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Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Higher education

Economics at Manchester or Cardiff?

13 replies

greyvix · 03/02/2013 20:55

DS is still awaiting some offers for Economics. In the meantime, he is considering whether to accept Cardiff or Manchester as his insurance. Anyone have any experiences either way? Thanks in anticipation.

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boomting · 04/02/2013 09:40

At Manchester, has he applied for the BSc or the BA(Econ)? If it's the latter, he should be aware that he will be spending a lot of his time, particularly in first year, doing other social sciences. The BSc is much more of a traditional, 'mathsy' economics course.

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alreadytaken · 04/02/2013 10:19

no knowledge of the course but if everything else is equal Cardiff is a cheap place to live while Manchester is more expensive. It's also probably safer provided you are polite about rugby. Considerable advantages for the parental purse if he opts for Cardiff and when we visited the medical school people stopped to offer help whenever we looked lost so a friendly atmosphere.

Has he looked at satisfaction rates and employment rates for the courses?

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greyvix · 04/02/2013 20:50

Good advice. Thanks all. It is the BSc, as he favours the maths approach. I am biased towards Cardiff, as my home town is Barry (we now live in Surrey); he favours Manchester for the same reason!

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Bearcat · 09/02/2013 18:53

Where's his first choice?
Just asking as DS2 in third year at Nottingham Uni doing economics.

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boomting · 10/02/2013 12:04

If he can visit both, then I would suggest that he does so. I found open days very illuminating in terms of finding out where I did and did not want to go. Manchester is currently running open days for social science applicants (if he has an offer, he should have had an invite I believe) which would be a good option for him.

Alternatively, he could go on a Weds afternoon for a more general info talk folllowed by a tour of the university led by a current student. He could combine that with a tour of the accommodation in Fallowfield in the morning.

Manchester really isn't an expensive place to live (I'm a current student) and they offer a very, very generous bursary for those with incomes up to £42,611 www.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/studentfinance/home-eu-2013/university-scholarships-and-bursaries/

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greyvix · 11/02/2013 19:20

He has an offer for Exeter, but is waiting to hear from Bristol and Nottingham, both of which are highly thought of, I believe. Exeter will be first choice otherwise. It's a BA at Exeter, not BSc, but still highly ranked and quite maths based I think.

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greyvix · 15/02/2013 22:12

He now has an offer from Nottingham, so we are very pleased.
Bearcat, any comments on Nottingham would be useful. Thy are asking A*AA, so still a long way off!

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Lilymaid · 16/02/2013 18:35

DS did the BSc course at Nottingham. He says it is one of the best economics departments and he also did the MSc there. Now employed as an economist, so something must have rubbed off!

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greyvix · 17/02/2013 22:03

Thank you. Nottingham looks like a good choice. Is it flexible in terms of modules? DS is pretty please to have an offer, as it is highly rated.

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Lilymaid · 18/02/2013 12:16

"Is it flexible in terms of modules"
I think there was a good choice of modules (beyond certain compulsory ones). You do need to be organised and get registered for your preferred modules as soon as possible or you might end up doing ones that you don't want to do (as DS found). You can also do some modules from other subjects (e.g. politics/history/modern language).

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Bearcat · 19/02/2013 23:38

DS2 has loved it at Nottingham.DS1 went there too but did engineering.
I think he has enjoyed the course. He has never said he would have preferred anything else.
It is quite tough especially the econometrics modules (DH, a Cambridge engineering grad said the maths DS2 was revising at Christmas was way beyond anything he could do).
I think DS2 was very fortunate to get his place at Nottingham (he was interviewed but turned down by Oxford and Bristol offered not the straight economics he had applied for but accounting with economics) as it is well respected and extremely competitive to win a place.
The great thing is that DS2 has just been offered a job in London with Deloitte if he gets a 2:1. Here's hoping.
Applying for jobs is a whole other story. Makes getting a uni place seem like a piece of cake!

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Lilymaid · 20/02/2013 10:21

Agree about the hard Maths Bearcat! DS1 avoided some of the most difficult modules for BSc but had to do "hard sums" when he returned a couple of years later to do an MSc. DH (Oxford Physics graduate who does Maths problems for pleasure ) also found it hard going!
Also Agree that job applications are hard ... even applying for summer internships takes vast amounts of time, but DS's Nottingham degrees have got him where he wants to be.

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greyvix · 21/02/2013 15:29

Thanks very much for the feedback. He will probably choose Nottingham first, with Exeter as insurance, though an offer of 3 As is still high! Maybe Manchester (AAB) would be more flexible.