Unistats - using stats to make Uni choice

[traceyinrosso70]

My DS is contemplating a degree in music production and his two favourite Unis after open days are Huddersfield and UCLAN. Think he is swaying slightly towards UCLAN due to it being a city centre campus with halls in the city centre which appeals to him plus having family 10 mins away (we live 2 hours away). Both courses were impressive as were the facilities but unistats was giving Huddersfield significantly better employment rates and generally higher starting salaries. How much should we read into the stats ? Are they reliable ? If he really decides on UCLAN should we try and persuade him to reconsider ? Any advice welcome.

How about getting him to phone and have a chat about this with someone from the departments - if he can find someone willing to chat to him.

The unistats figures for employment are historic and based on a cohort that started uni four years ago. The courses may have changed or improved in the meantime.

If the number of students on the course is fairly small then the stats might not be that true a representation of what might happen in the future.

Also, starting salaries aren't always that relevant (eg medicine ) - some courses might be more of a stepping stone to further qualifications.

Has your DS spoken to existing students about job prospects?

I think the best thing would be to let him work it out himself.

(UCLAN is in a super spot )

UCLAN is in my home town hence why there are family close by, it's a 20 min train journey to Burnley to follow his football team (he currently only manages odd away games when they are close to us) so I can see it's appeal on a lot of levels but I don't want him to spend 40k on a course and then can't sustain a job in the profession

Is one course more established than the other?

Really not sure - the trouble is that music production/ technology is not listed separately in league tables and just gets bunched in with all music courses. So, it has all the classical music courses listed at traditional universities whereas the courses he is looking at all at former polytechnics as very technology based but with a very creative element.

I've had a quick look at the stats and I can see that the results are not just for the music tech students so I think it makes the results a lot less meaningful. They look like really interesting courses
DD2 put a course down as her insurance which had NO unistats data at all as it was a brand new course in a brand new department. It was a bit of a gamble. She did what research she could eg she checked out the lecturers CVs and academic pedigree and spent a lot of time studying the information that they gave her.

It's fairly well known in music technology/new music circles that Huddersfield is one of the best in the country, if not the best place to go. UCLAN does very good publicity, but they're nowhere near as competitors to Huddersfield (I tend to think most of UCLAN is PR over substance I'm afraid - that's certainly the case in my field).

Get your DS to have a look at the programme for the annual Huddersfield Music Festival for example. It's a major world event in modern music.

One has a feeling with vocational courses, and my DD is doing one, that networking, networking and more networking, is how you get a job! Being involved and getting yourself out there is really important. Plus, do the best course possible that has the best connections.

Also "employment" statistics include those who go on to post graduate education and not all the students will have obtained jobs pertinent to their degree, but could be degree level jobs. Stats on employment are not really reliable in my view because there are such huge variations in students each year and the drive and determination they display.