so who went to Reading University

[brimfull]

dd went to open day and said the sheer ugliness of the place put her off but course seemed good

she is so shallow-non?

anywya did you enjoy your time there?

bump

pmsl! sorry of no use to you at all, but i live in reading and it is an ugly building but then it is a 'new' university.
fwiw it does seem to have a good reputation and i wouldn;t let the building put me off attending. i went to york university in my teens and then did another degree later on at thames valley in slough now that is a shocking building!

Reading isn't that new, Nowtheres4 - it got its charter in 1925 - that's a lot older than many!

DH did his MSc & PhD (Statistics)there - think he'd agree with your DD's assessment of its ugliness, but he seemed to enjoy it pretty well.

ugliness?

errrr, did she go to the whiteknights campus? its a beautiful landscaped place, with trees, and grass, and a lake, and space...... granted i graduated when she was probably still in nappies, but i went back about seven years ago, and there was still a hell of a lot of natural beatuy around.
i remember areas of wilderness, and signs saying fishing allowed only by permit. this all in the middle of city type place..

well she did say it had a lot of nice greenery and stuff but the buildings were awful
accomodation also dire

I was a very mature post-grad there. I didn't really have anything to do with the university community as I commuted and had small children at the time.

I don't think the Whiteknights campus is particularly ugly. It is fairly standard for a campus university.

They are a centre of excellence for several courses, and if you want one of those courses then you should overlook the architecture.

yes whitnights

vvvodka - did you ever go to St Patrick's Hall? - that's where DH lived during his MSc & it was very depressing.

The Whiteknights campus lake is nice, agreed, but maybe DH & I were spoilt by spending our undergraduate years at Exeter, which really was (and still is, DD is there now) beautiful - in cpomarison, Reading just seemed too darn flat....

I graduated from Reading and I rather liked the assortment of weird modern architecture for the various faculty buildings. As other people have said, Whiteknights park is lovely - a big lake in the middle and some really rare trees if you know where to look for them (there used to be guided walks), planted by the original Marquis of somewhere-or-other who was by way of being a tree nut!

The halls of residence are variable and I agree a lot of them are pretty grim from the outside. Inside they were no worse than my English girls boarding school, but expectations for both school and university accommodation seem to have increased since my day! Childs, Bridges and Sibley were particularly ugly, although Wantage was rather prettier.

I agree with Fivesetsofschoolfees (eek!)- if it is the right course, then the campus shouldn't be a deterrent. I was very happy there, and still use a lot of the training I got from my degree course.

I used to live almost next door to the whiteknights campus and we had a halls of residence in our road. there used to be a certain amount of snobbery about reading being a new uni as it didn;t have the architecture and grandeur of say oxford or cambridge.

i go on campus twice a week as both of my sons train for thier football teams on the universities astro turf pitches. its had a huge amount of money thrown at it and has an excellent sports facility now as well.

Reading is not a 'new University' in the post-92/former poly sense.

The campus is green and spacious (compared to a city-centre university like the one where I am now), but some of the buildings are fairly ugly, yes. Ugliness of buildings should not be a deterrent if the course and other things are good, though.

Can't comment on halls, as I was last inside one in the 1980s. [extreme old-age emoticon] Back in the olden-days, some were terminally grim (Childs, in particular) whereas others were better (Whiteknights was OK, Wantage was a bit Oxbridge wannabe). But this info is so out-of-date as to be pointless.

Not sure what subject your dd is interested in, but you can get decent info about how Reading fares in comparison to other institutions for this subject from some/all of the following:

Guardian University League Tables. These are largely based on evidence related to teaching.

The Times Good University Guide. These balance teaching and research evidence.

The National Student Survey. Responses from finalists about various aspects of their courses. Results by institution and by subject area.

RAE2008 The results of the 2008 research assessment exercise, which can tell you something about the standard of research in your chosen subject area and/or institution.

HTH

DD2 was a bit like that with some uni's she visited.

thanks for the replies

TotallyUnheardOf-thanks for the links, dd has looked at all the relevant data on the universities and will be applying to Reading.
Despite being shallow she realised the uni and course are really good.

She is looking to do economics and french.

Whiteknights Campus isn't that ugly - though it doesn't compare with Exeter or even Nottingham.
A friend of mine who works in university admin at Reading told me that it was an "insurance offer" university. It also had a reputation of being a bit of a Monday-Friday university as it was so easy to get on a train/M4 to get away at the weekend.

I went for an open day there and decided not to go because of

ugliness

all halls were catered

it was miles from the shops

the staff only spoke to my mother, not to me. She was only there as it was cheaper to drive than go on the train. I had gone to other open days alone or with friends and had been treated in the adult way that is important to you at 18.

My mother and I had to wear massive name badges.

I couldn't get any extra info on my course or look at the lab facilities but we (well, my mum) were given a 'parent pack' all about how they would make sure I ate 3 meals a day in their dreadful canteen.

I have that Reading is very quiet on the weekends, as most students are semi-local and go home for the weekends. Not sure if that is true, but it is the reputation that it has around here.

I was a postgrad there, but didn't get involved in the life of the university.