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Help with choosing a Music/Audio Technology course in Scotland

Dear students who are already enrolled in any of the unis mention below, I would appreciate some advice and feedback from your experience. I will be studying music technology this fall and I got an offer from the following unis:

Glasgow Caledonian University - Audio Technology BSc (Hons)

University of the West of Scotland (UWS - Paisley Campus) - Music Technology BSc (Hons)

University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI - Perth Campus) - Audio Engineering BSc (Hons)


Is there anything strikingly positive or negative about the university/course in general, please mention it.

I would appreciate if you could share your experiences regarding the quality of the lecturers, libraries, campus area and student life in general, as I am still quite undecided.
I visited the UWS campus, the audiovisual stuff was a big room filled with many 27” iMacs, of varying vintage. Prob core i5’s, there was a nearby room with suites of mediumly powerful gaming PCs, for digital design. It wasn’t very advanced, but was certainly useable. I didn’t see any hardware mixing desks, but that might be in the Paisley campus somewhere. The uni was having a mild crisis, when I visited, with some staff cuts, and that was pre-plague. It seemed to be a relaxed uni, rather than a high pressure place. Friendly place. Value for money if you are getting free training (EU/home student)

The most valuable part of their Music Tech course?, I’d hazard a guess that it’d be the year three placement. That would be a great way to start in the industry. A whole year?

Can the others match?

When I visited Paisley in the 1980s it was a place filled with churches & sabbath & hell-fire preachers. The churches are mostly quiet, now an impressive college attracting the faithful instead, with a free gym. Glasgow is just a few minutes away by train, Paisley is improved.

You mentioned “Fall”, so presumably, you’ve not yet been to see Scotland?
Read a lot! I read some Tartan Noir, starting with Ian Rankin (Rebus) for flavour, fun!
Original post by LuigiMario
I visited the UWS campus, the audiovisual stuff was a big room filled with many 27” iMacs, of varying vintage. Prob core i5’s, there was a nearby room with suites of mediumly powerful gaming PCs, for digital design. It wasn’t very advanced, but was certainly useable. I didn’t see any hardware mixing desks, but that might be in the Paisley campus somewhere. The uni was having a mild crisis, when I visited, with some staff cuts, and that was pre-plague. It seemed to be a relaxed uni, rather than a high pressure place. Friendly place. Value for money if you are getting free training (EU/home student)

The most valuable part of their Music Tech course?, I’d hazard a guess that it’d be the year three placement. That would be a great way to start in the industry. A whole year?

Can the others match?

When I visited Paisley in the 1980s it was a place filled with churches & sabbath & hell-fire preachers. The churches are mostly quiet, now an impressive college attracting the faithful instead, with a free gym. Glasgow is just a few minutes away by train, Paisley is improved.

You mentioned “Fall”, so presumably, you’ve not yet been to see Scotland?
Read a lot! I read some Tartan Noir, starting with Ian Rankin (Rebus) for flavour, fun!

1 UP

I am EU student, so my university fee is gonna be funded by SAAS. Regarding the placement it doesn't specify the timeline compared to the Glsgw Caledonian Uni which is a semester abroad through ERASMUS program.
At this point I am in between UWS and Caledonian. My only worry is the mathematics module in Caledonian, I have a poor background in mathematics, but if I knew that I can catch up fairly easy (200h of study) I would probably sign up to Caledonian. On the other hand UWS course seems more hands on, and I guess all the theoretical knowledge will be mentioned through practice and lectures to at least a basic degree.
I am a creative character, but I really enjoy the tech side and like building things where I would need a good knowledge of theory.

I visited Scotland last summer, loved the people, scenery, but not the weather ( I guess that's a shared feeling with many). Tartan Noir is now on my to read list.

Thanks for taking time to reply to this thread.
It's a pleasure to try and help to answer these honest questions that you have.
I did have an official tour round UWS, they spent hours and hours showing me everything, nearly everything I guess.
UWS felt like a place where massive investment has gone in, a couple of years ago - probably to renew Paisley
they are hands on, they train nurses - probably Scotland's biggest nurse training college.

Not sure if you will still be EU/Home fees covered by SAAS unless you are starting immediately this September, if you are, then just a simple 48 page SAAS form to fill-in! The accom on campus, or just across the street looked great.

glad to see that you dropped the highlands & islands, I got the feeling that that was not quite in the world's top 600 best universities - even though, to be fair, they surely do an impressive job teaching across all of the North, beyond the wall.

GCU never gave me an offer so I never got to study them.
Paisley did feel rather a lot like the (American sit-com version perhaps?, of an) American Community College. I'm sure I saw Chevy Chase, and Arbed, in one of the new teaching suites (they have non-parallel teaching rooms, with several bubbles of learning areas, with a tutor, hovering and circulating whilst all sorts of things happen) in my experience, I think that's a good way to learn, rather than Cambridge university's massive lecture hall with 700 students, being droned at by a faraway prof.

I got the feeling at Paisley that nobody ever failed, probably everyone passed everything (like "Community"), some might have got bored - if they could learn faster than the average. But, and I stress this might be important, the UWS staff were feeling quite vulnerable when I was there. The admin rented a posh hotel and had a very nice meeting, dinner, whilst decided how to cut budgets. This was according to the Scottish press, who were a bit excited at the time. So important things for you to check for GCU - staff satisfaction? Teaching methods? modern/antique? bored students ratio?

and, in the end, you'll probably simply teach yourself all that's needed for the audio. Buy an older MacBook Air, get a USB/thunderbolt MIDI system, use Garageband to get the basics. Maths, OK you need to know what is (zero decibels with respect to one milliwatt - if that works in audio) 0dBm in a 600 ohm system, and what is 6 dBs higher than that in power terms, , what is -40dB lower in voltage terms, and what is the program level volume of input to a broadcast stack, and how to phantom wire a mike. But it's all digital nowadays, presumably! And do all the above with AVID tools on a PC, I'm pretty sure that UWS hands out loaner PCs, as some Scottish students might not be able to afford one (debatable).

Does one of the two unis have a Campus FM radio station, as there's nothing like hands on practice to understand the lectures.

anyway, more research for you, and have fun! Scotland is nice

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