murdoch university literature review

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Murdoch University

Campus grounds. Photo credit: NixPixMix

Murdoch University is a Perth-based university and popular study destination for international students. The university occupies Australia's largest campus by land area. It's located in the suburb of Murdoch (about 14 km from the Perth city centre). If you are or were a Murdoch student, you're welcome to post a review and let us know what you think about the university.

Murdoch Rating

Student reviews, 28 responses.

Games Tech Student

For it, consider another university.

* Tutorials/Labs are only there to hand work in. There is no tuition * The unit coordinators, lecturers, tutors have no experience in the field they teach, they might as well be students themselves * You will have to seek out what you need to know, find your own materials, and learn the concepts in addition to performing the work that is required. The materials provided by the units do not prepare you for any work given, let alone a job * This uni being on the ACS accredited list proves that the ACS has no standards and is prepared to approve anyone who will fork over the money

Great … until you encounter the ethics committee

I had a wonderful experience throughout my undergrad and honours. Then i started a PhD on an APA scholarship, and for a while that was great too. I had a wonderful team of supervisors, and the support from the university was great. I had a very rosy image of Murdoch, and I’m glad I learnt the truth. About 6 months into my project, I encountered the Etics committee, and everything changed. The supportive atmosphere was gone, and everything was bureaucratic, menacing, and outright stupid (a common feeling among students). To save space (it’s a book-length saga) I’ll give just a few examples. One, at the end (after a 1 year saga), I said to my supervisor “It’s accepted? We’re through ethics?” “They want a warm-up script.” The “hello” bit, when you do a phone interview with a research participant, they wanted that written down. They also had a procedure, if you interview people in their homes, you need to call someone before and after, to show you got out safely. A procedure from the Israeli military! And one of my faves, “The committee felt that this application came across more like a marketing survey than a PhD study.” If that appeals to you, go to Murdoch!

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ThirdYearGamesTechStudent

Worst university in australia - stay away.

If you want to do anything in IT, stay well away from this place. Especially Games Technology. They will teach you absolutely nothing and expect you to figure out how to build applications on your own.

Worst education (there is none) I have ever experienced. Do not ever come here. Someone should really raise a class action lawsuit against this place as they are running a scam that will deprive you of hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars.

The academics are unqualified and uninterested in teaching.

I am warning you never come to this university its nothing like people say you will only learn nothing I am never coming back here I had the worst experience ever please I am warning you before is to late.. know I have to go to to the mental hospital every day because of this uni

I have went to this uni just 2 times and I hope I never go again. Number one it looks like a Jumanji nothing like the pictures you find on the internet. As soon as I walked to the gate I saw horses everywhere and dirt on the ground everything stank. The student representative looked nice but the colleagues there were absolutely trash on my right there was a girl who looked about 10 to 12 years old sitting down on the chair lazing about watching her iPad while the lady in the room infront of me had food scattered everywhere to my left a angry looking lady came running up to me asking why I was here she didn’t even greet me with a hi hello good morning nothing. After a bit she told me to come inside I told her about the various emails I had sent her regarding a lot of information but she said they were busy and shut me out. I was walking trying to find the student centre when I saw students in the classroom next to me jumping about like little kids It was absolutely childish , when I got lost the students there were so rude they didn’t listen to me and kept on talking about random things. As I entered the student centre it smelt like a garbage bag I put my student number in and when I was called they couldn’t fix the problem I had I to leave the building trying to figure out what just happened. now I get work sent to me even though they say I can’t attend the classrooms online like its not my fault I work hard unlike them. a profferer sent me wrong answers and I had to correct them and tell the formula and help him understand it. Know I am suffering because they tell me I have to attend the classes at the uni not at home!

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Good MBA experience (Singapore Campus)

I was enrolled in Murdoch’s MBA program located in Singapore. Having experienced both online and physical classes, I had a wonderful learning experience with Murdoch. The lecturers were engaging and helpful, and the materials presented were practical. Assignments provoked real-world application of the knowledge learnt. That said, students have to be disciplined in their learning. But as an alumnus, I hope the University can continue to improve its overall reputation and ranking.

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YOU CAN DO A LOT BETTER THAN THIS BACKWATER ISOLATED CITY "UNIVERSITY"

Horrible place. This is not one of the nations better universities. It is a B or C class Uni. I went there and found that the students were very self-entitled provincial people. I never realized, until I went to Deakin and Monash in Victoria, how bad the unis in the backward isolated city of Perth really are.

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Worst nightmare

It worst ever nightmare of my life still going on. Stay away from this university if you don’t want to be in a mental hospital in the end. Dont complain about any tutor, you will not be able to get a pass.

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Sad excuse for a university

Absolutely dismal, avoid this university, especially if you plan to study online for any period of time. I have been studying an environmental degree at Murdoch and it is a sad excuse for a higher education facility. I previously finished a bachelors degree at Curtin and Murdoch does not compare.

