Exeter vs Edinburgh for IR

Hey Everyone!

So I have offers from St. Andrews (International Relations + Modern History), Edinburgh (1. International Relations, 2. Politics with Economic and Social History) and Exeter (Flexible Combined Honours of International Relations, Economics and Security & Strategy).

I think I have ruled out St. Andrews on the grounds of being too American, and simply too small/remote.

At this time I am leaning towards Edinburgh for IR - however I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on both Edinburgh and Exeter esp for these courses? Factors that matter to me are academic rigour, variety of courses, quality of staff, teaching and feedback, as well as socializing, clubs/societies/recreational sports!

I am from Vancouver, Canada and grew up in Hong Kong if that makes a difference! I am also in the IB.

Thanks!

Reply 1

Marcy95

Hi, I am a first year FCH student here at Exeter, and one of my subjects is IR.

I don't know exactly what you mean with the term academic rigour but if you mean "challenging" then I can say that for me it has been so. Concepts were not difficult to grasp but the time management is certainly a skill we all need to develop here. And I can say I feel like I have learned a lot in these few months, like I feel that I have open my eyes on many issues. The modules in the department of Politics have been my favourites this year and in fact I am going to change the balance and take more credits in it next year. The academic staff is very multi-cultural, and lot of them with experience in big organizations. If you have a problem with Americans bear in mind we have a quite a few American lecturers here, although they are not a majority.
I think the best thing to do is to look at the list of the actual modules and see if they inspire you (not just the ones in first year). Flexible Combined Honour is very flexible but if I understand correctly you are interested in History, so you might want to know that you won't be able to take any History modules unless you start with History from the first year (same with Law). If you end up seriously considering Exeter you may consider ask the university to change Security with History, since Security modules are part of the Politics department anyway (and the History department has some seriously interesting modules!). In this way you will have access to all Politics, Economics, Islamic Institute (all the modules in the Islamic institute are open to politics students) and History modules, absolutely perfect!
Some teachers are better than others, this year I would say it has been 50/50, some were absolutely great, funny and inspiring and very caring, some of them were just plain boring. But I guess you will find a situation like this almost everywhere.
Feedback is good and you can always go and ask for more clarifications. And there is a lot of support available, like seriously everywhere. I have two personal tutors (lecturers), subject coordinators in the fch college, free academic skills tutorials (including one to one), indipendent guided-learning to help you get organized.
You won't have problems socialising, there are plenty of societies, and the Politcs society is one of the biggest ones. They invite a lot of speakers, although they are still working on improving the status of the guest speakers. They also organize workshops with professional, so very useful.
We have plenty of sports societies, although bear in mind that they are usually relatively expensive, or at least they seem so until you consider how much is included in the joining fee.

I hope this helps.
Overall I warmly suggest my university, but again, just look at the modules.

University of Exeter

Exeter

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