Im going to study at the UNED this fall. Can anyone tell me anything about it? Thanks

UNED means Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Its courses are said not to be specially good. In fact the titles they give are a bit devaluated, so many people study there four courses out of five, ana, through agreements with other universities, they obtain their diplommas in another Univ., studying there the last one.

It was also said that they have the historical defect of some spanish universities (making you learn too many non useful data) taken to the maximum, but this may have changed in the last years.

Sorry to say that, but it has historically been the worst public university in Spain.

UNED is not as bad as you say. It's not the scum of universities, it's just different.

You have to bear in mind that it's not like a normal university. It have no classrooms and students have to make a great effort studying on their own.

It's based in associateed centers spread all over spain and some in other countries, where some tutorship classes are given. Not all the centers have tutors for all the studies. But you can do your exams of any carrer in your associated center. Every student must choose one, the closer to their job, home,... and it can be changed along the year without any problem.

In the last years uned is improving constantly the web resources and some courses are also in internet.

Int he 80's and 90's there was also a great number of new students in all the universities, and those who couldn't get the carrer they wanted , finally choosed uned as the last option. So there were the typical students of UNED, rural areas without universities, people working that haven't time to go to classes at a normal university, people who feel too 'old' to go to a normal university among young people,....and those new who just couldn't get to the normal university.

and so uned become suddenly the 1st or 2nd university of spain in number of students.

The most important carreer is still Derecho (laws), but Informatica de Sistemas and Informatica de Gestion are very required.
This year are new carreers and some old ones have been renewed.

Also, UNED titles are well rated in the private companies as the students is almost alone along the years of the carrer.

www.uned.es

I respect your opinion, but I still cling to what I said, for I think so. In fact, I opine that what you said supports my upper post.

However, I never said it was a "scum", only that the people I have spoken to, and myself consider it the worst public one, but remember that public universities here have a good level.

I really doubt that the private companies rate it so high, since I know several people who studied there, and though I acknowledge it is very meritorious studying in the conditions they do, what I hear (and see, in these cases) is that the obtained level is lower than others.

I myself had to work and study for years, and I did not want to study there because of the level they were said to give. My mates who studied there, left for another public University in the fourth year, to obtain their graduation in a more reputated one.

We might be wrong, or perhaps this has changed a lot in the recent years.

I agree that the level of the studies must be, and can be improved greatly in UNED,as well as in many universities, public or not.

But you can't compare UNED with any other 'normal' university, because is not a 'normal' university and will always loose in any comparision. If you ask to any student they qill agree that UNED is hard, the practices are few, teachers don't pay attention to them etc... well, there aren't classes, many practices are almost imposible to do, you must consider that most of students just go to the exams and that's all the relation with UNED, the rest of the time are too occupied or too far for going to a tutorship (one or two hours a week for questions, not the typical class).

Recently appeared an article in EL Pais Semanal about UNED and it was very favorable to UNED. too much in favor of UNED, i think they didn't touched some of the problems, lack of permanent teachers and telephone or email attention, books too expensive....

About private companies, i'm sure they don't look for the UNED students, but they don't discriminate against them as i have seen they done again some students of certain carreers in some universities, like Informatica from Granada or Laguna.

Some friends of mine, UNED students, hadn't any problem finding a job (or more than any other) because of the origin of their universitary title.

Also a fact is that UNED is the first in doctorate students. (surely most of them will be working and they can made a doctorate by this way).


My conclussion is, that if you can go to a normal university, then leave UNED away. If you can't go to a normal university, the UNED is your spanish option. There is also UOC but is new in this area and doesn't offer too much by the moment.

Now, I agree to all.