University help

[Mr. Peanuts]

I'm really unsure about what I'm going to do, I've always wanted to join the police and as Merseyside Metropolitan are recruiting next year I'm considering enrolling on a training course.

To be honest now, I've gone off the idea of an ICT based subject, I'd very much rather take Media Technology as it sounds great and could offer a lot of career prospects in the future.

Some of my mates are going to take Media Technology at Leeds, but Leeds is too far for me to drive every morning which is what I'm going to have to do for uni, so Liverpool's universities sound better as they're only about 20 miles away. But, I still haven't found a Media Technology course at any of Liverpool's 3 Universities.

Hopefully this weekend I can start on getting my act together and start seriously looking into things.

So, its either join the Police or do Media Technology

[Suh]

I'm going to take a guess and say 350, including the colleges that call themselves unis.

175 isnt it?

im only number 20

yes nailed they do, some companies only accept you for a job if you went to like the top 15 unis, but they are evil compaines, evil evil.

[GoldenPlums]

Do employers rate degrees from different universities higher than others? (obviously Oxford/Cambridge are exceptions)

Like Suzie said, the short answer is yes they do. I think most people who spend their time recruiting will know what they consider to be a good uni. After oxford and cambridge, places like imperial, durham, brunel, warwick, bristol, bath and some others all have very good reputations. It depends on the subject of course and on the person doing the recruiting. For example, in some engineering subjects, a good degree from imperial is probably seen as better even than an equivalent degree from oxbridge. It's not really worth losing much sleep over though as there are so many other factors involved. Getting a 2i instead of a 2ii is probably more important than where you got it.

Peanuts, they're talking in the news about how they want to get more graduates into the police as people are concerned that many of the current recruits aren't up to it. I'm sure you could do the police thing later.

[Superted]

175 isnt it?

I just did a rough count from the uni list on UCAS site, I could be wrong though.

P.S. I haven't spoken to you in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages.

[Mr. Peanuts]

Well money is also another issue, I'm coming from a relatively poor background since my dad left us a few years ago, and life has changed so much since then, my family and I have had to completely turn our lives and attitudes around to sustain living here. My dad is not willing to help the family anymore and so I must find money from government grants but I don't know if I will get enough money for my tuition. A lot of my friends have had everything on a plate all their lives which makes me angry especially when they boast about how much money their parents give them.

So, I'm pretty much on my own in this situation with university and I really don't know if I'd be better off going into work or going to university.

And its just getting me down because all the teachers are rushing us and it just mindfucks you.

[Epinephrine]

It all depends what you want to do with your life and all that.

If you are planning to get a graduate degree in any way, what school you go to may matter, especially if you ever want to find some professor to work under in the future.

If you're just planning to get a job, again it depends on what type of job you're going for. I know as a fact that many companies will only recruit from certain universities. For instance, the top consulting firms in Canada will only recruit from the top 5 universities or so. Or say Microsoft will really only recruit from about 3 universities in Canada.

While it's not impossible to get a job if you didn't go to those places, it's just a lot harder. So if you had a choice between different places, factor that into account.

Then again for most jobs it probably won't matter at all where you go if you didn't go to the top 5 universities anyway. Most people would probably just clump the rest of the schools all together (how would they know if you're ranked #20 or #80 really, there's too many schools to keep track of) and hire you based on other things, like your recommendations, your interview, your experience and maybe your marks.

[ogron]

what's the top in canada?

i figure like queens mcgill ubc umontreal uoft and maybe acadia?

[NaiLed]

It all depends what you want to do with your life and all that.

If you are planning to get a graduate degree in any way, what school you go to may matter, especially if you ever want to find some professor to work under in the future.

If you're just planning to get a job, again it depends on what type of job you're going for. I know as a fact that many companies will only recruit from certain universities. For instance, the top consulting firms in Canada will only recruit from the top 5 universities or so. Or say Microsoft will really only recruit from about 3 universities in Canada.

While it's not impossible to get a job if you didn't go to those places, it's just a lot harder. So if you had a choice between different places, factor that into account.

Then again for most jobs it probably won't matter at all where you go if you didn't go to the top 5 universities anyway. Most people would probably just clump the rest of the schools all together (how would they know if you're ranked #20 or #80 really, there's too many schools to keep track of) and hire you based on other things, like your recommendations, your interview, your experience and maybe your marks.

Thanks Epi. I don't really know what job I want though. I presumed that the fact of having a degree was the most important thing; where I got it secondary.

[Sufficient]

what's the top in canada?

i figure like queens mcgill ubc umontreal uoft and maybe acadia?

McGill is the only school in Canada I know of.

