Student review [#26332] for Food Science with Business
at University of Reading

My course is new and was introduced only for the academic year I was starting my new university journey. I was so excited as this course combined the subject I have always studied in my academic timeline with the subject I am personally most passionate about. The first year we were in lockdown so this meant the structure of teaching and experience would be very different to what I previously knew. All lectures were pre-recorded with a combination of scheduled live lecture/seminar sessions which were carried out on Microsoft Teams and our academic platform, BlackBoard. The pre-recorded content was quite lengthy as they tended to compile as much information as soon as possible. This was evident as the content studied in the second term was significantly less than in the first. I could appreciate this style of teaching as you could go through the content at your own pace in your own environment. However, it took a while to get into a good routine when it came to watching and making valuable notes. It was quite difficult to do so, especially for module lecturers who spoke quite fast, too vague or were not fluent in English. The live sessions were slightly more enjoyable due to the interaction through an online platform. However, some modules combined students from various different courses so at times some live sessions had 400 students in one session.

Being at the end of Year 2 of my course, I believe the composition of the content being delivered is not the best. Because the course conjoins two big subjects; Food Science and Business it seems as though they have chosen a very broad range of modules to fit and cover each subject. This has meant the content has been very long and strenuous to learn. At times we had covered about 10 modules at once. I believe it would benefit the module convenors in future years to be more specific in the modules and content they deliver. Although a great course which allows you to go down various future routes, it has been quite hard to focus on important things on the course as they are so many simultaneous things occurring in all the other modules.
Additionally, the content delivery of lecturers should be constantly assessed to ensure students are always getting the highest quality of teaching. Some lecturer teaching styles are quite dated and can be unsuitable for students who obviously have matured within a more modern-style teaching period/environment.