Lecturers do not provide support, you are taught basically nothing, you have to self-learn the entire course (which you could do for free with the internet), it is expensive – not worth the price, you are provided with sub-par programs (E.g. Terrset for GIS unit) I do not believe anything I have learnt at Murdoch will aid in my future career.

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Great support for students, good online experience

I have enjoyed my time at Murdoch. As an Equal student I felt well supported. As I assume is the same with most universities the experience does differ between units and who is organising them, but on the whole I felt they responded well to the COVID situation when we had to move online.

The environmental science units are fantastic and run by people who are really passionate and approachable. Some of the chem units are pretty full on and there is definitely need for more support.

One issue I’ve had is the lack of quality control on the online lectures, with no subtitles to rely on if a lecturer isn’t using a quality mic it can be really difficult.

Overall I have enjoyed undergrad.

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I signed up for university. I am 41 and have not been to school since 1995. I have completed 1 unit. I don’t know if this every university or not, but I have been put off from studying because of my experience here. Was going ok for the 1st 3/4 of the unit and then the difficulty jumped substantially but the lecture material was not very thorough. I brought this up with the tutor and got a reply along the lines of “You have to source your own knowledge”. Isn’t the point of studying to be taught, not teach myself? Secondly, they gave us access to past exam papers which I looked at over and over again, but the exam I got was not in any way similar. Thirdly, the unit I’m doing now, we watch some videos where the lecturer explains everything really fast and moves on. “OK, got it?, Moving on”. No I don’t “got it” yet. I was told the prerequisites of this maths unit is year 10 maths. This is way more advanced than anything I learnt in year 10 almost 30 years ago. My 10 year old girl is learning stuff I never learnt in high school. So year 10, from what time period? Maybe online uni is not for me, or uni is not for me altogether, but, so far, based on this experience, my desire to continue not great.

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MurdochIsGarbage

Just avoid murdoch.

I’ve been attending Murdoch (and looking to transfer to another university due to these issues) for a number of years now and I’ve just had enough. The constant guessing what is going to be in an examination due to there being so much content with zero guidance is just unacceptable.

An example of this is classic learning objectives any and all universities use to guide students through their studies. Murdoch has these but they are useless as they are non specific. They basically cover any and all content ever given in the course. So what is the expectations, to remember word for word anything you have ever read? Because this is exactly how you are examined, which by the way is just impossible.

I have got good grades so far, but only out of pure luck, this is NOT how it should be. Not only is it EXTREMELY stressful on students (no matter how much you study you cannot remember everything, especially word for word) but it is basically relying on luck, for the content you’ve covered in the mountain of information given.

Never in my life have I encountered this anywhere, at any university, ever.

Just to give you some background I’ve attended other universities (actually a number of top 10 in Australia) and never have been given the lack of direction to study like Murdoch.

Students feel the same way! My psychologist whom I went to due to stress, said the university she gets the most complaints about is Murdoch and even in her professional opinion (she is a clinical psych at the top of her field, graduated from UWA) finds it appalling what she finds students are complaining about. It is not just one or two subjects either, it is several, so points to the university as a whole!

I’ve also had medical students and doctors comment on how huge their loads of study are but it has always been streamlined and obvious with the learning objectives what to focus on and the rest is “supporting information”, which makes complete sense, as even the great Harvard has a section on this in their “How to study” student help section. Not Murdoch however!

To make matters worse (as if the above wasn’t enough) I am really flabbergasted as to how some of the exams pass the exams centre. Questions that are written that can be interpreted multiple ways should NEVER ever make it to an exam. Yet I and follow colleagues have seen it multiple times.

The above issues are beyond a joke and Murdoch’s reputation is sliding extremely fast downhill and seems like it needs a complete rework to fix all these issues.

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Jordan Welsh

Go elsewhere..

Garbage university. Studied psychology here for four years and it was a joke. Taught by graduate students reading from a book. Charged fees for almost everything (including getting my GPA five years later). There was no social life really. Just all around a mediocre place. You can do better.

That's right.

Exactly my experience.The tutors (especially the lazy Aussie tutors) all seemed to have their own projects and if I sought to speak with them they were not helpful at all. Students were not a high priority. The tutors had their own agenda.

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I’m not sure I would agree with the marks comment, I actually have the opposite opinion and I also come from another university, Murdoch 100% does not give marks easily and in some cases it has proven the very opposite for myself and many classmates.

Every other aspect I agree with, I find there is very little direction given in their subjects with learning objectives (too broad and vague like another person said on here) which creates a very poor learning experience and a very hard time studying, a lot harder than it needs to be.

Like Peter, I would suggest another university and avoid Murdoch.

Wished it was so much better

Doing Chiropractic and I’ve been to other universities, just as a bit of background.

Murdoch by far is the worst at teaching. They throw large amounts of information and just expect you to absorb it all. This is not teaching, it is just memorisation, and it doesn’t lead to long term successful practitioners.

One thing that stands out and is arguably the worst is their learning objectives / outcomes, which at any university you use as a study guide. They are so broad / vague, you struggle to pinpoint what you exactly need to know.

