What are these universities like?

Brunel
Kent
Reading
University of West England Bristol

I'm already at university but don't feel like my course is challenging enough, I want to go to a slightly more prestigious university. What are these like? In terms of reputation, atmosphere etc..? My grades were AAB at A level so are they suitable for these kinds of universities? Any to suggest?

thanks

Depending upon the subject you can probably get into a more 'prestigious' uni than those with AAB. What is it you want to study?

I want to do English, or perhaps English and History. Problem is I had the B in English

AAB is good, you must aim higher don't undersell yourself but try avoid Manc/ Bham .

So you've only had one marked assignment all term?

Which University are you at?

I suggest you go and talk to your Personal tutor or individual course tutors before you assume anything about the academic 'quality' of the UWE course. You have not had any formal feedback on the majority of your assignments written in the first term. Therefore you dont have a clear idea of whether you are working at the expected level or not.

At Uni you are expected to do vastly more than just assignments and to do this 'extra' work mostly on your own, without any obvious push from tutors. Ultimately its up to you what you 'get out of' Uni' and depends on the amount of work you put in. No Uni is going to 'spoon feed' you in the way A level teachers do, and tell you what to do all the time. Many new Uni students dont grasp his big difference and stand about expecting to be told exactly what they should be doing/reading at every moment. Uni work *isnt* like this. And no University ('prestigious' or otherwise) is going to make it easy for you or give you fancy short-cuts to actually *doing the work*.

So, over Christmas and in the first weeks of next term you need to be reading *everything* on the reading list, following up references in those texts, reading all the current journal articles you can on any subject that interests you. Find some thesis written by PhD and Masters students in your Dept recently (Library catalogue) and *read them* cover to cover. Challenging enough?

On the other hand, if this sounds too much like hard work and you cant be bothered to put in this amount of time/work, then you have to ask yourself why you are at University at all?

I've gotten a 2:1 in my first assignment, I know that's not great, especially as I've said i don't find the course challenging haha but It was my first essay of the year so I didn't expect it to be that great. I got a B in English A level though so that really makes a difference on what kind of uni's I can apply to. My dream uni is Leeds. I loved it so much when I visited, everything falls short in comparison though, but I need 3 A's.