University of Bristol

I left my undergraduate course having scored very highly in my dissertation and been encouraged to publish. I was excited to begin this MScR but now feel utterly let down by the haphazard programme organisation and lack of structure.

There has been basically no training support and since bespoke training and unique opportunities were repeatedly used as a justification for the high fees, their lack, and moreover the total lack of any framework or groundwork to facilitate students building bespoke elements into their own training programme, absolutely fails to justify the high fee in comparison with other MScR programmes at the university.

My experience has convinced me that I absolutely would not want to continue my training here as a PhD candidate, nor work at the University of Bristol as an early career academic.

All closed since Covid. No acknowledgement from the university that student's have paid for access to these facilities and deserve rebate.

TL:DR, if you want to do a research master's, don't pay over the odd for this one.

This Cabot Institute MScR course was promoted heavily on the basis that it offered a bespoke training experience to students and would allow engagement and opportunities that would not otherwise be replicable in a regular school based MScR.

In reality, there has been no bespoke training, no framework or groundwork to facilitate students building a training plan, and the Institute has now removed the word 'bespoke' from its course webpage.

My experience has been that this is a “cash cow” course which exploits the reputation of the Cabot Institute and uses spurious marketing to entice prospective students into paying a premium fee, but in fact offers no substance or support to justify that premium.

From the Cabot Institute internal sharepoint: “The Institute is pursuing this Masters [sic] for the following main reasons: … to use the Institute’s strong brand to drive postgraduate student recruitment to the University”

Mental health support is limited to occasional emails on "World Mental Health Day". Reality is that support is way over-subscribed, and limited to one or two conversational sessions per student.