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Sheffield vs Manchester vs Bath vs Leeds

Hello everyone, I'm currently in my final year of school and I've applied to the universities of Bath, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield for a foundation year. I've been accepted into all of them with conditional offers aside from bath, which I have an unconditional offer for.

I was wondering if you guys could help shed some light on which Universities are good and which one of them I should cross off my list? I've tried doing so much research and have not come up with anything but a great list for all the above. If you guys could please evaluate the universities and let me know the pros and cons to any you have expertise with, or any of which you have heard of and are sure of, then that would really mean a lot to me. Please ignore the conditions for now as they can be achieved.

If it's of any help, I'm going to major in Civil Engineering. Thank you all in advance!
Reply 1
Original post by othebest
Hello everyone, I'm currently in my final year of school and I've applied to the universities of Bath, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield for a foundation year. I've been accepted into all of them with conditional offers aside from bath, which I have an unconditional offer for.

I was wondering if you guys could help shed some light on which Universities are good and which one of them I should cross off my list? I've tried doing so much research and have not come up with anything but a great list for all the above. If you guys could please evaluate the universities and let me know the pros and cons to any you have expertise with, or any of which you have heard of and are sure of, then that would really mean a lot to me. Please ignore the conditions for now as they can be achieved.

If it's of any help, I'm going to major in Civil Engineering. Thank you all in advance!


I recommend Sheffield
Mappin Building
University of Sheffield
Sheffield
Reply 2
Original post by RedManc
I recommend Sheffield


Can you evaluate please? Any reasons why or why not? Like what are the pros and cons of sheffield in your opinion, and what stands out compared to the other universities?
Reply 3
Original post by othebest
Can you evaluate please? Any reasons why or why not? Like what are the pros and cons of sheffield in your opinion, and what stands out compared to the other universities?


Because the universe orbits around Sheffield
Reply 4
Original post by RedManc
Because the universe orbits around Sheffield


Can we be serious please? This is my future :s
For engineering go to Bath as it has the best reputation of those for engineering, unless you require more of a city life then it's pretty much a 3 way coin flip between Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester. I think Sheffield is more engineering oriented than the other two and they're also investing in a lot of civil related projects around the uni which is going to help with your job prospects later down the line, but I don't know enough about the other 2 to comment.
Reply 6
Original post by Helloworld_95
For engineering go to Bath as it has the best reputation of those for engineering, unless you require more of a city life then it's pretty much a 3 way coin flip between Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester. I think Sheffield is more engineering oriented than the other two and they're also investing in a lot of civil related projects around the uni which is going to help with your job prospects later down the line, but I don't know enough about the other 2 to comment.

Thank you so much! I really do appreciate this. I think I'll take the university of Leeds off of my list; is it true that living in the university of sheffield would drain the life out of you? I'm not into drinking and all that but I do like the party life. Is bath any fun and does it actually have things to do? Money will not be a problem what so ever hopefully.
Original post by othebest
Thank you so much! I really do appreciate this. I think I'll take the university of Leeds off of my list; is it true that living in the university of sheffield would drain the life out of you? I'm not into drinking and all that but I do like the party life. Is bath any fun and does it actually have things to do? Money will not be a problem what so ever hopefully.


Depends what you mean by drain the life out of you. If you mean stress then the engineering courses are pretty intense but most people cope and thrive, managing to keep up a few extracurriculars and go out a decent amount. For the night life it gets hectic during first year, most people will be going out ~3 nights per week and some will go out more. Second year that'll drop down to 1 or 2 on average. It's definitely possible to avoid the drinking life but to be honest the party life and non-drinking life don't really mix at uni.

At Bath it seems less busy but its not completely empty, people will often take trips to Bristol for more of a nightlife and more things to do in general.
Reply 8
Original post by Helloworld_95
Depends what you mean by drain the life out of you. If you mean stress then the engineering courses are pretty intense but most people cope and thrive, managing to keep up a few extracurriculars and go out a decent amount. For the night life it gets hectic during first year, most people will be going out ~3 nights per week and some will go out more. Second year that'll drop down to 1 or 2 on average. It's definitely possible to avoid the drinking life but to be honest the party life and non-drinking life don't really mix at uni.

At Bath it seems less busy but its not completely empty, people will often take trips to Bristol for more of a nightlife and more things to do in general.


I'm more than prepared for the stress of university, and extracurriculars are something i'm looking forward to but not my priority for leisure time. I was wondering if Bath is in fact boring. Is there no life to it? Nothing I can do? It's what i hear. Furthermore how is sheffield as a university? Is it good? Can you rank these 4 for me? Is sheffield a really good university? I heard it has nothing to do. Which one would be better in terms of education firstly, and secondly in terms of things and activities to do?
Original post by othebest
I'm more than prepared for the stress of university, and extracurriculars are something i'm looking forward to but not my priority for leisure time. I was wondering if Bath is in fact boring. Is there no life to it? Nothing I can do? It's what i hear. Furthermore how is sheffield as a university? Is it good? Can you rank these 4 for me? Is sheffield a really good university? I heard it has nothing to do. Which one would be better in terms of education firstly, and secondly in terms of things and activities to do?


Trust me when I say you cannot be prepared for the stress of university, that's not to say you won't be able to cope with it, just that you are extremely unlikely to have a clear picture of it. Especially for engineering, the stress/intensity of university will outweigh a full time job twofold at times.

You're better off asking about Bath in their forum rather than the Sheffield one.

Sheffield's a pretty good university, it's a top tier engineering school and highly respected internationally. It's very close knit and an everyone knows everyone kind of university. I've never heard Sheffield be described as having nothing to do except by locals, the nightlife punches well above its weight for a city of Sheffield's size, the Peak district offers a lot of things, there's also plenty of restaurants and cafes. Within the uni there's tonnes of societies and other activities to get involved with, you'll have a bigger problem finding time to do everything than finding things to do.

If I were to rank them Bath would win for education, Sheffield would win for education in a major city, Manchester would win for things to do by a small margin.

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