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Please help me choosing the university for Translation

Ok, after months waiting for a response, yesterday I received an offer from Imperial College for the Msc in Translation (science, medicine and technology).

The problem is: after being rejected by UCL I accepted the offer from Roehampton university for a MA in Specialised/Audiovisual Translation.
I already have my accommodation booked and I already paid a deposit of £250 to live in one of Roe's halls.
People and staff made me a very good impression, including my course convenor, who suggested me some pre-course reading and planned a meeting with our class before the beginning of the lessons.

But....yesterday, after what I could call a real agony and months of silence, the Imperial course director made me the offer.
(I have to say that he made me the offer by email saying that I had to accept or not logging in to the student service; but my status on the service is still stucked on "application being processed" and I cannot do anything....)
I searched for the accommodation at Imperial but they cost soo much and the "more affordable" for me is more than an hour from the campus (and has shared facilities whilst mine in Roe has private ones: both cost about the same).

Now. What should I do? I know that Roe has a growing reputation and I never heard about real complaints, but it is true that an Imperial on the curriculum is better. After all if you search for the top courses for modern languages/translation Roehampton is higher than Imperial.
What should I do? Loose the £250 and a course that seems interesting to me to prefer the "name" of the Imperial?
I come from a public "normal" uni in Italy and I really don't know what is better.

And, complicating things up, my boyfriend will go to St Andrews (grrrrrr :wink:

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HELP ME PLEASE!

Reply 1

Scholarly

I won't pretend that a top school name doesn't look / sound impressive - I did my MA at King's College London and admittedly, it does help with distributing business cards at conferences thay my holder is embossed with their logo.

However, while I did learn a lot while I was there I was unhappy as I didn't share values / assumptions with the core staff, and the university was far too big / dispersive for me to feel a connection to anyone, or even the institution.

Conversely, I did my BA at Liverpool and am doing my PhD in a very small satellite campus of Birmingham, so less high ranking overall but 1. prominent in my chosen field and 2. human in approach and scope.

My personal view is go where you feel you'd be happiest, irrespective of name, particulalrly as Roehampton does have a one.

Buona fortuna, da un'altra italiana!

Reply 2

Zusje

I applied for a MA in Translation at Manchester and Swansea, and after a lot of deliberation, went for Swansea. (I'll be starting there this September)
Why? Because Swansea seemed a better place for me to be, the lecturers were more interested in me as a prospective student, it's a lot cheaper to live, and I didn't have to do yet another English language test (which I had to do for Manchester, it would've cost me a lot of money I rather wanted to spend on my actual course).

So in the end it's more important for you to go for the uni that you will feel comfortable at, than the reputation of that university. It sounds like you were perfectly happy to go to Roehampton, so why not go there?

Reply 3

ferow88

Thanks for your answers!
Yes I was happy for Roe but that offer made me go crazy. There are moments in my day in which I'm totally for Roe and others in which I'm totally for Imperial.
I really like both courses, they both have interesting modules. Well..I'm really confused!
By the way thanks guys!

@ Scholarly: che fortuna aver fatto tutto il percorso universitario in UK! Ti invidio molto! :wink:

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