyfriends popping in to eat lunch with them even though they do not attend the college or random men walking around who look to have no link to the college, students often walk around under the influence of drugs and it is a common sight to see students in groups around the back of the college with a suspicious smelling cloud of smoke surrounding them, not once have I or any of my friends heard of an individual getting into trouble because of this.
Clubs are available to individuals participating in A-levels, if you do any other courses such as mine there are no timetables available for clubs that fit around these courses.

It appears unless you do A-levels at York College and can give them a picture of you holding a golden A in the local newspaper, then your needs are not important.

Try somewhere else for a good standard of teaching, safety and tutors who have a general interest in the subject.