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What uni should I firm, Sussex or Lancaster ?

I applied for psychology and received the same offer from both unis. ABB. I'm not sure which one to choose though

Sussex is ranked 15th for psychology. It is closer as I live in London. Its a four year course with a professional placement year. But it's accommodation is more expensive and its TEF is silver

Lancaster is ranked 9th for psychology and is more respected. It's TEF is gold. It has cheaper housing.But it's located at North England and doesn't offer a placement year, only summer internships.

Should I choose the one with a placement year so I gain experience, increasing my chances to pursue a career in psychology. Or go to a more respected uni, Lancaster, and do a year of work experience on my own after I finish uni and before I apply to masters

Is Lancaster uni boring? I do want to enjoy uni life too
Neither. It’s far too soon to be picking a firm choice!

You have until May next year to make your choices, use the 6 months to find out more. Both universities will invite you to visit - go along and speak to as many students and staff as you can to work out where you will thrive.

Do NOT add your decisions on Track until April at the earliest.
Original post by eda_sah
I applied for psychology and received the same offer from both unis. ABB. I'm not sure which one to choose though

Sussex is ranked 15th for psychology. It is closer as I live in London. Its a four year course with a professional placement year. But it's accommodation is more expensive and its TEF is silver

Lancaster is ranked 9th for psychology and is more respected. It's TEF is gold. It has cheaper housing.But it's located at North England and doesn't offer a placement year, only summer internships.

Should I choose the one with a placement year so I gain experience, increasing my chances to pursue a career in psychology. Or go to a more respected uni, Lancaster, and do a year of work experience on my own after I finish uni and before I apply to masters

Is Lancaster uni boring? I do want to enjoy uni life too

No hurry to choose between them at all, but it won't matter career wise which uni you pick for Psychology so you should choose whichever uni you feel you would be more suited to and happiest at. I wouldn't say Lancaster uni is boring - you can still have a great time if you meet the right people. However, the city is a lot quieter than Brighton so if you are the sort of person who enjoys shopping and going out to bars, restaurants, clubs etc, there will be a lot more options in Brighton.

As for the placement years/summer internships, you generally have to find the placement yourself although the uni may have some contacts to help you. Before choosing a uni based on the placement year, people need to check how much support unis really do offer their students in finding them and what sort of organisations previous students have worked at.
Original post by eda_sah
I applied for psychology and received the same offer from both unis. ABB. I'm not sure which one to choose though

Sussex is ranked 15th for psychology. It is closer as I live in London. Its a four year course with a professional placement year. But it's accommodation is more expensive and its TEF is silver

Lancaster is ranked 9th for psychology and is more respected. It's TEF is gold. It has cheaper housing.But it's located at North England and doesn't offer a placement year, only summer internships.

Should I choose the one with a placement year so I gain experience, increasing my chances to pursue a career in psychology. Or go to a more respected uni, Lancaster, and do a year of work experience on my own after I finish uni and before I apply to masters

Is Lancaster uni boring? I do want to enjoy uni life too

Hello,
I'm from London but study at Lancaster so hopefully I can help you out a little.
Firstly, Lancaster is definitely cheaper to live. Usually rents include all bills as well so you won't have additional costs. The train travel is obviously longer and can be more expensive to and from Euston so that depends on how often you think you'll want to go home. As another user said, just because you're on a placement year programme doesn't mean you'll do one. Lots of people I know changed their minds - they were in relationships or wanted to live with their friends or just didn't want to be at uni for longer. Some people simply didn't get any placements. Do you know exactly what you want to do with your degree? One of my close friends does Psychology and wants to go into clinical Psychology. She's currently on the career mentoring programme and has 1:1 sessions with someone is currently doing the exact profession she wants. She gets insight advice and potential opportunities for work experience. My point is that you can still gets lots of experience without placement years!
And no I wouldn't say Lancaster is boring. There's a big pub culture here and there's lots of new and quirky places to eat. There's good links to big cities if you want big nights out, or you can get to the Lake District for a completely different vibe. There's the SU nightclub with free buses to and from campus as well as other bars in town - some more rowdy and some more chilled. We have a college system so each college has it's own bar and it's own council of elected students. They run events and always have things going on, and then obviously there's tonnes of societies which organise stuff to do.
Like the others said, there's no rush, but let me know if there's any questions I can answer or anything I can help you with.
Charlotte :smile:
3rd year Biological Sciences with Biomedicine

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