Swansea vs Lancaster

Hi!
I have applied to both Swansea and Lancaster for a history and politics course but am struggling to pick between the two. Lancaster is higher ranked all round, with a nice campus and overall general place to live. However, despite being lower ranked, Swansea has caught my eye due to its course being a lot more interesting, alongside the beach and campus itself. I was wondering if anyone had any advice or help on choosing between the two?

Reply 1

swanseajack1

Original post by KelseyLeah123

Lancaster is ranked as one of the best universities for History in the UK. It has a lovely campus but is someway outside quite a small city. Swansea is a much bigger city. Only you can decide whether you would be happier studying the favoured course or going on rankings. Generally most advise going for the favoured course as however good the raking is somewhere doesnt guarantee you happiness. Only you are really able to make that decision.

Swansea University

Visit website

Reply 2

SirJimalot

I have a bit of a unique experience here because I've just spent the last few months at Lancaster, then I decided to drop out recently and go to Swansea instead this September. I think personally I would recommend Swansea because my own experience of Lancaster wasn't great. I was studying Environmental Science and almost all of my lectures were pre-recorded, and although we were promised blended learning of a mix of in person and online live sessions, I probably only went into the Environment Centre building 3 times over the course of 3 months, and had about 6 live lectures/workshops. It didn't help that my flat wasn't the best, they were all really quiet and barely came out of their rooms, and as there was no way to meet up with our course mates or interact with them in lectures I felt massively isolated, and just sitting in my room or the (admittedly really nice) library all day watching what pre-recorded videos tanked my mental health fast, and I got incredibly behind on lectures.
My isolation was partly my own fault, but as someone who would have been really ill if they had got COVID, I didn't want to go out to parties as that would have been breaking lockdown restrictions, however I was never reached out to by my lecturers to check on why I wasn't doing my lectures, and had almost zero relationship with any of them. While this is my own personal experience, and I'm not saying this is everyone, I've seen enough people on here and Facebook go through similar things at Lancaster that it wouldn't surprise me. On the other hand, every single person I've seen talk about Swansea's support during the pandemic has been outstanding, and while the buildings might not be as pretty or have the most modern facilities, that really doesn't matter at the moment because we can't use them anyway. Swansea is a really nice place in person and imo its the perfect mix of small enough city but also gorgeous landscape around it, and as someone from the countryside I've always hated big cities. I wouldn't put too much faith in the rankings tbh because I know people who have gone to uni's below 30 on the table and love it more than my one friend who went to St Andrews. But in the end its about what seems right to you, I'd recommend going on freshers facebook groups to get to know people from both the unis, although the Swansea ones seem a bit dead atm, and look at the course content and modules in huge detail, because after all you're going there to study for 3 years not just to live there.