Campus universities with beautiful old buildings

[Trewser]

I know, i know. But dd2 is reluctant to go to any open days, and this is her (childish and silly i know) requirement. I thought if we could at least do ONE she will start to be more open minded!

Back in the dark ages I had English tutorials in Keele Hall. I actually loved studying there and it brought back fantastic memories when DD and I looked round there a few years ago!

I was swayed in my choice of Birmingham by its having a station and by the positivity of the interview day, in no small part down to the lovely senior lab technician who was organising it.

If you can afford it, many places have private halls that are generally much nicer than the uni provided accommodation. So if she likes York uni but hates their accommodation (which was grim, quite frankly) then you could look at private halls.

Glasgow

Trewser: I’m not sure why History grads earn more but it might be due to perceived research and transferable skills.

Education degrees, as far as I am aware, produce teachers for primary schools. Many of them do not have subject degrees. Therefore it’s not odd at all and is great if you want to work in primary education. Obviously it’s not great for secondary education or beyond. That’s the problem with higher education experts. One dimensional!

The low earnings for English grads may well be down to their low ambition and not wanting higher paid careers. Who knows? But if posters are anything to go by, this is typical of English grads. Certainly was typical of my DSis who didn’t bother with a grad career at all. Maybe reading all those books makes you a non aspirational person?

The stats on earnings were produced by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and they looked at type of university and earnings of grads 5 years down the line. I do accept some people are not motivated by money but the OP was clear her job was poorly paid and she seemed to want a different experience for her DD.

My apologies, Errol. I honestly thought you worked in HE.

The BEd doesn't really exist much any more. There are a few. the Education Studies degrees are BA degrees, largely, some with QTS attached but by no means all.

My son goes to Durham Uni and it is such a beautiful place, but all within a small city.

Surely ,there are lots of degrees lower than English on this earnings table. Care to copy and paste? English has many transferable skills, top of which would be research!

As I said, my cohort include a top corporate lawyer, two award winning authors, an acclaimed British film director, a ST wildlife writer, a head of a top public school, and two heads of large secondaries.

To tar English grads (who you seem to look down on so much more than any others) as being non aspirational is very unfair. I am , believe it or not, very aspirational : for myself and others. And I don't think you should be sharing your own negative views about English degrees on a thread about campuses. The OP didn't ask about subject.

And what on earth is wrong with reading????! Reading opens the mind, taxes the brain, teaches and educates, and is a source of immense enjoyment (and income!) to many.

Seeking lower paid careers may not be non aspirational : it rather suggests the value society places on certain jobs. But the graduate prospects at all of the top 10 universities for English make for very good reading.

DS has just started a degree course that he and we know will put him in a lower paid career (musician) - despite the fact that it is at one of the very best institutions for his particular subject nationally (and well-regarded internationally). He is hugely aspiration for his own career IN THAT FIELD; it just happens to be a lower paid field of work. Whether it is right that a banker should be paid more than a musician is a different question....

Forgot to add they also filmed Avengers End Game at Durham Cathedral, the Asgard bit with Thor in. Very beautiful old magical buildings.

I found a table that suggested there was less than 1 k in it between history and English...

Education will include a load of people with degrees in a huge range of subjects , unless they really do mean BEds or undergrad degrees with QTS , I guess.

cant ; good luck to him .

Another vote for Keele! Keele Hall is very Hogwartsy (though most of the buildings are newer), and the campus is gorgeous. Supportive atmosphere, and has strong combined honours programmes.
www.keele.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/undergraduatecourses/

Lovely buildings in Newcastle uni, itself, but at best you'd live in a 60s block.

Not necessarily a good thing. DD is in a 2018 block and has really lovely, comfortable accommodation. For day to day living it beats a damp, cold, draughty Victorian building with one bathroom between 6 people. And all her lectures are in the medical school which is very much 21st century.
DD also liked Newcastle because it is compact, and everywhere is within walking distance. She is in the same halls as Zanda’s DD.

There will be a huge glut of these graduates and I think we will begin to see many many (more) history grads struggling to find work. It is one of the very few subjects in teaching with a surplus of trainees.

I read somewhere that a lot of students do history because they want a good, well respected degree, and enjoy the subject, but don’t really know what they want to do afterwards.

Thanks Piggy. He's loving it so far (started earlier than many courses). It is his absolute passion. However much my logical brain says 'push him towards something with better long term pay prospects' I have not felt it right - after laying out the obvious pitfalls very clearly - to push him into something he cares less about just for 'future pay' reasons.

For day to day living it beats a damp, cold, draughty Victorian building with one bathroom between 6 people.

Or a medieval building with one bathroom block between a whole courtyard of undergraduates, however beautiful the building!

My apologies, Errol. I honestly thought you worked in HE.

I took it as a compliment, but don't want to post under false pretences!

The Report I have quoted was produced in 2017 and it was from the Institute of Fiscal Studies. It is easy to find and was extensively reported at the time. It was looking into the degree taken and university they are taken at and drew conclusions that the same degree was often better at RG because these grads earned more. As you would expect there were notable exceptions such as Bath. It makes interesting reading though. I have attached two images of the Report. I am useless at links - sorry.

There is a more recent study which puts the gap between English and history at less than £1k : even on your table, the gap is small. No one is surprised by these figures! And we have both encouraged OP to look ambitiously for her DD. Happily, many of the finest English degrees are at unis with nice campuses or in lovely cities. So, all good.

looks gorgeous on the outside but pretty grim in the inside.

From another university thread on MN about their DC's accommodation.

Shamelessly placemarking

The IFS data is for 5 years into the job. The other difference in salary I quoted was starting salary from a recent survey. Not the IFS. That’s why there is a difference. However surveys will not show the same data but the IFS one was more thorough if you look at the whole report. It doesn’t alter the fact that English grads are not particularly sought after. Of course some English grads will have great cvs when they apply for jobs and definitely 5 years down the line, but overall, English grads are not doing as well as Nursing grads who the public considers to be poorly paid!

Thanks all. Dd will definitely be doing English Lit, either single honours or combined with Classics. At the moment she is utterly uninterested in graduate schemes with big companies.

Keele Hall is very Hogwartsy (though most of the buildings are newer)

I have a - possibly inaccurate - memory that at the time of a school visit to Keele in the 1970s, some of the 'more modern' buildings bore an uncanny resemblance to Nissen Huts...

I’m a little surprised at the salaries graph posted by @BubblesBuddy and the difference between subjects. Geography v Law for instance and Computing/technology v History.