Staying at home for University

[Orangesandlemons77]

Reading in the papers that since Covid and with the cost of living as well, more Universities are having applicants from students living at home.

Wondered what others thought of this? I have a DS who will be applying this year, and yes think he may be applying to one nearby.

@Watapalava

its a myth that the uni type is important - a 1st from a low uni is better than 2.1 from red brick uni

no one cares

things are so competitive, grades and experience are vital

Wrong, depends on the specific field…

@Watapalava if you really recruited high calibre graduates , you’d know that grades aren’t the most important! ‘First vs 2:1’ defo not the deciding factor.

I’ve interviewed many ‘red-brick’ grads with firsts who were absolutely useless. And ‘2:1’ low ranked uni , brilliant grads.

It’s all about the work experience and career support.

I work with a lot of young people who sadly have no clue. They think that degree = highly paid grad job. They don’t know about things like rolling basis recruitment, having good work experience (not necessarily a job, but having been a society President etc).

Red-brick unis have the most opportunity for people doing ‘generic’ degrees like History, Politics. ‘Lower ranked’ unis are great at their specialty subjects, but terrible at the above. The switched on ones were either coached via social mobility schemes like mine, or from more well-off backgrounds.

@CurlyhairedAssassin
I think young people need high calibre qualifications in technical subjects. However staying at home won’t work for this either. Technicians have a lower level qualification. Who do you think leads a design project? Probably a Chartered Engineer and these days the quicker route to that qualification is MEng.

The good news is that lots of former polytechnics offer great MEng courses. The great RG universities with an engineering heritage do too. So students do have lots of choice. The difficult area is that engineering whether BEng or Meng isn’t easy. They are also degrees that lead into finance roles so the young people don’t stay in engineering.

It is a degree where employers want to know what you can do when you apply for an engineering job. The degree is just a door opener. Thinking skills and problem solving are vital and employers test for these.

@TizerorFizz does having an MEng compared to just a BEng matter in the eyes of an employers?

I really think it depends on the course? DS is looking at a Computing course.

I mean with choosing universities. On the BEng / MEng, my brother has done well and found employers looked favourably upon his MEng course (done back in the 1990s from a newer university in the days he got a full grant for all 5 yrs - Scotland)

I've spoken to some saying a masters in computer science doesn't actually teach u anything that's valuable to employers? Then again it is just hear say

So many pros and cons…

I went away to university. Not many women in my year at my residence. Was sexually harassed by so many different guys over three years. Was way too young and naive to cope with it. It ruined the university experience for me.

Wish I’d lived at home but it isn’t the ‘done thing’ in England and never crossed my mind.

@Orangesandlemons77

Reading in the papers that since Covid and with the cost of living as well, more Universities are having applicants from students living at home.

Wondered what others thought of this? I have a DS who will be applying this year, and yes think he may be applying to one nearby.

@Orangesandlemons77 HESA publish loads of data on this - albeit with a lag so the 2021-22 data will be interesting to see once published

www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/where-study

From their data - and just for first years within the full-time and sandwich students by term time accommodation this is breakdown by accommodation category from academic year 2014-15 to 2020-21

and then one for all other years

then for the most recent year's data those Unis with the highest proportion of first year in halls - be that uni owned or private.

No hugh surprises - although some movement as compared with the 2019-20 academic year if one drills down further.

and again most recent year a selection of others - Brum, Manchester appear here, and a number of London unis shown (my selections obviously)

Bath is an interesting one 63% in halls and around 1/3 at home. in 2019/20 data the figures were 93% in halls. So either something really quite dramatic has happened (to Bath but much less so for others) or perhaps there is a data issue.

@Orangesandlemons77

I really think it depends on the course? DS is looking at a Computing course.

Degree name doesn’t really matter for this course, given that people get jobs even without relevant degrees (like you’re truly). The only thing I’d be concerned about is the mathematical content of modules in case he wants to do something requiring it, but it’s not relevant for the majority of jobs anyway.

Interesting boys3 - the city we live in is Bath...

@yogabbagabba134

I've spoken to some saying a masters in computer science doesn't actually teach u anything that's valuable to employers? Then again it is just hear say

you don’t need one for 90% of jobs. ‘A’ computer science degree can be useful in differentiating yourself from Thé compétition though. Do you mean a real Masters or one of those conversion courses?

@Orangesandlemons77

Interesting boys3 - the city we live in is Bath...

Bath is an EXCELLENT uni for the subject!!!

It's maybe the cost of living in Bath? Rents here are really high. Like London

Yes, so there's both Bath Uni and Bath Spa do computing courses, so both to choose from within a 15 min bus ride...also looking at Cardiff and Bristol as well

Do you think you might have benefited from a gap year before going to university @Neverreturntoathread?

Many thanks for the links to those stats @boys3.

I having been reading these type of threads as ds is starting at his first choice uni this year and although he is sure he wants to commute I worry when I read he wont get the "uni experience" or "They need to live away from home" or "it is a big mistake to live at home"

I can see ds's uni has 40%-ish of students living at home with parents which helps confirm he will be very very far from being in the minority, especially when many of the students living out of the parents home will be rUK, ROW or mature.

Sure for some students living out will be positive, for some it will be detrimental, for some staying at home will also be the best decision for them too.

What do you mean by a real masters vs a conversion course @LegMeChicken? A post grad vs integrated? Are post grad masters more highly regarded than integrated masters?

@LegMeChicken I meant a real one. If you already have a bsc in compsci.... how much better off would you be career wise if you took the extra year and did an msc in computer science?

Oh, and my question was about masters in general, not computer science.

This link is quite interesting- from before the pandemic- about poorer students being less likely to move away from home...

www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/poorer-students-over-three-times-more-likely-to-live-at-home/

@RampantIvy

What do you mean by a real masters vs a conversion course *@LegMeChicken*? A post grad vs integrated? Are post grad masters more highly regarded than integrated masters?

There are some 'MSc Computer Science' courses you can do w/o coming from a CS or EEE Ug background. I know Imperial, UCL and Bristol do this.