Asking a teacher doesn’t help, as they just tell you to refer to the learning objectives / outcomes and when you tell them about the issue, they just say yes there is a lot to know.

It is not about the huge unreasonable amount of content shoved into one subject that really should be two (that is a different problem) , it is the SEVERE lack of direction given.

The “remember it all” approach is garbage and only extremely poor institutes teach like this, it is a real shame Murdoch is one of them.

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Murdoch Uni review

Thank you so much for this review, I’ve just applied to study chiropractic in 2024 and now not looking forward to it at all and the sad thing is Murdoch is the only university providing Thi course, I’m so disheartened and not to proceed 😩

Excellent University

I found Murdoch to be an excellent university with exceptional lecturers who really cared about their students. People either get university-level education or they do not. If you think that the blame for your studies not going well lies with university staff, it is a sound indicator that you do not get it. If you study hard and show some initiative, you will do well. Murdoch University is a first-rate establishment and I would strongly recommend it if you are serious about your education.

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Spot on with this comment. We get too many reviews from students who seem to think staff are responsible for their success or failure. Staff are busy. And thousands of students do well without seeking out any special help.

Rickie tang

I do not agree. Lecturers and tutors have tremendous impact on how the students can study well. In my class, more then 75% give poor scores for certain Lecturers and tutors while almost 95% of students give high marks for other Lecturers and tutors. Some Lecturers and tutors are just not suitably qualified to teach even though they may be PhD. A simple survey will be able to determine what I said is correct. Ask students for their opinion on each unit they study and the tutors or Lecturers in charge. In addition, cross check students’ performance in assignments. If there are more then 65% students who fail in most assignment, I would say naturally there is something very wrong about the teaching .

Wrong Rickie

University is self-driven learning. The Lecturer/Coordinator is there to guide you. If you get poor grades it is down to you. I had one or two lecturers that I thought were dreadful, but it did not stop me from getting high grades. Student feedback at Murdoch is 100% confidential so where are you getting your statistics. I am afraid that you are a classic example of someone who does not get it. Improve your attitude and your grades might follow.

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Peter Donnelly

Having completed my undergrad at UWA, I can say the standard at Murdoch is much lower, in terms of the ease at which they award high marks. Which is good for students – but poor for standards. Also, currently studying a Grad Dip at Murdoch (Renewable Energy) I have experienced poor communications (turnaround and feedback on assignments, reply to forum and email questions) from a number of staff, and a substantial overlap in material across several units – which represents poor value for money – considering they are charging $2000 per unit. I would not recommend the course or university to others, also as there are far too many students to cope with library space and the wireless server, which keeps dropping out due to it not being able to cope with the number of users.

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Charlie Gidaszewski

Murdoch rocks..

I write this review because I keep being told that Murdoch gives higher marks than other universities. How can anyone prove that that is the case. It’s an illogical thing to say. Unless there is proof that this is going on than these comments are fallacies. I’m a student at Murdoch, I have high grades (83.3% grade average), I have an IQ of 119 (not that high) and I work my arse off. That’s how I feel I get my good grades. I don’t think anyone is cooking the books in regards to my grades. Feedback has always been delivered promptly and all my tutorial teachers have always responded quickly to emails I have sent them. As for the post graduate course concerns, that seems to be a common complaint everywhere. It is my understanding that professors use post grad students to further their own expertise rather than helping them with their Masters or PhD’s. It’s their way of staying at the top of the mountain, so to speak. It isn’t an issue exclusive to Murdoch University. You just have to look for good people to work with as is the case in every walk of life. As for the library, it’s 4 stories high and I’ve always found space to do my work and the internet on campus is great. Restaurants serve nice affordable food, there are water fountains everywhere, there are basketball courts all over the place, there is a gym, a tavern , a bookshop (which is owned by the uni), there are market stalls every Thursday. In short, Murdoch is an awesome uni and I’m glad I study here.

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It’s not one of the best universities but definitely not one of the worst. Very laid back feel to the school. You won’t experience too much stress from the coursework so maybe that’s why the school’s ranking isn’t that high? Murdoch is good for students who want the easy way out.

Fees are ridiculously high for international students (me personally )paying up to $15000 for one semester whilst I was told by Australian friends they paid $8000 per year. The information given by many lecturers is outdated and seems to have been the same for atleast the last 3 years (seen from previous exams). I have seen lecturers with majority of references from 1998 ?!?! Do consider your options before you go to Murdoch.

For bachelor courses, it’s normal for international students to pay about twice as much as Australian students. Fees for local students are heavily subsidised by the Australian Government.

This is Because of CSP which is a tax payer funded subsidy. Your Australian friends are technically also charged $15000 however because they’re Australian the government pays the CSP subsidy to the uni so the student only has to pay $8000 per year. The $8000 that the student pays is done through a HELP or HECS loan meaning the universities have to also take international students as they provide money upfront. If both paid $15000 upfront then the universities wouldn’t take any international students or would take significantly less.

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