University of Birmingham undergraduate students give their advice on what to think about when making your university choices.
Title: Tips for choosing the right university
Duration: 2.48 mins
Speaker Names (if given): S1 Will Bastin – Vice-President (Sport)
S1 My advice for people wanting to choose a university is really go for the right reasons. First and foremost you’re coming here to educate so make sure that you choose a degree course that you’re actually going to be interested in. Secondly you need to be looking at what the actual university has got to offer for you. So here at Birmingham we have a whole range of things, I can’t actually think of a better university to be honest. But it’s – just make sure you’ve got the whole package; whether it’s the degree course you’re looking for, the socialising aspect, the extra curricular activities you could do, sport – if that’s what you’re into. Make sure that there’s something which you want to do outside of your degree course as well, but also is the degree something that you’re interested in and want to study?
S2 One very big chunk of advice that I’ll give to any student going to university – especially Birmingham University – is to make sure you exploit every single resource and every single opportunity there is in your university because there are so many opportunities in the university that a lot of people – you know they barely even take heed of and they’re right in front of you and they can really further your experience at university.
S3 If I had to give any tips to a prospective student either coming to Birmingham or anywhere else: you’re going to be at that university for at least three years. If you like the campus but you don’t like the city, maybe you shouldn’t be going or vice versa: you like the city but you don’t like the campus. That’s somewhere you’re going to be based and living for a long period of your life, spending a lot of your time there and quite a lot of money there. If you’re not happy then you shouldn’t compromise too much on that; you should really make sure that the university you’re applying for ticks as many of your boxes as you can. I’m really lucky; Birmingham for me ticks all those boxes. It’s got the City, it’s got the campus and it’s got the social life, it’s got the course with departments I wanted. Hopefully it will for them as well – but don’t compromise on it.
S4 When choosing a university I would advise students to definitely, definitely go to an Open Day, just to see what the university is like. You just don’t want to turn up on the first day of term and just be in for the biggest shock of your life. You’ll be spending three years at the university, so just make sure you like the university and the people who are in it.
S5 I would say if you know what course you want to do it’s important to look online or in newspapers to see the league tables and decide which universities are good for your course. Also if you go to visit the university and have a feel for the university you’ll know if you’ll enjoy it there and decide if a big city or a smaller city is better for you, or a campus university or a city university, so you can decide which university would be best for you that way. So you can get the most out of the university that way.
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