The Student Room Group

What could be done to make your time at uni a higher quality experience?

How could your university life be improved?
Perhaps a change of course? Tidier flat? Quieter room-mates? More money?

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Reply 1
Original post by leedswest
Read more!


Read more for studying?
Reply 2
More money definitely.
Reply 3
More money -> spend more money in clubs -> stay wasted throughout the night -> have a great time.

Drinks in London clubs are so ****ing expensive even in student nights. Cheapest Jager bombs I've found are £2.50, double vodka mixer is like £3. Some even have £5 Jager bombs WTF. We basically all just pre-drink really hard, but then it wears off half way through and so it's like... what now.
More money would be lovely :yy:

A tidier flat would've been nice in first year, but mess is pretty much unavoidable in a flat full of lazy students :lol:
Reply 5
Grass on all the idiots who break the uni rules in Halls. That includes racist and homophobic comments during pub crawls on campus. Get them expelled.
I might be the only one to say this, but in first year I would have changed absolutely nothing, best year ever. However, no doubt, from second year onwards it'll be less work/more free time to go out. :rolleyes:
Reply 7
More girls from Plymouth.
Cheaper accommodation/ a greater choice of accommodation (so there were some genuinely cheaper ones to chose - I really don't need a luxury ensuite...)
Nicer kitchens (bigger, cleaner - I don't think the oven had been cleaned in 50 years..., shared with less people, bigger fridge - half a shelf each really isn't enough...)
Quieter corridor - e.g. by filling in a form about your social habits before the uni allocated you to a particular corridor, so all those who wanted to party all night could do so without disturbing those of us who like some sleep
Accommodation closer to the department/ in a wider choice of locations - one of the drawbacks of the collegiate system is that most/ all of each college's accommodation is in one location, and mine just happens to be about as far away as you can get from my department...
Cheaper food in hall/ prices equalised across the university
Less work would be nice too...
Reply 9
Societies in general could be improved a lot at my university, most if not all of them have barely any members and usually only consist of second and third years whom happened to be the people who set up the society in the first place, they're pretty much all dead and haven't even been active on any social networking websites for months or in some cases even over half a year. There could also be a lot more societies available too.
Original post by dragonkeeper999
filling in a form about your social habits before the uni allocated you to a particular corridor, so all those who wanted to party all night could do so without disturbing those of us who like some sleep
.


Interesting suggestion, I've always thought about how they should implement something like this, although different to yours. In first year I got put with people on courses not related to mine whatsoever (I was doing history and politics whereas they were doing sport related degrees and game design) and as a result we didn't have anything in common at all. I think it would be really good to fill out a form when applying for accommodation to state your interests or something like that so they can put you with more like minded individuals. It could also just be improved by putting people on somewhat similar courses in hoping to achieve the same result but for less work, say I could of been put with someone else doing a social science degree such as philosophy, history, politics, international relations, etc. you get the idea. I'm also interested in languages so If I filled out an interest form when applying for accommodation I would of loved to be put with someone who is studying a languages degree.
Original post by dragonkeeper999

Quieter corridor - e.g. by filling in a form about your social habits before the uni allocated you to a particular corridor, so all those who wanted to party all night could do so without disturbing those of us who like some sleep


I agree on this i will be so peed if i end up with a dorm full of party goers who dont understand the importance of sleep
Original post by Clip
More girls from Plymouth.


Any reason why? :tongue:


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Original post by Ruffiio
Interesting suggestion, I've always thought about how they should implement something like this, although different to yours. In first year I got put with people on courses not related to mine whatsoever (I was doing history and politics whereas they were doing sport related degrees and game design) and as a result we didn't have anything in common at all. I think it would be really good to fill out a form when applying for accommodation to state your interests or something like that so they can put you with more like minded individuals. It could also just be improved by putting people on somewhat similar courses in hoping to achieve the same result but for less work, say I could of been put with someone else doing a social science degree such as philosophy, history, politics, international relations, etc. you get the idea. I'm also interested in languages so If I filled out an interest form when applying for accommodation I would of loved to be put with someone who is studying a languages degree.


Good idea! At my college, you were (almost) always put in a room next to someone studying the same subject, but other people on your corridor would be doing different subjects - although I quite like the variety this gives and the opportunity to meet more people as otherwise I would probably only know tonnes of scientists...

Another thing I would love is if I could study a language module as part of my degree, it's such a useful skill to have...
Original post by dragonkeeper999
Good idea! At my college, you were (almost) always put in a room next to someone studying the same subject, but other people on your corridor would be doing different subjects - although I quite like the variety this gives and the opportunity to meet more people as otherwise I would probably only know tonnes of scientists...

Another thing I would love is if I could study a language module as part of my degree, it's such a useful skill to have...


