Any advice about Master's programmes

Gosh what great offers!

This isn't my field of study so the courses themselves I can't comment on and it sounds as if you have some particular interests of your own that will guide you there.

To be honest they are all very good universities. LSE is obviously very well thought of (though the course sounds a bit eurocentric)

In terms of campus life and areas of the country:-

Birmingham... lovely campus, Russell group uni. redbrick, BIG city, buzzy, multi-cultural, quality museums and theatres, art galleries, tradition of civic pride, all the usual stuff associated with big cities such as some crime, poverty etc. University in nice area of city. Brilliant transport links to the North and South. Hour and a half to London. Excellent internal travel... buses and small railway lines etc. Great night life. Of interest to you might be the fact it has an international conference centre in addition to the National Exhibition Centre up the road.

Sussex... campus on the downs, close to Brighton/London... alternative scene, Brighton known for its LGBT community and voting in the first 'Green' member of parliament, great for students, arty, trendy, 'London on sea' some people call it.

Exeter... lovely campus, wins accolades. Small county city serving rural area. Can get to coast and Bristol in half hour. London within two hours or so. Very relaxed, very friendly. Zooming up the tables because of big investment in facilties and courses, forward looking. South West primarily white, rural, relaxed, slow paced, pretty. Warmer in winter.

York.. traditional, attractive city with well respected university.

Sheffield... old industrial city, third biggest in UK. City university rather than campus based.

Warwick... respected university but really it is in a field outside Coventry which isn't the most desirable location in the world. Can reach Birmingham though.

Royal Holloway.. in very, very rich part of country... cut off, on top of hill just outside a small commuter town, journey to London slow, transport poor (better to have car) conservative students on the whole, can be stuffy. I went there and hated it as its a bit insular. Lots of people love it though.

Bath... very well respected university indeed. Beautiful Georgian city on tourist route. Very Jane Austen! 15 minutes from Bristol.

Liverpool... buzzy, bouncy, friendly city with tradition of socialism. All the usual stuff about cities, crime, poverty etc in parts.

Ediinburgh... cold!!!! Elegant, grey capital city.

Sorry to be vague and I'm sure you know most of this... but just in case.

Good luck choosing.

Thank you so much for your input, it really helped to get someone else's ideas and thoughts about the locations and unis etc. I'm leaning more and more towards Exeter now, I think. The course sounds excellent, I've spoken on the phone to people there and they seem really helpful...and the fact that the campus is so beautiful and the area is a bit warmer always helps, too! Have you heard anything negative about the place?
Thanks again for your help!

Well I personally think Exeter is a really lovely university if you don't mind a slightly slower paced West Country thing... it is friendly and there is a lack of hierachy between staff and students. Its just been invited into the Russell Group too (along with York) so although that means pretty much nothing except that its brand value has increased slightly, it is indicative of the way the university is pushing onwards and upwards. I'm quite impressed actually with the way they've put all that new money in, are pushing up the tables, just about to get their own independant medical school, new money coming in from Wellcome for their Psychology dept...... etc etc. They might be relaxed but as a university they also seem to have their head screwed on pretty firmly and to be building themselves quite a reputation, looking to the future rather than standing still.

Good things to know:

If you need extra income... can work as a student ambassador for £7.20 an hour... see on-line for details. Apply October.

Library is open 24/7 which is very unusual for British Universities

Not particularly cheap for housing.

Students there seem to really like the place. I have a HUGE soft spot for it after doing my PGCE there at the St Luke's campus. Exeter isn't an exciting place but it's pretty easy and relaxed... think Cathedral, traditional pubs, cider, real ales, cream teas etc rather than clubs and big museums and galleries. However the beauty of it is that you jump on the train and you're in Bristol which is great if you want buzzier and more multi-cultural or an excellent night life. Or half an hour to the county cricket ground or to the beach in the summer. Then there's Dartmoor inland.

The campus is really pleasant and has its own entertainments, cafes etc too.

