Just a minor point, Simon. The image is not actually a degree certificate, but a Diploma of Association (in this particular case, of the Royal College of Science). It's another qualification that you worked for in your time here.

Your degree certificate will, however, be lovingly prepared by the bods down at the University of London, as there they're the people we ultimately get our degrees from. At least, let's hope it's that way...

<conspiracy>

That's still UTTERLY appalling. In fact, you wouldn't put that on your wall. So no-one would ask about it. In fact, you might not even put ARCS on your CV in case someone asked you to present that awful certificate... so ARCS could disappear :o

</conspiracy>

Don't you mean October rather than November Simon?

You caught me just too soon... the article was literally being updated as you spoke. That was indeed a typo!

Ahhh, but was it fol-de-rol frivolity and did it all start in Venice?

Feeling somewhat breathless, dazed and confused? Don't know what will happen once you've got your tatty certificate from IC? Want to gain valuable work experience before entering the real world?

Come to the Engineering Careers fair on the 19th October in Tanaka. It has 30 engineering companies offering careers and internships for engineers (and scientists who have seen the error of their ways).

"Live!- plugging CGCU events since the era of Tang"

Yea, come to the "Engineers careers fair" - btw, what happened to the student run Internship Fair Chris?

"Live! - A presidential propoghanda machine since 2004"

cool. engineering companies rather than just banks

Live! is presedentially independant, and it's editors are unlike Sanjeev in that they have never had to defend a no confidence motion for been totally c**p at a job and not having the guts to stand up and resign when they realised they had bitten off more than they could cope with (Oh, and assist the people left with the responsability once they had technically resigned from a job)

the dission get enlarge

i hope that you provide me a chat place to talke to each other

A bit like the LMS this year then Chris.... - "people in tanaka shouldn't throw stones"

LMS is exactly what I Was refering to. As soon as I realised I was going to be unable to give it the time it deserved I said so and stood down, I then provided Chris McIver with a list of potential sponsors for the theme we were looking at and ranked them so that the research I had done was not wasted. (btw the top firm on this list is now the sponsor of the event).

Prior to my resignation all the paperwork to the LMS organisers was on time and approved. Looking back to last year (And I'm sure Mr Collins will advise further) this was not the case.

Resigning was the correct thing to do rather than not doing anything and letting the whole thing decend into yet another farce and losing any remaining credibility with Dominic Reed that was left after last year (Which was probably none).

My ACGI certificate looks rather nice, but I'm not surprised that a c**ppy Association has c**ppy certificates ;o)

But your AGCI certificate was presumably issued before this year, and possibly even pre-rebranding?

didn't anyone else get their certificate delivered on a convenient cardboard tube, with pre cut perforations? Mine was soft, long and strong, if i recall correctly...

But you will find Sam's ACGI (like all ACGIs) is issued not by college but by external people at the CGI. Hence there should be no c**ppy Arial fonts....

My ACGI arrived today ... I think it looks better than my degree certificate, to be honest.

Certainly better than that awful ARCS one.

Ditto Ashley. I doubt the ACGI certificate has changed - mine too looks better than my Degree Certificate which frankly looks like something I'd expect one of them there new "Universities" to produce.

Frankly, the Crest is still supposed to be used for Heritage Items - I'd count Degree Certificates and other formal awards as part of this.

Hmm, I just got through my ARCS certificate through the post. It would seem that the seal is half missing from it. Looks like another telephone call is in order...

Yeah, my seal only half came through too. Pretty shoddy quality control. Could you post if you have any success with getting a new one? I'm not convinced you will. Good luck!

It wouldn't be so bad if it hasn't been about a month of constant nagging Student Records and pointing out that I didn't get mine in August as I was still a student before they got off their a**es and actually did one for me. For an institution that wants to prepare it's own degree certificates they've gota long way to go before they can do it.

As some people seem to be mildly interested in this I'll just give a quick update:

I finally recieved a reply from Sarah Rowell (the person in charge of the certificates I'm led to believe) actually saying that the seal was basically at the end of it's useful life. Finding the e-mail slightly amusing, i sent the following reply -

"

Dear Miss Rowell

Many thanks for your e-mail. I just feel I should raise a couple of pertinent points regarding this issue.

Firstly, the seal affixed to my certificate is not quite faint - a far better description would be almost non-existent. In the seals current form, it actually looks like I've forged it - and badly forged it at that. Nobody from outside the College would recognise it for what it was. This for all intents and purposes renders the certificate useless to me, as it is unable to fulfill it's function of proving a qualification that I have.

Secondly, I am not the only recent graduate who has expressed dismay at the quality of the seal. I have already had missives from a number expressing a desire for a replacement certificate due to the non-existent seal on theirs - they're just waiting to see how willing the College is to do it's job properly.

I therefore submit that the first thing that should be done is that a new seal is purchased by the College, such that a proper impression can be achieved on certificates. This is especially important due to the fact that the College has an intention of awarding it's own degrees, and such quality would never be permissible on degree certificates. When I have received an indication that the College has purchased a new seal, and that it has been checked to ensure that seals are attached properly, I will gladly return my certificate for a proper impression to be made. I also feel that the Registry should advertise to all recent Alumni that a proper seal can be attached to their certificates, due to the fact that it is probable that a reasonable number would be interested.

I await your reply,

Edward Joseph Piggott

"

Nice to see Mr Piggot is as anal as ever really.

Fish in a Fryer, I don't think Ed is being anal, I think he has a valid point. I want the stamp on my ARCS (assuming I manage to not to fail and get one) to be readable and would have thought most graduates of Imperial college would feel the same.