They don't do language courses at your university? You should ask them too :dontknow: I studied a German beginners language course alongside my degree and it was great. Lots of languages to choose from at varying difficulties to suit everybody. :smile:
Original post by Ruffiio
They don't do language courses at your university? You should ask them too :dontknow: I studied a German beginners language course alongside my degree and it was great. Lots of languages to choose from at varying difficulties to suit everybody. :smile:


You can do language courses through the Language Centre, but they don't count towards your degree and you have to pay (although sometimes you can apply for college funding). Also, they are an additional commitment for at least two terms, four hours a week on top of uni work, which is hard to fit in :frown:
There is for a few courses (very few) the opportunity to do a short language module (I think Engineering, Chemistry - although the system doesn't make it a particularly easy option as it's rather self-taught and a lot more work than the alternatives, history - old languages only, people doing weird subjects like 'Asian and Middle Eastern Studies' - relevant languages e.g. Chinese only)
Original post by dragonkeeper999
You can do language courses through the Language Centre, but they don't count towards your degree and you have to pay (although sometimes you can apply for college funding). Also, they are an additional commitment for at least two terms, four hours a week on top of uni work, which is hard to fit in :frown:
There is for a few courses (very few) the opportunity to do a short language module (I think Engineering, Chemistry - although the system doesn't make it a particularly easy option as it's rather self-taught and a lot more work than the alternatives, history - old languages only, people doing weird subjects like 'Asian and Middle Eastern Studies' - relevant languages e.g. Chinese only)


Ah, mine was kind of like that, It was separate to my degree so technically it wasn't part of my degree and It was an extra 2 hours on top of my degree work throughout the entire academic year. You can take a language course at my university so that it is part of your degree but then you have to pass it otherwise it will contribute to hindering your degree progression. I personally didn't like that idea since learning a new language can be hard so I chose the option of separating it from my actual degree just in case. (Luckily I didn't have to pay though because it's free to university students, quite a few hundred pounds for someone else though) I find it kind of stupid the way you have to pay for the language stuff at your university though considering you're paying £9000 a year I'm assuming, surely the cost of the language courses should be free because of that, plus it's beneficial to the student anyway which you'd think the university would want to help with getting better job prospects for their graduates by acquiring new skills.
Original post by Ruffiio
Ah, mine was kind of like that, It was separate to my degree so technically it wasn't part of my degree and It was an extra 2 hours on top of my degree work throughout the entire academic year. You can take a language course at my university so that it is part of your degree but then you have to pass it otherwise it will contribute to hindering your degree progression. I personally didn't like that idea since learning a new language can be hard so I chose the option of separating it from my actual degree just in case. (Luckily I didn't have to pay though because it's free to university students, quite a few hundred pounds for someone else though) I find it kind of stupid the way you have to pay for the language stuff at your university though considering you're paying £9000 a year I'm assuming, surely the cost of the language courses should be free because of that, plus it's beneficial to the student anyway which you'd think the university would want to help with getting better job prospects for their graduates by acquiring new skills.


There are a few funds you can apply for to pay for the course - but usually it's a 'pay back the money if you pass' system and you are required to meet various criteria. Plus applying for funding is a lot of hassle and competitive. And you don't usually get told whether you've got the funding until the end of term at the earliest, and the language courses start a the beginning of the first term of each year - therefore I would have to apply the previous year for the funding (which I didn't do - so would now have to wait until my third year to do the language course if I wanted to know beforehand if anyone was going to help me pay for it, and third year is kinda the most important year for my degree...).
Basically, funding issues make the whole thing a pain :frown:

And yeah, I totally agree - I'm spending a fortune on my degree already, so courses which help my CV etc. should really be free, particularly considering how much they spend substidising societies etc.
Original post by Armadillo
How could your university life be improved?
Perhaps a change of course? Tidier flat? Quieter room-mates? More money?


More time spent doing something useful, joining a society or learning a language rather than just going out all the time.

Original post by Xotol
More money -> spend more money in clubs -> stay wasted throughout the night -> have a great time.

Drinks in London clubs are so ****ing expensive even in student nights. Cheapest Jager bombs I've found are £2.50, double vodka mixer is like £3. Some even have £5 Jager bombs WTF. We basically all just pre-drink really hard, but then it wears off half way through and so it's like... what now.


£2.50 jagerbomb is fairly average to be honest, the stuff that goes into the £1-£1.50 ones isn't real jager and you need twice as much to have the effect of one jagerbomb. Double vodka mixer for £3 isn't bad either I expected London to be more expensive than that to be honest. Minus the £5 jagerbomb which is what you'd pay in any revolution bar I'm in Huddersfield and that's quite average prices.
Reply 19
Original post by victoriajackson
£2.50 jagerbomb is fairly average to be honest, the stuff that goes into the £1-£1.50 ones isn't real jager and you need twice as much to have the effect of one jagerbomb. Double vodka mixer for £3 isn't bad either I expected London to be more expensive than that to be honest. Minus the £5 jagerbomb which is what you'd pay in any revolution bar I'm in Huddersfield and that's quite average prices.


Problem is that food, rent and basically everything else is really expensive so you don't get too much money to spend in clubs, and the drink prices really hit you if you want to sustain a good level of tipsy throughout the whole night.

I would say on average, jagerbombs are £3-£4 and double vodka mixers are like £3.50-£4.50 for a standard student night.

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