Nottingham university. Views please!

[DinkyDaisy]

Hello,
My ds is going to university open days. Not sure about attending Nottingham this coming weekend. Someone told him it was a rough town.
However, from what I understand a good university and information he has got from an unhelpful friend may well be out of date!
He is not a party boy [yet!] but I would imagine all universities have a mix of students and he would find fellow nerdy types!
Any views on Nottingham are welcome.
Thank you.

My dc is looking at Nottingham Uni, we're going to the open day on Saturday and I've been looking at campus accommodation but can't seem to find any info on uncatered halls. Does anyone know if this option is available? I don't think dc will be eligible for a full student loan and not sure we can afford to cover the additional £75-£100 extra a week to cover it!

@Mooloolabababy just outside campus (over the road) is Broadgate Park that is self catered. As is some of the accommodation at Jubilee - a smaller campus,10 minutes walk from the sports centre.

and where all the undergrads domiciled in England come from in terms of English regions

London 21.0%
South East 17.0%
East Midlands 16.1%
East of England 15.1%
West Midlands 10.9%
North West 7.1%
Yorkshire & Humber 6.7%
South West 4.6%
North East 1.4%

Thanks for that! It's good to hear that there are some options that's don't require a bus journey.

We were meant to go to the open day this weekend but now having second thoughts. Received the open day programme and was rather put off by the "STEM" stamps over all the, well, STEM courses. We are looking at an arts course and are worried that arts and humanities students may be viewed as somehow second class. Maybe being over sensitive but I haven't come across this overt promotion of STEM courses anywhere else. Surely you want to study Eg Physics because you like the subject, not because it's STEM per se?

As a 'real' Russell Group university (plenty of research income compared to somewhere like LSE with very little), Nottingham has a lot of facilities and ties with industry that make STEM degrees very good value for money.
Arts degrees which are much cheaper to deliver may be better VFM elsewhere, though the library facilities are good and the 300 acres of rolling parkland are a nicer source of inspiration than (for example) the city streets of Sheffield.

Once there no course is 2nd class. Not an issue.

My DS has a GF who has just started at Notts, he’s at another uni; he visited her for a weekend recently

he said exactly as @EttieWarbler did - his exact words were “everyone is the same there” - differentiating it from the uni he is at

Studied there and I’d say it’s really quite rough. A lot of people don’t feel safe and a fair few sexual assaults. Lots of break ins too

A lot of gang violence compared to other cities too I believe

My DD has been there for 4.5 years. It's not rough and the student areas feel pretty safe and some are quite pretty.
She's a comp kid as are many of her friends. But many are also private school. Lots of different backgrounds, nationalities, religions, just like any Uni.
If you only find people 'like you' then that's not the Unis fault.

There are 'rough' types everywhere...in our quiet market town we had a murder last week ...

I was at Bradford Uni during the time of the Yorkshire Ripper so that was a terrible time but, apart from never wandering around in the dark on my own, I never felt frightened or particularly worried. (My parents probably were though).

Dd has never felt unsafe (in her second year). There are fights (as in fist fights/ people swinging punches) after a night out and spikings. But it’s not any worse than anywhere else. She has never, ever heard about any gun crime. She feels safe coming back from a club with her friends, the buses / transport etc run all night and are always packed. A lot of it is staying together as a group and looking out for each other.

Dd has just started at Nottingham and is having a brilliant time. She loves the green campus and says the clubs in the city are better/play better music than those back home (Birmingham). There have been spikings in clubs, but that seems to happen everywhere sadly. In terms of danger/gangs etc, I can’t believe there’s much difference between Nottingham, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester etc. Students generally live in a bit of a bubble anyway and dd hasn’t mentioned feeling unsafe at all.

Ds knows two girls whose drinks have been spiked in clubs this week. Seems to be a massive problem in Nottingham.

Wtf are people thinking??!

Unfortunately it’s the same everywhere. Dd has friends at many, many different universities and all are reporting the same thing. It’s horrendous but it’s not specific to Nottingham.

It is fucking hirrendous. Girls should not have to worry about this sort of shit.

DS is a nerdy kid on a nerdy course, just started at Nottm Uni. He's in a flat on Broadgate Park (so self catering), almost in Beeston which is a perfect mini-centre for his needs. It's 2 miles to most his classes but he has a bike, the bike storage is pretty good.

I can't comment on middle-class or whatever. I insisted on a Uni within 4 hour drive. Nottm was DS's aspirational because he was predicted ABB, but then got 1xA & 2xA-star, so really would have gone elsewhere (met higher expected tariff) if we'd known how good his results would be. Nottingham is central for the year-in-industry placement opportunities: we liked that.

After visiting Leicester city centre we didn't think Nottingham was rough at all. Everything is relative.

Absolutely. 😞

To reassure anyone reading this (if that’s at all possible!) dd says that the Nottingham clubs have some of the strictest security measures compared to other university towns she’s visited when she’s gone to visit friends. She regularly goes to Rock City and other huge clubs and they have metal detectors on the door and search everyone really, really well and turn anyone away who won’t happily comply. She’s been to clubs in London with her London university friends and she said she felt very unsafe in comparison and they just seemed to wave everyone through.

She has said to me that a lot of them now tend to bring their own sports bottles of water and just drink shots instead of other alcoholic drinks as they can see these being poured and they’re gone in one go, so no worrying about someone getting something into them. There is of course the worry of people injecting things etc. No one should have to worry about this shit of course but this is life for most students now sadly.

For anyone interested this is the largest club venue and where all the students tend to hang out-
www.rock-city.co.uk/club/

And this one - they have a care policy page -

www.wecare-rekom.com/

Hoping the open day going well for those who are attending. Sickness in house here so ds unable to attend. Feeling ill and sorry for himself.
Which University is such a huge thing to choose.
DS planning a year out working to save some money so if choices/ results not quite right this year can reapply next cycle. If gets it right, hopefully, can defer.

@DinkyDaisy this might be helpful. It's a campus tour from last weekend.

fb.watch/ganLwgX5mI/

Thank you. Will look at...

@DinkyDaisy sorry to hear about the sickness, hope it's short lived!
We've just got home from the open day, second time for dc and first for me as she went with dh last time. I was impressed with the campus and the course that dc is wanting to do. Wasn't too happy with the accommodation though. Only catered halls on campus (dc likes to cook so wouldn't be an option) so we looked at the nearest offsite halls (just across the road tbf) standard room with shared bathroom was pretty grotty with 2 bathrooms between 8 people (which I think is crazy!).
They only have 350 en-suite rooms available though and 700 standard rooms so I've told dc to get applying asap!

Has a good night life. Yes bits of it are rough, but not all of it, and you could easily keep away from it.

It's a good uni and has a buzzing student life without being ridiculously expensive.