High school is done with, your summer break is over, and you’re ready to sit down and draft serious academic and career plans.
To help you fine-tune your options, here are the five most common aspects to take into account when picking a university. After all, it’s a crucial decision that’s going to impact your career and quality of life in the long run.
Course Content
This is obviously going to be very high on your list of priorities. When sizing up courses, make sure to review and scrutinize course content as quite a few of them may sound similar in essence, but cover different areas altogether.
What’s the best way to dig into course detail? Go to the university’s website and have a look. Speak to tutors on University Open Days and ask questions about the core and additional modules relevant to your selection. Do they appeal to your liking?
As long as the course content is of interest and directly ties in with your future career plans, chances are you’re going to enjoy that course throughout its duration.
Quality of Academic Facilities
The quality of academic facilities will no doubt be an important aspect to factor in. Have a look at the facilities you’ll be using the most. The best time for this is open day. Check out the IT suits, the library, even the gym, which should give you insights into whether the university has put their capital and earnings to good use.
If you’re unable to visit the campus, see if there’s a virtual tour on the website or check the student satisfaction scores for any given course. If any of this info isn’t available on their website, you can shoot an email to make a request.
Academic Reputation
Top league players out there are renowned for their university academic research. Even though this might not have a life-changing effect on your daily studies, you’re going to benefit from knowledge being passed to you from highly accredited professors. Plus, a degree from a high-ranking university is definitely going to give you an edge when you apply for employment, although this might vary according to your chosen course and desired career plans.
However, a university must not be chosen based on research assessment and ranking alone. Visit the campus, and ask them to put you through a test or pseudo class. Speak to students as well as professors to better understand if the teaching style and university student experience falls in line with your general preferences.
University and Employer Links
This may or may not be important to you; let’s say you’re looking to complete a placement, sandwich or year abroad course, you should be taking this into account.
Prominent links between university and employers means a higher relevance of vocational degrees (such as business courses or engineering) and you are equipped with skills that prove highly useful once you start working.
The career and employment section on your university website should have all the necessary information.
Employment Rates
This tells you the percentage of university graduates who are part of the paid workforce. This information may not be available on your university website, in which case a quick Google search should yield the info you’re looking for.
These rates are merely a snap of what graduates do only six months post-graduation. It’s always good to look at different types of university graduate employers, including industry sectors where graduates end up, in order to see the complete picture.