I was an engineering student here from 2023 to 2025, majoring in civil with a brief and temporary transition to software. Due to my employment commitments, I engaged with University Online (UO) courses as much as possible.

In general, the UO courses are an absolute joke. The learning material quality is supremely poor – I was able to find learning materials online for free which were of a far better quality in terms of both presentation and learning outcomes (in fact, I was almost entirely reliant on extra-curricular resources). The attitude of teaching staff is worse: telling a student who presents to you with a question to “go through the learning materials again” or “go online and find the answer” is not effective teaching. It is not even possible for me to complete the Bachelor’s award online, which was not the impression I was given when enrolling.

Rather than address my concerns with the program, which I experienced across many subjects, the university came to declare my repeated communications criticising the program as “disrespectful” and cried misconduct. Here’s the kicker: they embellished the allegations by claiming that my communications had been “threatening” to staff. I told them that this is a severe accusation and I want to see some evidence to support it; they have consistently refused.

Maybe their on-campus subjects are better but based on my experience I can conclude this is an institution who will do anything they can to preserve the image of academic integrity of their programs. Even making false allegations. So much for an “unstoppable career”.

UniSA is a pathetic joke. I enrolled for a Bacelor or IT and requested credit for the business related units within the program as I hold there Post Grad business degrees (2 from Group of * unis) but the program director is a joke and dragged the process out to the pointwhere I withdrew from the program and accepted unconditional offer to the University of Sydney for MBA. Never ever try to study at this crappy place.

Some admin people here border on hostile regarding their approach to myself as a student here. Though I have met some professional student admin people… I have to say that I mostly experienced a negative reaction to myself whether by phone or in person on the campus at the student central desk. As for my degree there was very poor misdirected communications between lecturers and tutors in my department for my course. It made it impossible to pass on my questions and receive a proper response leaving me in a state of absolutely nowhere regarding a concrete decision and accommodating my needs due to personal circumstance. I felt the teaching staff did not take myself seriously based on the handballing experience through emails as the person in charge of my degree kept communicating with the wrong staff members and I ended up receiving unnecessary condescending emails. So I withdrew before census date and UniSA couldn’t even get that process right, unbelievable 🤪. Some poorly trained student central employee emailed me to tell me I also had to manually withdraw myself from the subjects just in case… like what? I submitted a withdraw from my degree form! I found UniSA overall to be operating as a clown 🤡 show!! Nice campus but very useless function.

It is actually as bad as they say. Ive been a student for 7 years. I have finished my degree now and should have just changed universities in hindsight, but didnt. Strong accents make it challenging to learn the material during zoom sessions and video presentations. My high grades were attributed to the extra effort I put in, not the quality of teaching in most cases. I spent at least double the recommended hours per week just to overcome the poor quality. I absolutely agree with others’ comments….I also spent a lot of time on youtube. Why? it was suggested by the lecturers when they were asked questions and couldnt answer.
This uni degree was absolutely pointless from an educational perspective….I feel like Ive spent $30K just to get a piece of paper at the end. Thank you to the very few teachers who were my shining light over the past 6 years. You know who you are….I just wish the university supported you more and recognised your worth.

In reply to Stephanie.

I couldnt agree more with Steph….you honestly spend more time trying to understand what the lecturer is saying than learning in some cases. The university tries to save money and this is so very obvious in the quality offered to students. Presentations filled with errors due to basic spelling mistakes and such poor quality in the recordings that you need to watch them multiple times. The recommended 15 hours / week very soon becomes 25+

In reply to Jen Cavanagh.

I started when the online program was quite new. To be honest, there were very few modules that were even close to being worth the money. I got to a point where I was actually recording all the errors in the presentations as it was such disappointing quality. The lecturers themselves were also often of poor quality, suggesting you google the answer when asked a question, or holding zoom meetings at their kids karate class. So very unprofessional. You often spent the recommended 15 hours repeating videos because you couldnt understand the lecturer through their accents. Theyve become a little better over the years, probably through poor feedback but I honestly believe they are only good for getting the certificate. If you want to actually learn something, go elsewhere. Thank you though to the very few lecturers who care about a students education and know what they are talking about. I made a point of letting you know you are appreciated because you were my only shining light in what was for the most part a very pointless and disappointing degree, other than the certificate at the end.