Edith Cowan University is based in the northern Perth suburb of Joondalup and has a campus in the city and in Bunbury. The university also offers many of its courses online. If you have attended or are attending ECU, you can share your experiences by posting a student review.
ECU Rating
Australia Ranking 26
Based on world university rankings.
Source: Australian Universities
Source: Australian Universities
Jordyn
Lame
Education Department at ECU are super rigid and inflexible, plus really controlling. Would not recommend.
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Silent Majority of Village Residents 2023
ECU made me hate universities and living at ECU Village nearly cost me my life
Dec 2023
– ECU and ECU Village have mold on their buildings, they refuse to clean it off.
– ECU Library has cockroaches and spiders everywhere in their bathrooms.
– ECU Village has internet that doesn’t work, they refuse to fix it.
– ECU has staff who don’t reply to emails.
– ECU has staff you can’t understand, due to accents and lack of English.
– ECU Village has staff who don’t email you for six weeks, after countless calls and attempts to get in touch with them, over health issues.
– ECU Security allow scammers to roam the campus.
– ECU Security allows druggies and crackheads to walk around the premises.
– ECU Village has broken lifts, and leave people in wheelchairs stuck on the sixth floor all weekend, then abuse you for caring for your neighbors when you bring it up to management.
– ECU are OK with students living in a 60+ degree Celsius building at ECU Village, that has no air conditioning.
– ECU Village apartments have black stained smelly mattresses when you move in, carpets that haven’t been cleaned, cigarettes and dirt under the fridge, bathrooms that don’t drain, walls that haven’t been wiped down or painted, desk chairs covered in “yuck”.
– ECU let pedophiles serve on their council and give them Honorary Doctorates. (Search ‘Kempton Cowan’). Pedophiles should be executed on the spot, not given honorary awards.
– ECU is OK with illegally hiking rent prices 3 times in 3 years.
– ECU Village has cockroaches, spiders, and silverfish, with some dead carcasses in the communal kitchen area, that haven’t been cleaned in 3+ years.
– ECU Village has an elevator that breaks down every other month, that has cost more in maintenance in 3 years than it would have cost to fix it outright once.
– ECU Village has seen several rapes happen, with a culture that harbors violence by installing fighting equipment in community BBQ areas, all overseen by a foreign manager (who came from a culture that believes women aren’t equal to men).
– Mail fraud is happening at ECU Village, both opening and tampering of mail that belongs to residents, and having letters go entirely missing. The Australian Police are now investigating.
– ECU Village have doors that slam, meaning you will never get more than 2 hours sleep at any point while living there, the very definition of torture; gets used at places like Guantanamo Bay.
– ECU conduct monthly loud disruptive fire alarm tests, at whim, with no informing students.
– ECU Village have people living there who are not studying.
– ECU Village have issues with building access and your keys suddenly not working, an issue all residents complain of, senior management know about, free fixes exist, yet nothing happens.
– ECU Village pick some resident employees, who are having breakdowns, and should have no place interacting with other residents.
– Many ECU Village residents want to kill themselves, due to the huge above list. Some have tried. Some have reached out for help.
– The negligence and duress personally endured while studying at ECU and living ECU Village, which is managed by an ECU staff member who knows all of this and does nothing, inevitably winds up with suicidal ideations.
– ECU do not care, at all, and just want to pass the blame to someone else, with many known and reported issues, easily able to be fixed, for free. They simply do not care.
Personally, ECU has taken at least 10 years off of my life. I feel worse in every way, for having ever studied and lived there. If I could go back in time, I’d have applied to any university other than ECU, however my experience with this university alone, would see me avoid universities altogether.
