Cambridge, Durham, UCL or Exeter?

Hi,

Will (or have) you have a chance to visit the unis and look around the campus? After choosing the uni, (I'm partially sighted) I contacted the disability department and asked if it was possible to come up on my own (that is, not on an open day when there would be hundreds of other students around) and have a look around the campus. I found that really helped me.

Sorry I dont have any advice I could give you.

Could I just ask though. How can you read the messages if youre blind? If you dont mind me asking.

Screen reader / text to speech software.

Hi all,I know there are quite a few similar threads on here, but my situation is quite unique and I really need advice! This is going to be slightly off topic (I'd probably be better off posting this thread in the English forum or the mature students'' forum), but I do have disability-specific questions too.

For those who have never "met" me, I' have been blind since birth and am from the EU. I have a long and complicated story which I've been sharing on here in different forums. To cut it short, English is what I've always wanted to study, but I haven't been able to start uni in England for personal reasons. Before sending in my UCAS application on the 7th, I'd discussed my unique situation with my uni choices and they were all very understanding. I've applied to Cambridge (Wolfson College, as I'll be 22 by the time I start my course), Durham (St Chad's College), UCL and Exeter (the Exeter campus). I'd applied to three of these and two other unis before, and I got offers from everywhere except Cambridge, but I ended up having to withdraw my application.I have excellent exam results from two years ago so I stand a good chance of getting at least three offers again.

It goes without saying that I'd be happy at any of these unis (especially Cambridge or Durham!), as they all have an excellent reputation both overall and for English specifically, their disability support systems seem amazing, and, probably most importantly, they all offer bursaries and scholarships to help with my living costs. Some of these scholarships are of course very competitive and they all have different eligibility criteria, but I've done my research and I've also started looking for alternative funding sources, both in the UK and in my home country.If I do get into Cambridge this time, I'll obviously go there, but if I get rejected again, I don't want to have to think about which of my other choices to firm. I've researched all 4 unis and courses very carefully before sending in the UCAs application and I honestly love the look of all 4.

Being blind, my priorities are quite different from "ordinary" students' - I really don't care about aesthetics, nightlife or how many pubs there are around Cambridge/Durham/London/Exeter. If you're an English student at any of these unis, I'd really appreciate it if you could give me a list of pros and cons of your uni based on the following:- How accessible is the college/campus/faculty building? - distance between catered halls and the English department at your uni or your college and your uni and how easy or hard it is to get from A to B (I can only imagine how hard this must be for a sighted person to describe, but every little detail helps!)- the quality of the food- how "visual" is your course? (I've read on Exeter's course description that "attention is paid to the study of film", which is really starting to put me off Exeter!- the city - I've read Durham is "hilly". I hope this doesn't mean I won't be able to take their offer (they gave mean unconditional llast time!)- anything you know about the disability support centre, or antying else you think I should knowI can't think of anything else at the moment, but I'll pobably update this list later. Thanks for reading this at all!

Hi :-) I've just withdrawn after a year at Durham as a registered disabled student so I feel kinda well placed to comment.
I think TBH the most important thing will be the support offered by your college. I didn't find DU disability services very helpful (they told me my case was too complicated and just told me to use the NHS services which I found appalling in Durham), but the support staff at Trevelyan went above and beyond for me with 24/7 (literally) care.
My best advice would be to attend an open day and find out about the support your college has to offer. For example my college provided me with a room with my own kitchen and bathroom despite being a shared bathroom, fully catered college. So I'm not sure what your college can offer but you should definitely find out before accepting any offers.
Hope that helps :-) feel free to message me!