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University of Manchester or Leeds?

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Reply 20

jelly1000

Benji84

Manchester.

I've studied at Leeds and didn't think much of it.

why exactly didnt you like it? its just everyone else ive spoken to who went to leeds said they loved it.

Reply 21

Ollie20

Benji84

Manchester.

I've studied at Leeds and didn't think much of it.

What were the bad points?
Are you on about the city or the uni being bad?

Reply 22

Maker

I went to Manchester and my sister went to Leeds so Manchester is obviously better.

Reply 23

SPJC

Ollie20

I've got offers to do BA Economics at Manchester (ABB) and to do BA Economics and French at Leeds (ABC with Access to Leeds). I also got ABB from Sheffield but I'm not set on going there. I've been rejected from Bristol and Warwick and have A*AA predicted in French, Maths and Economics respectively. I've got several good points and bad points for both unis.

Manchester:
Pros:
-Solid Red Brick with a good reputation
-Legendary nightlife
-Easier course and you choose modules
-Accomodation location is more practical, i.e. in the student dominated area of Fallowfield
-Closer to home
Cons:
-Manchester doesn't rank highly in league tables

Leeds
Pros:
-Solid Red Brick with a good reputation
-Good social scene and a good union
-I can continue with my French, however I only want to be able to speak it and don't care for the history of France at all. I'm thinking about taking a year out in France after graduating.
Cons:
-Further from home
-Accomodation, i.e. Boddington is very far out. I want to stay somewhere self catered and with shared facilites to keep costs down.

Does anyone have any advice they can give me? About Leeds + Manchester as unis/campuses and cities? Or about the courses?
Will Rep :wink:

Edit: At Leeds I'll get an annual scholarship of £3000, and at Manchester it will be somewhere around £2000, not including government support.

Haha! You are in exactly the same situation as me, I cannot decide to do Econ at Manchester or Leeds AND I am from Birmingham!

I am a bit lucky to have some friends who are studying Econ at Manch and Leeds and they both have rave reviews for both cities and unis. PM me if you want some more info!

Reply 24

Ollie20

Maker

I went to Manchester and my sister went to Leeds so Manchester is obviously better.

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I've just spent a week in France.
Why do you think Manchester is better?

Reply 25

Maker

Ollie20

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I've just spent a week in France.
Why do you think Manchester is better?

Because I went there and its a happening place.

Reply 26

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

if you're predicted A*AA and you do get those grades i'd re apply. Sure you're wasting a year but you can do a lot better than manchester or leeds for economics - it's only stupid taking a gap year to get into oxbridge if you got into a top economics uni.

Also you made a point about not wanting to sacrifice night life for work hence you choosing manc or leeds. At Uni you don't go out every single night - despite all the hype - and the second you get into uni, you'll realise that,

Reply 27

MagicNMedicine

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Bearing in mind he said he didn't like stats, hence wanting to do the BA rather than BSc at Manchester, it might be that Manchester is the best fit for him. If he reapplies and gets into Warwick for example, he's going to find it a lot more maths and stats intensive.

As long as he's not got ambitions of being a banker/economist etc the BA will be fine if he gets a 1st in it

Reply 28

mr_qwerty

MagicNMedicine

Yeah I agree.

Btw, in regards to the second point, does it mean its rare for BA econ students to get into banking/economist positions? even if its not at a top city firm and just back office?
So what jobs are generally available/viable for BA econ students?

Reply 29

MagicNMedicine

The government/public sector jobs won't be bothered that you've done a BA. The tests for the GES (from what I've seen) seem to be more about whether you can think like an economist and apply economic theory to different situations, than testing your quantitative skills.

It's the banks who want the quantitative people - rightly or wrongly, and there are those who say they have made a mistake in being overreliant on super-numerate graduates creating mathematical models which end up being erroneous due to human behaviour not being the sort of thing you can model like a natural science. However the preference for quantitative degrees in the banks remains, which is why the general advice amongst the super-competitive folk on the TSR forums who are seeking banking positions, is to do as mathematical an economics degree as possible. This type of degree would also open doors into actuarial work as well.

If you do well on a BA though, providing your maths is solid enough to support your economics, you will be able to get work with it, ask your uni careers service on destinations of people whove done the BA if in doubt, remember that a lot of the advice from the posters on TSR is talking about investment banking.

Reply 30

Ollie20

I emailed the economics department at the University of Manchester, and they said that the degree certificate would read 'BA(Economics and Social Studies) Specialising in Economics'. How soft does that sound?! Would you have thought that employers would look negatively on it?

Reply 31

MagicNMedicine

Not really, if you are applying for a job when you have to show a copy of your degree certificate the odds are they will also want your transcript, degrees have all sorts of funny names so what they will be interested in is whats on your transcript, ie what have you studied and more to the point, what marks did you get.

Also remember that most graduate recruiters have their own rigorous selection procedures, online tests, assessment centres etc, and they pick people off how well they do on these rather than the title of their degree or where they have studied.

Reply 32

Ollie20

MagicNMedicine

So what you're saying is that the 'social studies' part of the degree certificate won't look soft or a doss to employers?

Reply 33

MagicNMedicine

Not really, employers know the University of Manchester doesn't do doss degrees. The relevant point, depending on what job you are going for, will be what modules they see in there on your transcript, eg if you want to be an actuary, and have stuff like Further Maths for Economists, Further Stats for Economics, Time Series Econometrics on there, they aren't going to say "this is soft because it has social studies in the title".

Depending on what you want to do in future just put thought into your module choice.

Reply 34

Shook

andy12691

Isn't manchester uni very respected for economics ? and the uni overall reputation is quite high too?

38th for Economics, below Nottingham Trent.

However, this just shows league tables don't mean much...

Reply 35

MagicNMedicine

On the most recent RAE Manchester was joint 10th with Cambridge for research quality: an.co.uk/education/table/2008/dec/18/rae-2008-economics-and-econometrics

1 LSE
2 UCL
=5 Essex, Oxford, Warwick
= 8 Bristol, Nottm, Q Mary
= 10 Cambridge, Manchester
= 13 Glasgow, R Holloway, Soton
= 15 Edinburgh, Exeter
= 17 Kent, Leicester
= 19 Aberdeen, Birkbeck
= 21 Sheffield, Surrey
= 26 Birmingham, East Anglia, Stirling, Swansea, York
= 28 St Andrews, Sussex
= 30 Brunel, City