The 'Ask a current student' thread! (University of Birmingham)

Thank you soo much thats really helpful! I wasn't really sure about Aitken anyway so Ill give that one a miss! Do you think the tennis courts will have finished all refurbishment by september?? in which case it doesn't matter where I put down for What are the societies like are there lots? I'm trying to decide between B'ham and York and that was one of the things I didn't find out about for Birmingham Thanks x

Hi, I'm going on the applicant day and I was wondering how far away the Birmingham University station is from the main campus areas (such as the education building or barbera arts building or whatever) and what station you have to go to in Birmingham to connect to it Thanks soo much x

The station is on campus, albeit more on the edge of it, this side of the Medical school (look here), so it'd take 5 minutes or so to get to where you're going. You'll probably need to go to University Centre at first, which is R23 on that map.

Pretty much all trains in Birmingham will go through New Street station, so if you get to there then it's 2 stops to University station. If you look for any trains going to Redditch, they'll stop at Uni.

I'm a first year sport and exercise student, living on the vale. I remember feeling so confused as to which uni/ accommodation etc to go for this time last year so if anyone has any questions feel free to ask me

is the Vale the best place for first years?

is the Vale the best place for first years?

Anybody do philosophy at Birmingham? Just wondering what the typical timetable is like.

is the Vale the best place for first years?

I'm hoping to firm Birmingham for Modern Languages and Business...

For any language students, could anyone tell me what the resources are like in the department for learning the language outside of classes? In a few other unis I saw language centres but forgot to ask about it at Bham! Watching foreign TV programmes, reading magazines, etc?

Which languages are you interested in? I'm doing Spanish and Portuguese.
We have language labs; computers, headphones etc which are really really good because it gives you a quiet space to do listening activities etc. The library has loads of grammar guides, vocab books, linguistics, dictionaries etc too. There is also access to international newspapers

We also have a student led magazine called 'The Linguist'. There are loads of different sections for each language, and all of the articles are written by students; I'm the editor Its great for practicing your reading skills, and if you were to write an article, its great for grammar practice because its checked over by an older student before its published

Just avoid living in places like QHC, the beeches etc as they're a bit out of it but yeah depends what you're after.

I can't speak for QHC, as it's mixed uni accommodation, but while The Beeches isn't owned by the university, it's completely UoB students, and I reckon you'd find they have a contrary view on what you say as being "out of it".

The majority of first year students don't actually live on the Vale, but it does have the largest concentration of them. It'd be silly to suggest the Vale is the be-all and end-all of the first year experience. I'd say that anyone who didn't live there would not feel as though they missed out by living elsewhere, despite what people who do live on the Vale believe. Of course, there's likely to be a minority not on the Vale who may have ended up only being friends with people on the Vale, maybe due to their course for example, who would have preferred living there.

No I didn't mean students were "out of in that way" , I was more referring to the fact that they're much further out from campus. My friend who lives there reckons that it takes her 40 minutes to get there by foot so often she takes the train. Its just often harder (and more expensive) for her to meet up for things like sports socials as she's the only one from the beeches so often has to get taxis by herself etc. Just sounds like there's less people at the beeches so you're less likely to find people from your course/ are part of your societies. Obviously people will have different experiences but from what I've heard its better to be in pritchatts or the vale