Soon-to-be Bristol Graduate 2016. AMA about my experience!

Procrastinating my dissertation a little so thought it'd be fun to see if anyone has general questions I can help answer.

Ps. I study Psychology and Philosophy which is now a discontinued course but I can still answer questions on either subject.

I've got 3 years of Bristol experience under my belt, so ask away.

Reply 1

Danish95

Oh, I might be starting psychology with innovation in September, so do you know anything about this new course? What was the highlights of your university experience? Where did you live and how was your budget throughout your three years? What are you doing next?

University of Bristol

Bristol

Reply 2

lou_100

Original post by Danish95

Hi, I've just had a look at the course spec on the Bristol website. I haven't heard about these Innovation courses, but by the looks of it it operates similarly to my joint-honours psychology timetable, in the sense that you will be taking half your units in the first three years with the rest of the BSc Psychology course, and half the units are specifically designed for MSci Psychology with Innovation students.

I can't tell you anything about the units you will take that are newly designed for the course, but I can for the others as I've done them. For example, in first year you do:
Foundations of Psychology
Introduction to Psychological Experiments and Statistics
Design and Systems Thinking for Innovation
Transdisciplinary Group Project I: Being Human

Foundations of psych and intro to stats are straight psychology units that you'll do with all the psychology students in big lecture theatres and then I assume, depending on numbers for the entry year, the design and systems thinking and group project will be with much smaller teaching groups.

In terms of the psychology units, I've really enjoyed my time. There's a good range of all topics, covering the 4 basic areas of psychology: biological, cognitive, social and developmental. The psychology department is fairly large, and has very good research facilities, a large body of enthusiastic teaching staff. They challenge you, as you'd expect, but don't completely throw you in the deep end and were very good in gradually weaning you in to university life. I never felt like anything was so completely overwhelming that I was drowning in my own confusion and despair, unlike a lot of my friends on other courses! There was always help at hand.

It's hard to pick out highlights. Generally, the city and nightlife have been absolutely fantastic. It's so cultural, busy and lots of quirky places to go without being so big that you have to travel miles to get anywhere. Public transport system is quite good, but you can even walk most places easily. The university is located close to the city centre (10 min walk max), but also on one campus so you never have to walk far between lectures, and everyone is in the same area everyday. I've also enjoyed the social atmosphere, and have had some really good student-teacher relationships too. Nothing is very formal, and I've often been to the pub to have my essay feedback with my tutors... genuinely. You also get lots of opportunities to explore you own ideas and do independent research, which is what university should be about.

In first year I lived in Badock, Stoke Bishop halls. This year and last year I've been living with friends within a 10 minute walk to the university. Most students will opt to live in the areas directly surrounding the university as this is where most of the student houses are! Not like other unis where student houses can be a 20 minute bus/car ride away.

I'm a bad budgeter, so I've probably spent a lot more than most people will. Rent for 2nd+ years in your own homes/flats is normally £80-120 per week, with most people I know spending £100-110 per week. It's quite expensive. Weekly spending can be anything from £40-140 depending on simply who you are. You might shop only Sainsburys Basics food, never buy alcohol and rarely go out, and live comfortably on £40 per week. Or you might enjoy buying some clothes, going out a couple times a week, opting for branded foods, buying lunches out at uni instead of bringing your own etc etc., and you're looking at 80+ per week. Like I said, I'm quite awful with money and I spend around £400-450 per month on food, clothes, pubs, clubs, eating out etc.

I'm going on a gap year next, just through personal choice though.

Reply 3

Danish95

Okay, thanks this is really helpful. I'm having to choose between Durham, Bristol, Birmingham and Cardiff and as I have not been able to visit any of the universities, I'm really unsure. Do you know if it's easy getting a part time job in Bristol, and what does a 'normal' day look luke for you, I mean how much time do you spend reading, going to classes, doing assignments etc., and what does your day normally consist of?

Reply 4

lou_100

Original post by Danish95

I know people at all of those universities. Durham you'd probably be less likely to find a job easily due to the small size of the city and the vast student population also thinking the same thing. I know loads of people who have gotten jobs at Bristol. Most of them have worked in bars or restaurants simply because the hours are the best match for a university timetable (i.e. you can work evenings and weekends but things like retail jobs you could only work weekends). It's also pretty easy to get bar jobs at the local clubs and I know lots of people who select their hours as the whole staffing body is students so they chop and change. You can also do things like become a rep for a club which just means organising guest lists for student nights and selling tickets on an ongoing basis.

Most people at Bristol tend to be in unis most days. I think they do this on purpose. i.e. as opposed to other unis giving students all their hours on one day and then a 6 day weekend.

In first year (and probably second) I would have between 10-15 contact hours per week which would mean being in uni for 2-3 contact hours each day. Lectures are organised in hour long chunks so any gaps in the timetable for the day means you can go to a cafe or library and sit and do some work or meet some friends for a lunch hour etc. Contact hours varied a little between terms as you get a new timetable change every time you start/end a module. Modules aren't all run simultaneously all year, you might have the Cognitive module for the first 6 weeks of first year, followed by 6 weeks of the Developmental module. Meanwhile you'd have the first statistics module for the first 12 weeks etc. So your timetable will vary a bit every few weeks.

To be honest first year and even second year involved neither an overwhelming nor underwhelming amount of work. Some days the only tasks were to go to lectures, others would involve a couple hours in the library or a night sitting in bed to finish off an assignment. 1 or 2 assignments were due roughly every 6 weeks and it took around 3-4 days of work around lectures to polish off one good assignment (obviously, there were some I did in less than a day in first year - as everyone does at some point).
In second year you start doing group presentations, which requires some meetings with your group (around an extra 3-5 hours per week for 2-3 weeks just before your presentation date).

3rd year is when it gets pretty busy (I currently am working at the library from 8.30am to at least 4pm everyday but have stayed past 8pm once or twice) but it's also the most enjoyable year so as long as you enjoy your subject it will be enjoyable work. You also do some solo presentations in 3rd year.

As an indicator, the to-do list for typical first year day might look like this:
Lecture 10-11
Tutorial 11-12
Meet friends for lunch 12-1
Lecture 1-2
Bus home with a stop at sainsburys 2-3
Watch some netflix 3-5
Read some psychology papers for an upcoming essay 5-7
7pm onwards - dinner and a night out.

Hope all that helped.
(Again, yours is a new course so it won't be exactly the same)

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 5

lou_100

PS on the other hand, a typical third year day is this:

Library 9am-12pm
Lectures 12-2
Quick lunch break
Back to the library until 4pm
Meetings with your supervisors/tutors until 5pm
Meet Jane to run over some statistics until 6.30
Go home for dinner whilst reading a few papers for the upcoming essay
9pm frantically get ready because you have friends come over for pre drinks
Get very drunk and wake up at 8am to do it all over again.

Reply 6

MichaelJames97

Original post by lou_100

Hi, would you say living in Stoke bishop I worth it ? Have heard constantly that it's more social but not much about the walk and distance, and obviously orchard heights etc are now available in the centre. Thanks