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Carol
That is a load of lies
Ben
BSocSc(CmmtyWk) LLB
I completed two degrees at ECU first a Bachelor of Social Science majoring in Community Studies and secondly a Bachelor of Laws. In both degrees I had some fantastic lecturers who were experienced in their field. The facilities are great and the online learning platform is much better than other universities I have attended. Of course there is the odd lecturer who can be over critical and probably shouldn’t be in academia but luckily in both degrees this only occurred a couple of times. I have completed post graduate studies at other higher ranked universities but I would personally recommend ECU over the other more prestigious universities as the lecturers there are mainly concerned with their research and this is their main focus instead of focusing on quality teaching. ECU may not be ranked as high as other universities that I have attended however I would place and recommend ECU above them as ECU’s strength is it’s focus on quality teaching and they respond to emails and phone calls very promptly in comparison to other Universities I have attended. I highly recommend ECU and having studied both on campus and online I personally liked the flexibility online learning offered and ECU has been providing courses online for some time and they provide excellent assistance with assignments and or general queries via email. I highly recommend ECU to all students both foreign and domestic if you want a quality education with accreditation by the relevant body ie for Social Science accreditation with the Australian Community Workers Association and for Law the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia. Do not let the negative comments guide your decision it will be challenging and perhaps one of the hardest things you will ever do in your life but if you put the work in and engage with your cohort and lecturer or tutor you will have a great experience at ECU. I personally don’t make a big deal of rankings as I am currently studying at a post graduate level at the 19th best University in the world according to the QS rankings but would recommend ECU any day compared to them or other highly ranked institutions I have attended. Great lecturers and relevant study materials all provided both on campus and online with a much better and easier online platform for both coursework and research. Go to ECU and see for yourself how good it is and good luck!
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Tertiary student
confusing admission
Initially, I really have high hopes for this uni when I got the offer to study with them for an initial teaching degree, through their School of Education. Unfortunately, due to their terrible admin they suddenly just change the structure to the point that they no longer accept international students for Mid-year entry. That was a real blow for me cause I have high hopes for studying with them. What’s worst is that they only told me weeks later, after they withdrew my application. Totally left me in the dark for nearly an entire month, precious time that I could have used for visa preparation and preparation for moving to Australia. Suffice to say ECU admin really let me down, which is a shame cause I really believe that they do have the best teacher’s college in WA. I guess this shows that they really aren’t the best to cater to mature international students like myself.
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Valerie Mercer
Warning to interstate students
I completed a Bachelor of Social Science online. This involved 400 hours of placements which the placements coordinator was supposed to organise for me based on my nominated preferences. However, because I was an interstate student, I was pretty much left to my own devices to source and secure my placements. This meant spending countless hours researching and contacting organisations when I should have been studying and spending that time working on assignments. I reckon I spent close to 60 hours on finding and securing placements. My university’s placement coordinator found me one placement (my last placement) that didn’t fit with my career choice, which I ended up doing because I was struggling to find one and at that stage it was either I take that placement or I fail the unit. So I took the placement, which I hated. I have now finished my studies, but because of my lack of experience in child protection, I am struggling to find a job as a child protection case worker…. and for that I blame my Edith Cowan university placement coordinator. All I wanted was a placement in child protection. I gave her the names of plenty of organisations she could contact on my behalf in my local area, before the unit even started. However, she left it until half way through the unit to contact those organisations who by then had already filled their students quotas. Now, when an employer finds out that I did my student placements in community work and social research, they cringe and I pretty much know that I won’t get the job. If you are an interstate student, DO NOT study through ECU if a course requires you to undertake student placements, because you will be left to your own devices to secure them. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
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Louise
Lacks diversity in learning modalities and accuracy
I am studying the Master of Counselling online through ECU. This course has had some great content, however all of the grades are awarded for essay writing and the directions for these essays can be quite ambiguous and very difficult to achieve within the word limits. You will be expected to work at a Masters level however your lecturers may use poor spelling, the content provided may be incorrectly referenced, there may be errors, broken links and incorrect answers provided by the university. There is very little accountability and the essay marking is not consistent across all lecturers so it can depend on who you get as a marker on how you are supposed to answer. It is a good course but be well prepared to be self directed throughout the course and to ensure you learn yourself about what you will actually be required to do in the workforce at your level of qualification because they will constantly be preparing you for higher levels that you may reach in a few years of supervised practice. Its like the material misses the mark on reality therefore I would say this course is more academic (you, not them) than it is practical.
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Ben
Social Science and Law
I have studied two degrees at ECU. My first degree was in Social Science and my second was in Law. I studied my first on campus and my second online. Both modes were great and I had some really dedicated lecturers. The ECU online platform is the best platform I have used at any University and so are the facilities. I have studied at two other Universities at the postgraduate level that are ranked higher than ECU however I would recommend ECU over the other Universities any day. There is a good mix in the student body and I met some lifelong friends. The Alumni events at ECU are also better. ECU may be ranked lower than other Universities but I think it will continue to climb the ranks and I highly recommend ECU.
