Views on Reading University?

[Arthurianna]

DS starting to get organised with researching universities.

Reading looks interesting, hard to Google though as you just get lots of hits about reading subjects at university.

DS is looking at modern languages.

Does anyone have recent experience of the course and university?

Specifically things like numbers on the modern languages course, support for the year abroad etc.
The website doesn't say much (lots of others seem to specify partner units abroad - is lack of these partnerships a bad sign??)

Typo - partner *unis abroad.

Quite a good one. My oldest son went there (as he did not get his grades for Exeter nor his back up university) and got his Reading place in clearing. It would not be on my top list of 10 in terms of "best universities" but still not too bad. I have no input on modern languages there.

Interesting Xenia, Exeter is also on DS's initial shortlist!

He has picked out 7 or 8 I think, but those two in particular are pretty far away, so we are thinking of some trips this summer to have a look, but would be good to rule out or in before having to make such a big journey.

Sorry can’t help with Reading but DD graduated last year in MFL from York. She loved it. They were particularly good with careers advice as to job opportunities. DD is now in Brussels working for the EU.

Just been through this with my eldest (linguistics and French) and virtual open days aren’t that helpful, are they?
Southampton, Leicester, York, Durham, Warwick, Lancaster, Bristol, Nottingham and UCL all good for languages/linguistics. (Obvs Oxford/Cambridge.) Although all have a higher entry tariff than Reading except Leicester, which is about the same, so it depends if he’s looking for a back up or first choice.
Most unis offer help sorting out the year abroad nowadays. Tbh 35yrs ago 😱 when I was at uni, most unis were very proactive in helping students sort out the year abroad, except Oxbridge and they still don’t help!

Worth getting him to email/call the unis and ask these specific questions, that’s what my daughter did. Due to Covid most have set up online support/advice lines.

I have a DS just finishing his first year there. He has had a v good experience and we have been really pleased with it. I think it is stronger in some subjects than others and it’s obviously not Oxbridge, but overall I would classify it as very solid/respectable. DS also had offers from Bristol and Exeter eg, but chose Reading for various reasons, mostly course related (his course varies quite significantly from university to university).

My impression is that they have been pretty good during lockdown. There have been no draconian restrictions. He had to isolate a couple of times in the first term and was given food parcels which were perfectly acceptable and they were v pragmatic about getting food to them. They were v clear about accommodation refunds in the second term if you weren’t there but also quite straightforward about allowing people back on campus. When it was all a bit shit last term, DS had a postcard and some sweets left for him by the university saying that there were better days ahead and to hang in there, which I thought was lovely and there have been a few other nice touches like that.

DS has made some good mates, got accommodation sorted for next year, and generally had as good a time as possible during a grim year for freshers. I think he only had 3 face to face tutorials all year (humanities), but he’s done pretty well and isn’t complaining.

Sorry, my comments were about Reading, not MFL.

Thank you, that's really helpful.
Good to know Reading has been supportive during Covid.

York, Lancaster, Nottingham and Leicester are all on his list too, I think. I think the other one is Aberystwyth, - or it might have been Aberdeen.

York is his favourite at the moment, as he knows the city a bit, but not sure if the offer grades are a tiny bit too high, he can be very erratic.

He is taking his school's advice to find a spread of offer grades very seriously, but most of them seem to be the same offer.

My daughter got an unconditional for law from reading, I personally thought it was a lovely uni, and I was really impressed when we did the open day, she rejected it though and went for a much higher ranked Russel group.

I’d say it’s not the best uni there is. It’s good but not great. I felt it was more like a big school if that makes sense and less like a uni, it felt like the kids would be more cosseted, like they are at still school, and less like the higher ranked unis where they are required to be much more independent.

Much depends on what your son is looking for.

Reading has always had a good reputation for languages. It gets a bit overlooked as a university I feel.

I studied at Reading about 10 years ago. I loved it. Didn't do languages as the main. However I did do a couple of Spanish modules, thought it was all good. However I had the best time, I look back very fondly. I don't recall any issues, or any sense of being cosseted / looked after too much. It's a good town to study in, the campus is very nice, has all the facilities needed (in my view) and town has a good variety. Also near countryside and excellent rail links.

Sorry I didn’t mean cosseted as a bad thing but more some of the big highly ranked Russel groups are a very, very different beast to reading. I also thought reading was a lovely campus.

As a parent I quite like the idea of DS being looked after!

(Not sure if it would put DS off though.)

