Istituto Marangoni London - The School of Fashion & Design - London

monica pollara

Abbiamo Inaugurato nell'agosto del 2003, la seconda sede dell'Istituto Marangoni in cinque docenti un coordinatore ed un direttore, l'edificio manteneva un atmosfera molto "old London", il quartiere senza dubbio era uno dei più affascinanti in quegli anni, ottima la scelta per creare una piccola sede di un azienda che si occupa di formazione "Fashion"!

LoveAngelMusicBaby

Leaving a review to warn incoming students. If you can find any other school it's best to really consider enrolling there. Don't enrol until you visit and talk to current or past students. If you don't know any it might even be worth asking around or checking LinkedIn.

The school clearly struggled with funding or management, and some departments were under resourced. They enrolled more students than their space and resources could handle, so there were always queues and long waiting times (weeks to months) to use the essential resources and equipment for degree projects.

But it is more than the lack of physical resources like space, material, and machinery. There's also logistical dysfunction and it influences the feel and morale of the environment. Many staff are part time and communication between them is disconnected as they might not be in the building on the same days. Students can see that the staff aren't confident or are out of sync with each other, and they feel less enthusiastic. Then the staff who are already only part time feel less committed and accountable about making sure the school and its resources are running as they should be. For example neglecting to respond to student email requests or queries outside of 9am to 5pm on the days that they are personally in school, or at least passing on these queries to their colleagues. This would be the minimum level of accountability required to run the departments more effectively.

The level of teaching and support for final year BA and MA is surface level. Even though this stage of education requires a lot of independent learning and research, the syllabus is not designed to make the most of independent study. Classes are spread through 3 or 4 days a week with mandatory attendance. And class time was often spent on activities or tasks that are probably more appropriate for independent study in free time. The school needs to choose one approach. Either a lot of class time with more in depth research and guidance on projects and skills, and access to resources during the class hours. Or, the more independent approach where there is less mandatory class time, but open access to a complete set of resources with staff supervision.

Tutors might be qualified at their practice, and some have some good industry experience. But many aren't able to answer questions about industry. At times they're giving out inaccurate or outdated answers that don't match up to how things really work in industry today. There was an effort to connect the school to people in industry, through visiting guest speakers (designers, entrepreneurs). However, these talks would be more open-ended focusing on their careers at large, not making the most of the opportunity to talk to industry partners about topics or skills relevant to specific classes or degrees.

Basically the school struggles to provide the level of education it is selling because of a lack of resources, misallocation of resources, and logistics issues.

Lorena Aguirre

Don’t go to this school! As a student I had the most frustrating experience with the Marangoni team. They will constantly ask you to send emails regarding your concerns and take ages to get back to you, they might not even give you a solution.
In order to apply for my graduate visa I constantly needed to email them because the team never gave students an update.
They often forget about students who do not study fashion courses.
At graduation I did not receive my studies certificate because I was told the school did not print my course certificates.

A total disappointment and a waste of energy, find another school who’s team is empathetic towards students.

Inma del Moral Ramos

I did here a summer course in Fashion design and it was a wonderful experience. It was in 2006 so maybe now they are worse than then, because according to the newest reviews the place has gone downhill?!!!!!
I can only say positive things about this school. My goal back then was just to visit London, practise my English skills and yes, to learn a bit about fashion design, so all my needs were perfectly met.
The teachers were wonderful, nice and very friendly, we visited the V&A museum, we went together to buy all the materials, fabrics, etc. We even had a party at the end of the course.
My teachers were the Italian Massimo Casagrande and the Spanish Manel Torres (he later invented the magical fabric spray ?).
My experience was highly positive, thank you Marangoni people!!! ❤️?

Bernadine KS

I was a former student at this university and I am extremely embarrassed to share such a review after spending almost £26000 for the masters. The university promised excellent tutoring with amazing staffs. Majority of the staffs including teachers, technicians, administrators or receptionist were extremely rude. I felt like I was in a jail for all these period. The teachers are well qualified but they come and show some youtube videos and tell us how their expectations are regarding the submissions and give us a ridiculous deadline. They keep classes for 4-5 days without thinking that students have to work part time. Sometimes the class ends at 8.30 in night. And they dont even understand if there is a strike and you cannot come. They will take a disciplinary action and sent you a warning email.