The negatives would be:

I live in the West Country now. The whole of the West Country consists of a primarily white, homogeneous population. This is not the land of fast paced innovations or left wing leanings (except in pockets) so things can be a bit insular at times. However Exeter itself did manage to vote in a Labour MP last time!! More usually at elections there can be lots of signs supporting UKIP or the Conservatives in the countryside and the Lib Dems out in the villages! Traditional rural area really. However I don't think this then particularly affects the actual bias of university courses and such like. They are as rigorous and diverse as anywhere else.

The criticism of Exeter University is that although it has 15,000 students (of whom 4000 are international) their students are primarily white and middle class. They have a fair proportion of what may be called 'rah' students... blonde, beautiful, well off and from the home counties.

I was interested in this criticism myself and have been for three visits now. I'd say it was true to a certain extent that it attracts these students but it wasn't overwhelming. I have to say that no one was anything but friendly and genuinely lovely. I did ask a student what she thought about the 'rah' reputation and bless her, she said she hadn't noticed... although I then realised I had actually manage to ask a blonde, beautiful girl from the home counties! People I spoke to who'd come from the North and Midlands had found it perfectly friendly too. In fact it seems its one of those universities that if you like it then you tend to REALLY like it.... the students and staff all had that kind of satisfied glow that they were there in the first place and the words most often used were 'friendly, great campus, great course...' etc

Weather: warmer but wetter in the winter so a fair amount of rain in any West Country town, sea mists etc possible. Much less likelihood of snow though.

Its pretty hilly but no more so than Bath or Bristol. Not a particularly good city to drive around but its small enough anyway to walk to most places.

Hope this helps... its all dreadfully unscientific and subjective!

You've no idea how much that helps! Even the info about the student ambassador work is fantastically useful...thank you so much for your words of wisdom!

It certainly sounds like the negatives of Exeter can be outweighed by the numerous positives. The things that had concerned me most were its reputation for 'rah-iness' (surely that must be a term?! And, by the way, I very much enjoyed your story about the girl you approached to question about the homogenous student body!) and hilliness as I have knee problems but from what I understand it's not far from a train station and there's even a shuttle from the station, so that would help. I'd thought that York, being less hilly, may be a good option, but looking at the campus' modern architecture really depressed me...sorry if that sounds superficial. Plus being in the south where the weather is better does sound mighty appealing.

You must be fairly familiar with Exeter, then? Any thoughts on the hills? Also, are there any areas of the town that have a reputation for crime or anything? I didn't find much online about that but it would be good to know.

Thanks again for your help; you've really given me some amazing insight into the place.

It doesn't sound superficial to not like the architecture of somewhere you're going to spend some time...

The hills might be a worry. In the middle of the city where all the shops are etc it is fairly flat. However the campus itself is very hilly in parts. It depends how strained your knee gets really and where your department is. Which building do you go to? You might have to plan your accomodation and paths carefully and this could limit some movements around the place. How bad is it? Would you qualify for the disabled students allowance for instance which you could maybe use to get one of those snazzy ride on things... The university has a legal duty to help you out and their support department is excellent and very friendly so they might have more info. or ideas or can tell you how to apply for the allowance or if you qualify. It is a government scheme so I don't know how you having been abroad affects things.

The train station is very close to the campus. If you wanted to live very, very close to the station itself there is St David's. a few streets of university student accomodation, almost in the car park of the station. St David's is served by a mini bus facility apparently that takes people directly to the campus. The trains are not disturbing and the houses are quite nice and quieter than the campus itself. You are then a little closer to the town.

Its a longish walk from the accomodation near to St Luke's the education college so that would be best avoided. The post graduate accomodation is often in older houses and such like or in the centre of the city. You'd need to go through it all and look for the best option for you but you'd have a special case with the university on grounds of disability for getting somewhere as suitable as possible i would guess. You could not live on the side of the campus called Birk's Grange as it has a hill nicknamed 'cardiac hill' which has to be navigated to get to the campus. It is very, very, very steep!!!! It looks horrendous even for people who don't get painful knees. So look perhaps more on the other side.

