Heriot-Watt University has come in for criticism from its students after the recent decision to switch to a two semester system. The process, whose benefits were expected to include more time devoted to teaching, fewer exams, and a longer summer holiday, has left some students concerned that the quality of their education has been compromised.

The creation of the Facebook group “I hate RAY [Restructuring of the Academic Year]” has been set up as forum for annoyed students to air their grievances. To date, the group has some 122 members, while a rival group, named “I like RAY,” is supported by 30.

Students have expressed concern over the switch for a variety of reasons, foremost being the worry that there is insufficient time for revision. “No revision time and then exams without any real rest in between is not good for anyone,” said Simon Eltringham, a member of the group.

Other students expressed concern that the implementation of the plan had gone badly: “Our lecturers try their best but they're just not quite sure what's going on sometimes,” wrote Derek Jamieson, another member. He continued: "Due to the lecturers not knowing submission dates it does mean I've had one less presentation and two less progress reports to do so it's not all bad!”

Not all students objected to the restructuring. Student Meri Ingebrigtsen suggested that the longer semester made it "easier to digest information when you have more time to do it,” and that “the [coursework] weightings reflect the fact that you should work more during term and not just cram for exams.”

Heriot-Watt Students' Association president Ruth Bush confirmed that many students had expressed concern that the restructuring of the academic year had not been handled effectively by the university. She said: "The issues arising from the semesterised system are a major priority for the Students’ Association. We will be holding a series of focus groups and information stalls on campus over the next two weeks to answer the many questions that students have.

"We have both an emergency workstream, for issues that need to be dealt with immediately, and a second workstream that deals with problems that can be fed into the official University review of the system later this semester. We hope this will get some of the problems resolved immediately to ensure that students’ degrees—particularly finalists'—do not suffer any more as a result of the changes."