Southern Institute of Technology, Christchurch Campus - Hornby

Great tutors on point knowledge

Not a good experience tutor Martin is a rude d**k

Putting what you learned into action such as building a small house or wiring the small house as apposed to just into more text or writings, best way to learn.

Hairdressing tutor joe was so welcoming and informative! The staff in the reception were also super lovely

I am going to write a honest review here for people who are currently working and want to do part-time study at distance. There are pros and cons with SIT, but for pros I am not going to go over because they are everything people already know, advantages of distance learning etc. Cons - staffs were extremely bureaucratic and inflexible. I had been in contact with the programme administrator who was handling my enrolment. I initially planned to pay the fee with student loan, but fee being less than $300, I decided to pay it myself. It was around 3 days after the course started. I had full access to my course online at the time. I made online credit payment through their website and emailed the admin that I had paid for the bill. Guess what happened? The programme admin immediately (in less than half an hour) shutdown my account, said I will not be able to have access to the online course materials unless my payment was cleared. I told her I needed to have access because there was a Skype conference due that day. She said there was no other way, apparently SIT allows students who are paying with Student Loan to delay their payment, and not those who are paying themselves. When I made a complaint, she said she will contact the course instructor to contact me so that I will be able to participate in the Skype conference. No contact came from the instructor. The payment was not cleared until a day after that (the person was sick on the next day so no one at SIT looked at my account to remove the suspension). Bumpy start, but had to go along. The course started, we were given assignments each week with readings. You have to spend approximately $200 to have access to all the readings for Management Course (Masters). The library has nothing to support students who need to have access to those course materials, apart from some general journals that can be used to supplement your reading. So generally, they tell you to read materials, and ask you to post your analysis on a forum, and reply to other's analysis that comes up. I do not know about others but I felt like this was a complete waste of time. There is lack of pointing from the instructor as to what we are supposed to learn from each materials and the instructor marks those analysis without any comments. Instructor was very unresponsive to emails. I was surprised by this, because normal universities that have office that I can go to have instructors/lecturers who respond to my emails usually within a day even when I can just go and visit his office. I was taking a distance learning course! Despite the fact that the instructor did not need to have students barging into his office, he never replied to my emails (I believe I sent about 5 emails in total relating to the course). I could have gone through and tried to get the degree, but in the middle of the course, I started wondering whether getting a degree from SIT was worth it so I dropped out. I hope SIT could improve their service, being one of the cheapest and convenient place to study many different courses. Looking for others' honest opinion.

I really love this institution. Very professional staff and probably the best school I've ever attended.

I can't speak highly enough about SIT. I am currently sitting my NZ sport and exercise levels 4 and 5. Which will give me qualifications as a personal trainer. My tutor has a world of knowledge and his expertise is on point. Only learn from the best I say. Classes are small up to 12 people, best for learning. Fulltime Monday to Thursday Friday off. If you have been thinking about taking your career to the next level, come to SIT. FREE FEES, you won't regret it.