Also he's prepared to use his real name on Live! unlike you who is hiding behind a pseudonym to be rude about other people.

Fish in the Fryer - This time Mr Piggott is using his bloody-minded anal-retentiveness for the forces of good. He can be a powerful force in this respect.

Of course, you should've all been Engineers, then you'd get a proper certificate. Although, it does have some weird swirly thing and a lion in the background, rather than seal. Maybe that's the solution.

"The seal is near the end of its useful life" is certainly not an acceptable excuse.

"Sorry, our degree certificate printer has no ink, have a blank sheet of paper with the Rector's signature on it"

(Pedantry on the subject of how certificates are actually printed will not be appreciated.)

It's Piggott, not Piggot.

Seriously though, the College does appear to be striking a concilliatry note. I should have a reply within a week or so. Will give further info towards this end.

The aptly named ARCS certificate - fit only for the purpose of wiping ones bottom.

Well done Edward! I'm glad someone has done something about this, my suspicion is that College wants to do away with the ARCS altogether, and issuing worthless certificates is probably the first step.

Any news, Edward? I'm rather looking forward to getting mine!

Does anyone have any figures as to how much money has been wasted splitting the RCs into life and physical science, then patching it back up again? Or the amount of admin hours spent doing so? Job creations and redundancies as a result?

I'm sure Psyko does. He loves his life sci so much that he created their very own lovely faculty. But it fell on its face and has to be propped up with research grants from us physical scientists. So, err, that's a new job for Sir Peter Knight, ex Physics HoD and a redundancy for the Life Sci person who's name I've forgotten, weirdly. Not to mention hours of Sherfield fun with renaming and recreating and reinventing the wheel...

Actually Tom the Life-Sci guy was Borys, who was (and still is) the Deputy Rector. Putting him one below Dickie Sykes. The only person who comes out of this out of pocket is the ex-Phys-Sci guy (Prof Duff) who college had to hastily create a new chair in Physics for. Not surprising really since he was pretty incompetent as Faculty Principal.

What is the diiference between a MSci and MSc???

Msci is a 4year undergraduate masters degree, wheras an Msc is a one-year postgraduate masters. In biochemistry they are scrapping the Msci and encouraging people to take the Msc or Mres instead, but all other courses seem to have stuck to the 4-year Msci course system. Anyone know why?

AIUI, the government will only pay for the first degree - so if you want to do a PG masters you have to pay for it yourself or get research council/industrial funding. I guess College gets more money from MSc than the 4th year of the MSci, as they can charge whatever they want.

The government will happily(!) pay for a 4-year first degree, which is the reason for a 4-year masters and also why they don't give out a BEng/"BSci" after 3 years on those programmes.

So, amusingly all of last year's RCS certificates have now be reprinted an reissued.

Sadly the wording is now as follows:

"The Council of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medecine has admitted {name}, who has completed an approved course of study at the college in {subject} with {degree classification} honours, to be an Associate of the Royal College of Science."

which, frankly, is no better than before.

Are they really "admitting me to be an Associate of the RCS"? Have IC been denying it all along?

Or are they admitting me to the RCS to be an Associate?

What a shame.

Does it say "Medecine" or "Medicine"? Because "Medecine" would be a worse mistake...

My ACGI certificate still looks fine - perhaps Physics wasn't a good choice Simon.

It says medicine. My typing is worse than theirs.

But the grammar of the RCS certificate still looks dodgy to me!

The grammar is still dodgy. The ACGI says:

"THE ASSOCIATESHIP AWARD IN COMPUTING"

"IS AWARDED TO"

"<name>"

Then in small text at the bottom:

"This Diploma certifies that the Council of the Institute has Conferrerd Associateship of the City and Guilds of London Institute on successful completion of the approved course of study at the City and Guilds College, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine."

Which I still think is a bit of a mouthful.

So do the CGCI award the certificates, or do College? If so, do you reckon that the RCSA could award their own certificates instead of the awful College rebranded ones?

As I see it:

The City and Guilds Institute award the ACGI.

Imperial College awards the ARCS, ARSM, AICSM and DIC.

The University of London awards everything else (i.e. the degrees)

Richard,

The RCSA and CGCA have nothing to do with awarding Associateship, so I am afraid you will have to stick with an ICL branded certificate.

UoL degree certificates look a bit c**p as well

"I went to Imperial College, and all I got was"...well, I got a disposable camera from the post-graduation graduation ceremony pack, who uses them anymore???

Disposable cameras are good to give to children to take on school trips as it doesn't matter if they lose them. Does this suggest that college think of postgrads like small children? ;-)

The idea is that you take photos of your graduation then send the whole camera back to alumni services, who develop them.

I think at my graduation there was a prize for the best photos (although you could email electronic ones in if you wished).

disposable cameras are alos good for nights out when you plan to get smashed and don't want your digital camera to get...well...smashed. they'll be with us for some time yet.

Maybe they think postgrads will have kiddies of their own who'd love the cameras. And fair enough some postgrads do, I'll keep my camera till I have them. The night out idea seems good too or holidays, I have lost enough cameras on holiday.

Just wanna ask if the degree cert do display the grade(honours) i.e. stating 1st class or 2nd upper..etc?

Yes, the degree certificate shows the honours classification.

The ACGI/ARCS don't.

The AGCI ones might not, but my ARCS one does... as does the ARCS one in the picture.

Very true, I should pay more attention. The ACGI ones don't have a degree classification, probably because they're awarded by the City and Guilds Institute and not College.

I'm about to take my finals. Looking at these comments, I never would be in any doubt as to which university they originated from.

Take your degrees and run, guys... it's the only good thing to come out of this place. :)