[!cER]

I'm going to university next year and was planning to go to Portsmouth (where ZeUs went) but I heard it was only about No. 77 in the Top 100 Universities in Britain.

How does this rating work?

Do employers rate degrees from different universities higher than others? (obviously Oxford/Cambridge are exceptions)

If I go to university, is someone with the same degree who went to a university that is considered better (or rated higher, at least) more likely to get the same job?

I am in my second year of uni now...we got told far too much about universities in sixth form, so I can pass some info on:

They rate the universitys on things like teaching quality, research quality (apparently this means better teaching), dropout rates and, spening on facilities and graduate employment.

Employers do give quite a large consideration to which uni you come from, but more importantly the class of the degree. (i.e. a 2.2 from Oxford/Cambridge is worse than a 1st from a uni in the top 20-30)

It totally depends on what you intend to do after university...if you are intend to go for a high paying job in a top company then YES, the ranking of the uni matters quite a lot. If you intend to start your own company or something...then you should probably skip uni all together. But if you want to work on something that interests you go for the university thats you think has the best course for you.

If you have no idea what you are gonna do after uni, or at least only a rough idea (like me) then play it safe...and try to get to the best university possible. That way you arent in danger of limiting career paths later on.

Use your 6 Ucas options wisely apply to maybe 2 that are really high up, apply to 2 around the offer level that you expect to get in your A-levels and apply to 2 lower down backup unis (in case you screw up your exams).

I chose my uni in a slightly different way, because the subject im studying is unpopular so it was wasy for me to get offers, but most for subjects the above applies.

Out of curiousity...what do you intend to study, and what do you expect to get in your A-levels?

[Troll King]

The top three in Canada are probably U of T, McGill and Queen's. McGill has a better international reputation while U of Toronto might have a a bit more name recognition within our own borders, mainly because it's in Ontario instead of in Quebec. Queen's doesn't have as high of a profile though it is also well regarded. U. of British Columbia is probably up there too with Waterloo developing a reputation as the Canadian MIT. McMaster is probably underrated as it deserves mention too.

[ZeUs!!]

Well money is also another issue, I'm coming from a relatively poor background since my dad left us a few years ago, and life has changed so much since then, my family and I have had to completely turn our lives and attitudes around to sustain living here. My dad is not willing to help the family anymore and so I must find money from government grants but I don't know if I will get enough money for my tuition. A lot of my friends have had everything on a plate all their lives which makes me angry especially when they boast about how much money their parents give them.

Most people are in a similar situation, my Dad's gone out to work in Africa for three years to afford to put my into uni (and he's cool about me spending £250 on going to Paris, cheers Dad)

[NaiLed]

I am in my second year of uni now...we got told far too much about universities in sixth form, so I can pass some info on:

They rate the universitys on things like teaching quality, research quality (apparently this means better teaching), dropout rates and, spening on facilities and graduate employment.

Employers do give quite a large consideration to which uni you come from, but more importantly the class of the degree. (i.e. a 2.2 from Oxford/Cambridge is worse than a 1st from a uni in the top 20-30)

It totally depends on what you intend to do after university...if you are intend to go for a high paying job in a top company then YES, the ranking of the uni matters quite a lot. If you intend to start your own company or something...then you should probably skip uni all together. But if you want to work on something that interests you go for the university thats you think has the best course for you.

If you have no idea what you are gonna do after uni, or at least only a rough idea (like me) then play it safe...and try to get to the best university possible. That way you arent in danger of limiting career paths later on.

Use your 6 Ucas options wisely apply to maybe 2 that are really high up, apply to 2 around the offer level that you expect to get in your A-levels and apply to 2 lower down backup unis (in case you screw up your exams).

I chose my uni in a slightly different way, because the subject im studying is unpopular so it was wasy for me to get offers, but most for subjects the above applies.

Out of curiousity...what do you intend to study, and what do you expect to get in your A-levels?

I'm probably going to study Media Studies - looking for AAA, but if I do bad in exams, etc then it might only be something like BBB or BBA

Not sure what I want to do after uni.

[Mr. Peanuts]

To be honest, I don't think I'm going to get the grades I need. Now I regret making the choices I did for my A-Level subjects, but it's too late so I have to do my best to get through it- I'd really love to go to university but I have to be realistic about things, I doubt they will accept me with DDEE, I'm really struggling to get higher grades than that, there's so much work to do, I have to complete 24 coursework units this year. Currently I have 5 units on the go.

The thing that pisses me off the most is that I did well in my GCSEs- do Universities look at your GCSE grades too?

[NaiLed]

You have to enter GCSE grades into the UCAS site, so maybe.

The only one regret I have is not taking A Level English (lang). I'd love to study English language at uni

Ow Mike. Can't you just retake the year?