Crime? Not really something I associate that much with Exeter. It has a no drinking on the streets local law in place. There is a social housing estate on the outskirts which is considered to be a bit more prone to social problems but this is really relative compared to other areas. Its hard to say because I don't know what to compare it to. For instance compared to Birmingham where I originally came from its probably the equivelant of a sleepy village crime wise. However compared to the sleepy village where I now live its probably got a lot more crime. I've walked across Exeter in the middle of the night and felt safe enough as a female (though obviously it is best to walk with a friend in any place). However I've occasionally seen some daft people shouting and being obnoxious idiots too. As cities go its pretty okay. It is only small. However crime can happen anywhere I suppose.

I am a bit worried now about your knee and hills... mainly on the campus itself

Can you google map it and move around a bit with that to get some idea of the town and whether it would be a major problem?

The flattest place on your whole list is probably Birmingham to be honest which is built on the Midlands plane. Anything to the West of the country gets hillier. The North varies a lot. Only the East is very flat and I don't think you have any universities there.

P.S.
Just looked at the map and it looks like politics and international studies are in the Amory building in a central position and that the nearest post grad accomodation is Lawfroda Cottage which looks cute but only offers a 44 week rental c. 7 minutes to Amory it looks like or Rowe House which has a good reputation.

However St David's does 51 week rentals for postgrads.

Wow, this is incredible again! Seriously, I cannot thank you enough for all of your input and help. I was a bit lost and in need of some unbiased opinions and you have really helped me to figure everything out. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

My knees have been bad since I was about 10 and, in all honesty, they hurt no matter what I do (sitting, standing, walking, climbing) so there's a big part of me that thinks that if they'll hurt anyway then I may as well be happy and enjoy my course! Then part of me thinks that's just silly...but I prefer to listen to the first part of my argument. All my joints are dodgy, really, but it's the old knees that are the worst. Good to know that the Disability Services people are pretty good. As I've been out of the country for a while I don't think that I can get Disabled Student's Allowance but I did call and I spoke to someone in AccessAbility (the new snazzy name for the Disability Services department) and everything sounded pretty promising. It's amazing how different (in a good way) it is to things in the US.

Thanks for checking on the accommodation and the building's that I'd need to access. I did what you suggested and took a quick look round the campus on Google Earth and it does look beautiful...hilly but beautiful. It doesn't seem like a huge campus, which is good--is that right? It all looks fairly compact and cosy. The one thing that puzzled me was the houses on/around Highcroft Court...are they campus accommodation or are they not part of the campus? It looked like one was for sale but then it also looked like it was on campus. It's not really important but I wondered whether that was more accommodation that the university was maybe planning to purchase or something?

You said that you went to Royal Holloway, right? Compared to there would you say that Exeter has a better atmosphere? I know that you said Royal Holloway was very insular and conservative. It certainly seems like Exeter is more of a community but also more lively and less 'isolated' (maybe less 'isolating', too?). Also as you'd be a post grad the mix of students will be slightly broader as many will have come from other universities across the country and beyond. The post grads I've spoken to on open days all liked it better than their first uni's... though they were student ambassadors so maybe they were earning their money!!!

Right now I'm actually getting my transcript and a copy of my degree certificate all scanned and ready to send in tomorrow to make my offer unconditional now that I have all my grades and everything and then I think I'm going to go for it and accept...I feel nervous but really excited about it...I think!

Thanks again for everything!

hi

I am also looking into studying for MA in IR

I applied to SAIS Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center and Washington DC

I gave Science Po in Paris a chance but I dont like the fact its a 2 year program and the students seem quite young (iam old, 27)

In the UK I thought about LSE though the IR is already full i might apply for other programs

however in your opinion which of your choices is considered respectfully the best on a international level and gives a great career prospect: