Bristol or Manchester for MChem

[ShriekingBansheela]

The 4 year course with a year in industry?

Bristol seems a more expensive place to live, and travel to (and trains more expensive from out Midland home) and we have heard reports that the pastoral environment is not that great? How multicultural is it?

In the other hand as a Uni it has a great reputation. Dc prefers Bristol as a city.

Any difference in the way they support the placement?

This is for an academically and socially robust Dc, mixed race, will be on full loan as we are lowish income.

All views and experience welcome. Thank you!

But the best universities for a particular subject are not necessarily in the north.

It's unlikely there won't be one of the best in the north though. And not everyone can go to 'the best'.

We had the time, money and inclination for DD to look at 'everywhere that's good' for her subject - but surely we can all understand that there's no point saying everyone 'should' do that.

There's a big difference between 'the local university is good enough' and 'one of the regional universities is good enough'.

I spent today at a conference on 'The impact of science across Essex'. One of the many interesting things mentioned was that Sir Charles Kao, who was awarded a half share in the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2009 for his pioneering work in the field of fibreoptics, started his academic career with a BSc from the then Woolwich Polytechnic.

Although in those days (he was born in the 1930s and was from Hong Kong) it may not have been very easy to come over to the UK to study and these days so many people go to university having a BSc would not be quite as impressive as when hardly anyone went - my father got a BSc in the 1950s from Durham (before he studied medicine) and it was I suppose so impressive it is even on his wedding invitations.