[Misc] University Open Days - what to look for.

[BrightonCottager]

@DavidinSouthampton That's very interesting. I went to Cardiff too (a lot more than 20 years ago) and loved it. We visit regularly and some of my daughter's oddparents live there. I'm biased towards it but will not try to persuade her. We're going there next weekend. I think placements in the Senedd are an option on the course she wants to do.

When we are talking to University staff, my daughter can be a bit shy and sometimes wants me to start asking the questions, then she takes over. I'm tending to concentrate more on accommodation / wider city / pastoral care type questions and her on the course, clubs and societies.

 

[BrightonCottager]

There are very few better Students’ Unions than Leeds SU. Probably none.

Worth checking out what they do:

Leeds University Union

We’re your students’ union, here to help you love your time at Leeds

www.luu.org.uk

Thank you. I agree. We visited it and thought it was better than Bristol. Some incredibly keen student representatives including one who was doing 2 of the sports that my daughter's interested in.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

My computer teacher at Secondary School was Mr Bender, which in the early 80’s was rather unfortunate, thankfully we have all grown up now and don’t find that at all amusing nowadays..

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

@DavidinSouthampton That's very interesting. I went to Cardiff too (a lot more than 20 years ago) and loved it. We visit regularly and some of my daughter's oddparents live there. I'm biased towards it but will not try to persuade her. We're going there next weekend. I think placements in the Senedd are an option on the course she wants to do.

When we are talking to University staff, my daughter can be a bit shy and sometimes wants me to start asking the questions, then she takes over. I'm tending to concentrate more on accommodation / wider city / pastoral care type questions and her on the course, clubs and societies.

Our girl’s experience was 20years ago, and I would imagine each department will do things its own way, but once we’d been to Cardiff, nowhere else mattered. She was doing European Studies, which was largely languages (French and Italian), the European institutions and how they work, and politics.

before anybody pipes up with “well that was a waste of time then, wasn’t it - snigger snigger”, it was deliberately European Studies and not European Union Studies - all very useful.

but she loved Cardiff, as do we, partly because it has all the advantages of being a capital city, while not being much bigger than Southampton.

 

[El Presidente]

Turning to NSC for advice on accompanying your offspring to University Open Days. We're going up to MASSIVE Leeds today.

I'm pretty much going to follow this advice
and ask about accommodation options not just in the first year as I know this is a massive problem in some places.

Also any advice from parents, current and ex-students of Leeds, Sheffield, Cardiff and Bristol is much appreciated. Ta

All four of those are great student cities.

I would always encourage someone to follow their passion at Uni, make the most of the facilities, as you have the rest of your life being told what to do in employment, but do much more than just study. Employers are looking for four broad things when you are graduating:
1: How well you did at Uni
2:What you did outside of studying at Uni (societies, ambassadorial roles etc)
3: What you did outside of Uni full stop (travel, work, sport etc)
4: How much research have you done into the prospective employer.

At the open day talk to the students already there, they tend to give the true story. Find if there is a non-study day each week (useful for work shifts) and how lectures/seminars etc are delivered (blended is crap IMO, if I want to see a band I go to a gig, not watch them on YouTube).

 

[BrightonCottager]

All four of those are great student cities.

I would always encourage someone to follow their passion at Uni, make the most of the facilities, as you have the rest of your life being told what to do in employment, but do much more than just study. Employers are looking for four broad things when you are graduating:
1: How well you did at Uni
2:What you did outside of studying at Uni (societies, ambassadorial roles etc)
3: What you did outside of Uni full stop (travel, work, sport etc)
4: How much research have you done into the prospective employer.

At the open day talk to the students already there, they tend to give the true story. Find if there is a non-study day each week (useful for work shifts) and how lectures/seminars etc are delivered (blended is crap IMO, if I want to see a band I go to a gig, not watch them on YouTube).

Brilliant advice, muchas gracias @El Presidente . I'm asking how much 'blended learning ' there is, most seem to do face-to-face with lecture capture so can watch afterwards. This would be useful for our daughter as she has hearing impairment.