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Andrew
Not Happy Jan
The lecturer was great, but here is my experience. Halfway through a Grad dip and they discontinued the course placing it into “teach-out”. I have applied to other uni’s but they won’t accept my RPL fully (have to complete 2 of the units already completed. ECU provided no notice of this, I actually thought I was starting next term it’s only that I called that I found out!!!! They provided no assistance/pathway to another university. I won’t be studying here again just poor customer service – We pay a lot of money to study – and they have shafted me completely and offered no assistance all my “money and time down the drain”. Treated poorly. Note: the Lecturer was amazing and the content was excellent – But how can you trust them, after this expirence.
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Sarah
Would not recommend
Would not recommend ECU for honours in Psychology. It just is not well coordinated, with 2 of the 4 coursework units being an absolute shambles, and the course coordinator not being particularly helpful or inclined to do anything at all beyond her most basic job description. There are some really good academic staff at this uni. If you could get one of them as a thesis supervisor and put up with the disorganised units and unhelpful course coordinator, you might be ok. But beware- there are a lot of academic staff who appear to have bluffed their way into their positions. They have limited research knowledge and limited knowledge about teaching.
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Michelle
Current student review
I’m currently studying for a Bachelor of Social Science online and so far my experience studying at ECU has been mostly positive. I find the course content mostly relevant and I’m learning a lot. Most teachers are great and very responsive although there are the few odd ones with big egos who think it’s ok to make offensive comments in lectures, point the fingers at others, and criticise feedback they have received from past students, even though it was constructive. Some lecturers also have very strong foreign accents that are difficult to understands, and others uhm and ahh a lot when they talk which makes it very hard to follow the flow of what is being said. Some teachers expect you to do a LOT of reading, most of which is then never referred to or discussed in class, assessments or exams. You have then spent HOURS (10-15 hours on top of lectures and other unit activities) each week reading things that you needn’t have bothered to read, when you could have been watching lectures, or working on assignments instead. Assignments are not always well explained in unit plans and teachers will often add criteria in class, which should be in the unit plans and marking rubrics. Trying to get a head start on an assignment is often an exercise in frustration and futility because they are poorly explained in the unit plan and teachers will make you wait until closer to the due date to explain them in class. However, I do find that marking is lenient as I am getting much better grades than I think I should be… or maybe I actually am learning something and my work is of a better quality than I think it is… who knows?
Student support is great and so is the Academic Skills Centre.
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Hello
UnPrep
I don’t feel that UniPrep prepares students for university. The text book is very Curtin uni specific.
Learning Skills is a massive waste of time – how is making a social media profile (LinkedIn) profile preparing me for university? Or watching a video suggesting I become a Dominos pizza delivery driver? The other assignments feel rushed together with half the instructions missing.
Academic Writing does not teach academic writing. Instead, students are left to fend for themselves with a limited ability to ask for help, other than a terrible message board that you’re lucky to get a reply on (the lecturer is very strict with no emailing her with anything other than illness related – but she has time to post unfunny boomer memes, go figure). The majority of students should not fail a 10% assignment because they were confused.
I also don’t know why Collabs take almost 2 hours when the lecturer talks about her homelife for a quarter of it.
I do not feel prepared for university. I have not gained confidence. I would not recommend this course. I am incredibly anxious for next year. UnPrepared.
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Carol
That is not correct. I find students that complete the uni prep well prepared for their undergraduate course
Shamy
POsitive experience
ECU is the place to go . I completed my Nursing C33 at ECU and got a graduate program. I am excelling in my Career. The study Environment is good . MInd you I completed my bachelors in 2016.
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Peter
Complete Disaster
Study online at ECU if you want:
-All your tutors based out of a call centre in India, with other workers talking in the background of your phone calls
-Outdated content with typos, broken hyperlinks and references to diagrams that don’t exist
-A completely broken Blackboard experience
-To pay $4400 a unit for the privilege
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Carol
Not sure what course you are doing but this is not true
Darrel Shaw
Do not recommend ECUseless despite 1 or 2 outstanding staff
Do not recommend.
