Any tips/info please on Bristol and Exeter Unis

[Notasyoungasiwas]

Does anyone have any info in Bristol and Exeter unis please? General info, best accommodation, tips etc etc

I studied at Bristol 10 years ago and really liked it, it felt very warm and safe and the teaching quality was excellent. I stayed in Hiatt Baker halls which I wouldn't recommend as it was well known for being the grotty druggy block - but maybe its changed since then. Wills hall was always the poshest one but quite hard to get into. There was a joke that they saved Wills Hall for the Oxbridge rejects who couldn't come to terms with not getting into Oxbridge. I'd try and find some very recent or current students to talk to though as Bristol has sadly been in the news a lot in the last few years for having a serious bullying problem that it isn't addressing. It seems to have attracted students with very narrow and militant views about certain topics within social justice activism (sex work is a legitimate career choice, pornography empowers women, a woman is anyone who says they are even if they have a full beard and no intention of transitioning etc etc). If your views align with these activists in every single regard then I imagine it would be a good choice, but lots of students who have different opinions have reported serious campaigns to harrass and bully them off the course and one is even suing the university atm for failing to protect her in any way from these bullies. Its probably more visible depending on which course you're doing. I did an arts degree and it was a wonderful enriching experience for me back then, but now I imagine that the arts degrees are the ones most likely to bring you into contact with the bullies. So definitely worth hunting down some current students to see if what I've read in the papers is actually visible on a daily basis/likely to affect the average student.

What you read in newspapers is always sensationalist. Student activists are everywhere! But they are very small in number. Bristol has always been pretty quiet on that front due to, perhaps, a large cohort of privately educated dc who never went near the SU! The vast majority of students there don’t engage in student politics. There are far more politically engaged SUs, if that’s what you want. If you studied engineering, for example, I don’t think you would be bullied by anyone with views you didn’t agree with. I’ve actually never heard of the above complaints about Bristol and it really feels like a minority issue that doesn’t affect the vast majority of undergrads.

Hiatt Baker has been refurbished. Most of the halls at Bristol are fine and some are catered. Stoke Bishop is around 2 miles from the university with a bus service and lots of students like the halls there but shop for food near the uni if self catered. There are also options near the clubs!

Exeter is also considered a middle class uni. A bit like an extension of boarding school! Both are great of course. Bristol is a bigger city, more going on and the Uni is in the city. Exeter is a big further out on a campus.

What subject?

I don’t know Exeter but at Bristol, Goldney Hall is always oversubscribed. Wills is a quad with newer additions. Churchill and Wills are catered. The other self catered halls are pretty similar. Other halls in Clifton are popular due to location.

That's good to hear MyOMy. I have such fond memories of my times at Bristol and felt really sad to think of it being over run by bullies! Agree that the vocal activist student type is everywhere, but it just seemed to be Bristol specifically that kept getting in the papers because of it.

Also agree about Bristol being mostly full of privately educated students. I remember during freshers week everyone asking each other where they went to school, and not understanding why. I grew up in a very rural sheltered area and went to a state school/FE college, and the idea that apart from Eton anyone would have heard of anyone else's school was baffling to me. But despite that it always felt very welcoming, most people weren't snobby about their schooling, and the friends I made there are still my closest friends 10 years later. I imagine my memories of it are slightly out of date now, but I don't imagine the demographic has changed that dramatically since I was there.

There's a separate thread on Exeter. It's worth checking that. My daughter is there now and very happy. Fuller comments on other thread.

Well the majority at Bristol are not privately educated and neither are they at Exeter but it might feel like that in Wills and Churchill! Elsewhere it won’t.

Don’t forget that where a university hadn’t been politically active, like Bristol, a few students can really make a difference and get noticed. Where universities have more of a tradition of student politics, it’s not so obvious. For what it’s worth my DD knows people who are saying Cambridge is a bit “political” now. No student should be told how to think at any university. Freedom to think and debate should be upheld.