The Macmillan Student Planner 2019-20: Academic Diary (Macmillan Study Skills)

I’ve been getting these planners for 10 years now. I got my first in 2009/10 and it has been my default diary every year since. Each year it’s been 5 stars, but this year is sadly not and I will tell you why.Prior to this year the cover has been made of plastic. This year we have a brand new cardboard cover. I really have to commend Palgrave for the ditching of plastic - Great job guys. But unfortunately, the swop in terms of quality is really very poor.I’ve ordered 5 of these. I order one for me and my partner and 3 more for my teens who find them great for high school and sixth form. Unfortunately all but 1 has broken in less than 4 days.Firstly the cardboard cover is very poor quality. The card is thin and marks very easily and the glue on one of the covers has failed and the paper is coming away from the cardboard. They also all arrived with various scratches and dents on them (thanks Amazon) and not exactly as you would expect a brand new item would reach you. But the main problem with the new cardboard cover has been the elastic bands holding the diary closed. Now this isn’t new, they have always had 1 elastic band and it is great as it keeps the thing closed, but the previous plastic covers coped with them fine, the cardboard cover does not. Where the elastic sits over the cover it has already started to cause indentations on the edges of the cover. It arrived with them and over a week they have got so much worse. What’s worse is the elastic is not tight enough, nothing like previous years, so how it’s going to last until next summer I don’t know.The other main problem is that the plastic ruler, which would also act as a bookmark, has been completely taken away. Instead Palgrave have introduced a second elastic tie, so we now have the usual one to close around the book and now a new one to use inside as a page marker. These have 2 huge design flaws. Firstly the elastic has has broken on all but 1 of the books. It seems the eyelets holding these in at the back just pop out and that’s that broken. Not a great start. The second issue is that the elastic is so loose and too long for the job it doesn’t hold anything at all. It’s actually comical it’s so bad, it really does fail at its one job.My other critique is the cover does a very poor job of protecting the paper of the diary. If you hold the diary the innards drop over 1cm lower than the cover. This isn’t going to survive well in a school bag. This has never happened on previous versions.Another moan about the ruler, yes I really feel it deserves a second moan, I miss the ruler! There I said it. We always had a plastic ruler that also acted as a bookmark and an actual ruler. This elastic band thing is a very poor substitute and completely impractical. A heavy duty card one would have worked a lot better.My last issue is that the inside of this diary has never been updated. It’s the same thing, same colour, same pages every year for at least 10 years. I would like to see them update these as things have changed a lot and as a result pages for more modern things (podcasts, placement info and hours attended, revision things, internet page info etc etc) just aren’t there. I mean sure having ‘shopping lists’ and a ‘washing for beginners’ guide is a great idea, but there are still pages for things that aren’t a thing anymore. I mean who has a postal correspondence address for tutors anymore? Some of the recommended websites in there aren’t around anymore and haven’t been for years. There are pages of this rubbish but nothing for more modern things. Having space to write internet addresses for revision, friends and subject blogs and podcast details etc, and favourite websites which existed would be very helpful. A space for revision time tables would be amazing plus just a bit of a general overhaul, which is long overdue, would make this feel up to date and more usable. I’m fed up of a blue interior! Let’s update this please.So to recap, 4 out of 5 dairies broke within days of use, poorly and cheaply made so unlikely to survive a year, arrived marked and damaged, in need of an big update and general makeover inside, lots of out of date content, a cover that doesn’t protect the interior and a missing ruler that us regular users love so much.If you look at my reviews for all their diaries before this I’ve given them a 5/5. Sadly this one falls well so short. I would be happy to pay more for a better quality.

As I get excited about stationary here comes a detailed review 😁Firstly, this is definitely the best value student organiser I've come across, it's very detailed! I'm a uni student and bought this same planner last year after being so unorganised, it was a life saver! It's helped me become so much more organised.+ The main part of the organiser is a 7 day double spread. It has room to write in the time, activity, location and even a to do today section. I also love the submission date box at the top of the page for writing in any deadlines for the week. The weekly tip is fantastic!+ Every month it has a to-do page and a notes page, it's very useful as an overall summary of the month. Or for planning things for the next month.+ This book is filled with tips and tricks, including recipes pages, personal finances, conversion rates, revision timetable, termly timetable and so many more.+ I particularly like the CV building page as it encourages you to plan things that will improve your CV. Also, recording of marks is useful as that's something that can be otherwise hard to manage.If I'm really picky, I have a few negatives, but they're only in comparison to last years student planner 18/19.- Firstly, the old planner had a smooth plastic front and back cover, this meant it was easy to clean. But this new planner has a card front and back cover, which makes me worried to leave it in my bag. Especially as the back cover has a lot of white on it. I will need to buy some kind of book sleeve to keep it clean.- It would be good if the front and back cover were slightly longer as some of the pages stick out as the spine is a bit uneven. I'm worried about the pages getting wet or dirty. Again, I'll be using a book sleeve or bag before putting this into my rucksack.- Last year there was a plastic ruler book mark attached to the book which was really useful as it was quick to access the current date. It would be nice for this feature to come back.I 100% recommend you buy this planner if you're a student! You won't regret it.

I found this planner incredibly helpful during my first year of uni so I thought it was only appropriate to purchase another for my second year. The diary layout, calendars and pages for timetables/exam submissions have been perfect for keeping all those important dates easy to find/in one place but like others have mentioned, they could really do with updating the content regarding useful websites, recipes etc. It’s fair to assume most students purchasing this will be needing more than one across the length of their course so mixing things up and keeping the content fresh would go a long way! I personally like the switch they’ve made from plastic to cardboard for the cover and haven’t had any issues over the past month with the pages tearing or covers bending etc like others have - I’m not particularly careful with mine either, I just shove it in my bag with everything else. It’s definitely hardier than a standard notebook.I’d recommend this to anybody starting uni or college as an organisation aid, it’s definitely very handy - my only gripe is regarding the slightly stale content (but I don’t really use it for that anyway)!