Teachers are primarily without any teaching background or qualifications and in some instances with poor English like Charles said above.
Very few outstanding teachers, outweighed by vindictive and unmotivated so called ‘teaching’ staff who do less teaching and more ass covering.
This school does protect their research ‘teachers’ because it brings in research dollars on top of student fees and that’s what this school is all about.
They don’t call it ECUseless for no reason.
Australian version of community college.
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Carol
Rubbish
Nick
Strongly recommend against for online learning
Very poor experience completing my Grad-Cert with ECU online
– poor course content
-common errors in content requiring follow-up clarification
-assessments not relevant to course content
-course advisors often not able to understand simple questions
-lecturers not available
Strongly recommend against ECU as an online learning provider. Perhaps they’re better if you’re based in WA though.
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Jove Bogoevski
Poor Masters degrees
A very disorganised university and a shocking masters in nursing program. Lecturers (Drs) way to harsh, unapproachable and unhelpful.
Advertising part time flexible study but not delivering it. Lots of seniors need to just leave and allow younger lecturers to teach.
A money hungry university which treat students like numbers.
Will not recommend doing a nursing degree with ECU.
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Ketij
Uniprep
I just came here to say that Uniprep really set me up for my first semester, and I truly appreciate it. I learnt to write an essay again, use APA7 formatting, and create a semester planner, which is my favorite part. Handy for someone who has been out of school a while (:
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Agnes Mutua
poor treatment of students
I was initially excited to join ECU. However when I studied as an international student I was very disappointed by the lack of support that I received. My concerns were never addressed when I made them and the staff in student Central were always very quick to disregard me or threaten me when I had any issues and never offered any help. I was just another number to them who was a source of income for the school. I didn’t get good placements for my nursing practicum which left me feeling very unprepared for my career after school. I will never recommend this school to anyone!!
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Ainslie Russell
Excellent support
I have found ECU Joondalup to be an excellent university. The ambiance is very relaxed, and the lecturers and tutors have all been wonderful in my experience.
There is excellent student support and lots of workshops to help should you need them.
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Charles
Poor International Lecturers in School of Business (accounting)
Unfortunately as both an ex staff member and student I can say the academics they have appointed within accounting are home grown Ph.D. and limited I.e. No more than 1-3 years real world experience. The Indian (chandra) and srilankankan (kapu arach) English is sub standard and student focus terrible i.e. They will respond instaneously if you cc superior but won’t respond to 2-3 emails on a particular survey.
The UTEI survey is not taken seriously good survey results are seen as random or low sample, while bad are seemed as valid and reliable.
I have been at a few other unis in Australia and you wouldn’t have 30 plus students in a tutorial especially when they are well funded I.e. 90% of students are Chinese from Anhui province in China. A large tutorial group in some of the better unis would be 20 and 25 students would be max.
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Alex
Hello,
What you wrote was really helpful. Thank you.
But were you able to complete your course and to succeed despite having difficulties to understand what your lecturers taught? What about the course itself? Was it well organised and up-to-date? Could you engage with the other students for some group work? By the way, are you an international student? What does the UTEI survey refer to? Besides is there any university you would recommend me for a Bachelor of Commerce (major in accounting)?
Kind regards,
Alex.
Sean O'Sullivan
Not a review; a reply to a post.
What Charles has said is more than enough. Even if the teaching and the course quality were good (I bet they’re not) having to deal with problems, emailing back and forth etc, instead of devoting all your time and energy to focus will undermine your path to getting the qualification. I am sure that all the high ratings here are fake, or they’ve been lucky to have had a good ride. It’s not good enough if a student needs to rely on luck.
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Natalie Stoksik
Looking forward to continuing my nursing studies at ECU, admin staff have been very helpful
Jessica
I thought I’d start the reviews for ECU. I completed a Bachelor of Education (secondary) degree at ECU a few years ago and am thinking about going back to do a masters course.
The lecturers and tutors at ECU are very committed to their work and helping students to learn. I can’t imagine you would get the same level of attention at some of Perth’s other universities.
Joondalup isn’t close to the city but we were never short of things to do in terms of parties, etc.
I really enjoyed the course overall and definitely recommend ECU.