Postgraduate applicants 2017/2018

Got an offer for International Political Economy at Warwick

Been a while since I posted on here (because Kings and UCL took forever). I ended up getting accepted to Kings for MSc international marketing and my portal for UCL Msc Management just changed to Currently being processed by admissions, which means I'll know by midnight as I have been told by others

Hi everyone!

KCL: Master of Arts in Terrorism, Security & Society (applied about 3 weeks ago)
St Andrews: Master of Letters in Terrorism and Political Violence (applied about one hour ago)

Not too sure about what will happen, but I am really excited to find out!

Hey, I've applied to both courses, have an offer from KCL, and withdrawing my application from St Andrews (I'm doing my undergrad there and want the change, prefer the course at St Andrews)

Hey, yeah I think I remember you from the War Studies thread. Congrats on the offer. From your perspective would you say that the St Andrews course is good in terms of teaching/employability in comparison to King's?

I mean, the St Andrews course is second to none really because of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, which has amazing staff. The former principal was a terrorism studies expert and it's become a forte of the university. Teaching and employability are both great from St Andrews. If I hadn't done 4 years here, I'd do my masters here without a doubt. I think King's will be slightly less favoured by employers with regards to Terrorism related degrees.

That said, it's in London and if you plan on finding a job in political risk analysis (which most graduates of terrorism and security related degrees aim form) then London is the place to be.

As I said, for me it was a location thing. I'm done with small towns and want a faster paced lifestyle. If you've been in a city uni for undergrad, you might prefer St Andrews. KCL does have a few more modules that I find more interesting than St Andrews, but that's personal preference.

Thanks for the thorough answer!
I agree on all of these points, but I guess that if money weren't such a big factor my final decision about where to go would probably be different.
St Andrews is undeniably cheaper and it does seem like a great place to study Terrorism. My only worry is the balance between traditional thinking and intellectual freedom.. I'd definitely wouldn't want to go to a Uni that does not favour critical theories and alternative thinking!

In terms of employability, I am not sure whether I will stay in the UK for the next couple of years so international reputation matters a lot too. But that's if I get an offer first, haha.

St Andrews may be cheaper for tuition, but it's not cheap for flats. Obviously you can find cheap flats but the average going rate is £500-600 per person per month. From doing a search of flatshares in London it works out a bit more expensive in London, but not by much at all.

St Andrews lecturers love their critical theory, trust me I did enough of it across undergrad. KCL probably ranks higher internationally but that's because it's a bigger uni, St Andrews is one of the smallest fully comprehensive universities in the UK so has a smaller research output.

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/publications/coursecatalogue/postgraduate/2016-2017/pgintrel-Terrorism_and_Political_Violence-full%20time.pdf

That's the current course catalogue from St Andrews, although I think you can choose other masters level modules from other programs.