He likes the fact you can get catered accommodation at Reading, is that part of the cosseting?
Or do you mean the academic tasks are more structured?

Arthur I would go with status of institution as it will be on his CV for life.
Of the ones mentioned by order of preference and which are best would be

Exeter, York, I would put them high for preference (and they will be on the lists of Oxbridge Durham and Bristol and London people too)

Nottingham - next tier down

Reading where my son went - below Nottingham

Leicester, Lancashire, Aberys.. tier below may be?

You can usually work it out by grade requirements. The higher the A level grades people get who go there the better the students who go there and the harder it is to get into and the better the course.

I went to Reading. It isn't one of the top tier unis but I would say it's a solid contender for the next tier down. I don't really understand the cosseted comment as I was very much left to my own devices, literally lived in a room and attended to my own education the university wasn't really involved in my welfare (though I used their counselling services which were fantastic), as with most humanities degrees I just turned up to the very few classes I had and the rest was up to me, a bit resentful of that at times as it's hard to see where the money is spent vs your science friends! But I gather that's the same in most unis.

Lovely campus, great accommodation, loved being close to London and a brilliant international studies office that helped me get abroad for a term despite that not being standard for my programme. I gather the modern languages dept is quite respected, I did some Italian in my first year and they had great facilities.

When I was researching unis the reason Reading leapt out at me was because I realised I didn't want an urban campus spread out over a city, I wanted everything in one place, which is mostly true of Reading (though some programmes run from Bulmershe campus) but if you're Whiteknights based (which modern languages is I believe) and have accommodation close to that, almost everything is there on a very attractive campus.

I would recommend it.

As for status of the university I really think that depends on what career you are going into, outside of Oxbridge, in my experience, no one has given a damn where people went to university. I imagine it matters more in fields like law, but for me it's very much like GCSEs once you get to the next stage in life, no one really cares what happened prior, once I had my undergrad I needed a postgrad, and therefore the details of my undergrad were somewhat moot as my postgrad trumped my undergrad, and even then I chose I "lesser" uni because it was cheaper, and I've been promoted quicker than an Oxbridge colleague- because I'm the stronger candidate.

So I think he needs to reflect on his career aspirations to decide if he thinks the status of the university actually matters, if it does and he can get into a higher one, then yes I would. But I think on the whole there are more careers where it has limited impact than there are those where it does.

Maybe a curve ball, but the MFL/interpreting and translating courses ay Heriot Watt used to be outstanding with massively high employment rates - might be worth a look.

Agreed. Everyone has always said that about HW. Pretty sure Swansea and Cardiff also do this and are v good. UCLAN might be overall middle-low ranking but has a very good reputation for languages.

Of all the unis mentioned, Lancaster is the one that has a superb reputation for languages (and v hard to get into) . However, it has just had a massive slide down the CUG league tables. No idea why. Perhaps covid knocked the student satisfaction bit.

namechange the Bulmershe campus was demolished and sold off as a housing estate a few years ago!

@AvengingGerbil well that shows how up to date I am 😂😂

xenia It's Lancaster that is mentioned here (not Lancashire). Very very high in all league tables- definitely on a par with York etc. Maybe have a look!

Herriot Watt looks interesting actually, I think perhaps that passed DS by, as it looks quite similar to his other favourites.

I know he dismissed Stirling and Bath for being too "businessy", so maybe he thought HW was the same.

I don't think DS really knows what he wants to do for a career. He has mentioned teaching, interpreting, and the police, but not in a particularly determined way.

I don't think he's massively concerned about prestige of the institutions, but he is definitely worried about lots of people dropping out and about people messing around in lectures instead of being studious (he's a bit geeky, bless him).
I said if people are paying 9k they're unlikely to mess about - hope that's not too naive.

Anyway, we have now booked train tickets for the whole family for a trip to Reading, then on to Exeter for a weekend in the summer

Sorry, Lancaster (not Lancshire!) although it not not really going to be on most Oxbridge applicant's lists is it compared with say York or Exeter? It is not on this list whereas Leicester is www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities-2019

Not everyone applies to law.

I can sure you that many very able MFL students in particular (but also creative subjects such as drama, English and film, and geography and history) have Lancaster as a top choice.

Actually I hadn't even realised Leicester had another university apart from De Montfort before DS started looking, so that's an interesting list to look at - though I doubt DS will be a lawyer in any case

Whereas I had heard of Lancaster, I think they are very good for science, maybe?