They dont give af about your mental health.
This is something very important. During the course period, i had multiple panic attacks and breakouts due to the way teachers expected us to present things without teaching us anything. Students used to pay so much money and get it done from someones help. And people who have no money just fails. They never understand students concern. One day I was struggling so much that I had to see a professional psychologist and I had a four hour session with her. I couldn’t attend my classes which was already useless and I explained what i was going through to a lady named Anna Licholat who said this exact sentence while I showed her the letter of proof of my appointment with the docter “I dont know if you were drunk last night and asked someone to write this letter for you, cause I don’t trust students, cause there is a chance you might fake it”. I was shocked. I told her do you think I who is going through such a hard time mentally is going to fake it. That was triggering to someone who is dealing with something. She was extremely rude and shouting at me during a session. From them I am sacred of every staff at this place. They have no understanding of the students problems. We pay this much money and they are not doing charity for us. They keep classes even before the submission day then how will we get the time to do the shoots for the submission? If we take leave to do the shoot and give submissions they will threaten us that they will fail us for the academic year.

They dont even have a proper studio with full facilities or a good library. The canteen is highly expensive and every single student studying there has no idea of what they are doing. They dont give support in placements. If you want to survive in London while studying in this college you can either find a british guy or just leave UK if you are planning to join this college.

This is a college that gave me life long traumas. I’ll always regret wasting money on such a college that doesn’t even understand your creativity. People should sue this place for taking up so much money from students and doing nothing for them! Extremely unhappy.

Gabriel Ramos DJ

Hello, my name is Gabriel Ramos, a former student of this university. I would like to share my sincere opinion with those who are considering enrolling in this university to start or further their academic career, as well as espose how this organization scammed me over 20,000 euros. The truth is that, like many former students, current students, and unfortunately, future students of this school, I was very attracted to the idea of studying a fashion degree in a country like London or Milan. To my surprise, once I started studying at this place, I realized it was a playground for teenagers with no other concern than their social media, as well as adults with zero responsibility for the education of their school, who teach the most basic things ever taught by a man, things that anyone with internet access could learn for free. And it really is as it sounds, what they teach you for a supposed value of over 20,000 euros is something that can be self-taught at any time if you have an internet connection. The education plan of this university is regrettable; they don't teach anything of value, it's all empty content that doesn't inspire creativity at all. In addition to this is the weekly classes offered to students, as if it wasn't enough to have extremely monotonous classes without any purpose, you only have 5 or 6 classes per week, which makes it even more extremely monotonous and purposeless. As for my personal case, after two weeks into my second year, and tired of the feeling of wasting my life and energy, I decided to leave the university due to, among other things, what was mentioned previously. For six months, the university kept stringing me along with multiple promises, emails, and conversations in which they detailed that they would refund the amount invested for that second academic year since I had only attended a total of 2 weeks, and it was the fairest thing to do. By the sixth month, and after multiple confirmations of refund from the university, they decided they no longer wanted to give me the money back, for reasons that I still don't know. I tried to contact them numerous times to resolve the situation, but they never responded again. That's why I decided to write this review, some time after giving the university the opportunity to reasonably resolve the problem. I would like to add that I am not the only person from the university who left the program this year. Finally, I want to mention that my experience with this university is not an isolated case or an uncommon one. Many of the enrolled students left the university for similar or identical reasons as mentioned before. This university is one of the worst decisions that a student looking to expand their knowledge in the fashion world can make. With this, I hope that no one else makes the same mistake I and many other students did when they tried this university. Lastly, I want to mention that legal action is currently being taken against this institution to recover all the money that the university promised to refund me. Please, if you are someone considering applying to this university to start your professional career, do not hesitate to contact me, and I will show you all the evidence you need, not only regarding my case but also that of many other students. My mistake was taking for granted all those negative reviews and words that I read about this university at the time, understanding that every institution has positive and negative evaluations. But I hope that in my case, this will be a real turning point for those who want to enter this university. Best regards.

Gabriel Ramos

alisar rantisi

DO NOT GO! worst experience of my life. visit the campus and ask the students for yourself i guarantee you will not find anyone who's isn't disappointed and exhausted by this university

Christina

I don't normally post reviews however, I feel I have exhausted all means of contact as a International Student.
I had received a Scholarship to Instituto Marangoni- London in October and decided the first week of semester to cancel the scholarship after paying the AUD$9,000 tuition fee.
You have approved the refund via email out of good faith, however it has not been processed and I have had no contact/updates since October 15th. I've had some sort of reassurance from your WhatsApp team saying someone will contact me around Dec 6th, it's now the 29th.
I understand things take time and it's a busy year but communication/reassurance and proof of payment processing is all I'm after.
I'm only hoping that the students who are on campus receive much better support and communication because if this is the quality of response I'd get as an international student I feel that I have dodged a bullet.