Choosing a firm and insurance for Zoology

I have received offers from Newcastle, Swansea, Exeter, Plymouth and Southampton for Zoology 2024 entry, but I am so stuck trying to choose which two unis to choose! Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Reply 1

normaw

Clearing and Applications Advisor, Universities Forum Helper

The best advice is not to make this decision until May. Many students make the decision early and then regret their choices. Go to offer-holder days in Spring (even if you attended open days) and have another look around. Compare course modules, facilities, field trips, cost of accommodation, distance from home and ease of travel, potential social life and societies, etc. And congrats on all the offers. :smile:

(edited 3 months ago)

Reply 2

ExeterStudentRep

Official Rep

Original post by amyellis20

Hi Amy, great to hear you've been so successful in receiving offers from all five of your university choices!

I'm a current PhD student in Zoology at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus (my research is on the social behaviour and interactions of termite colonies!). I also studied here for my Masters by Research and my undergraduate degree (Zoology with Study Abroad) as well, so hopefully know a thing or two about the course and student life here!

My main advice for you would be to consider the differences between the universities you've applied to help choose between them, and these will mostly either concern the academic, or social experience. For example, academically, each zoology course will be slightly different in the modules and field trips on offer, as each university will have different professors who are each experts in their own topics. As an example, you can see the modules for the Exeter course here. Our faculty includes world experts on topics such as social behaviour, animal cognition, marine conservation, and you'll see this reflected in the module choice. See how this compares across the other universities and which most interests you. You might also want to look at extra opportunities such as the opportunity to study abroad (probably the best thing I did in my undergraduate degree!) or professional placement years.

It's also worth looking at the quality of teaching and research at the university. From a University of Exeter perspective, we have a gold award in TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) - which means we are "delivering consistently outstanding teaching, learning and outcomes for its students. It is of the highest quality found in the UK". We're also ranked 9th in the world for ecology research (Shanghai University Rankings 2022), so both of these things combines means that we're really good at doing cutting edge research, but also at effectively integrating that into our teaching in an interesting and dynamic way.

You'll also want to consider the social side of university, and what life might be like outside of the lecture theatre or lab. Think about whether you'd prefer to be in a big city, or what hobbies and interests you have and how compatible they are with your different university choices - e.g. if you like surfing, then Swansea and Exeter would both be great choices, but Newcastle and Southampton probably slightly less so. For me, I loved the fact that I could live in Cornwall at the Penryn Campus as I really enjoy going for coastal walks and morning sea swims. I also love live music and really enjoy being in Falmouth which has a great local arts and music scene, partly because of the influence of Falmouth University. The best way to get a feel for this sort of thing would be to visit us at an offer holder day, the details of which should have been communicated alongside your offer. If unfortunately you can't make that, the next best thing would be to use our online chat service 'Unibuddy', where you can chat to current students - including those studying in Penryn - here.

Finally, it might also be worth thinking strategically about your firm and insurance choice based on your predicted grades and the offers you've received. If there's much variation between the grades, then usually students might tend to put a higher offer as their firm, and then a slightly lower as their insurance, to provide a bit of reassurance or a backup for results day. I know when I was finishing my A-Levels I was a little nervous about my last maths exams and whether I'd hit my firm offer or not! Ultimately though, this will be your choice and although you'll get lots of different advice it's important to remember that and to choose the university where you feel you're going to most comfortable, happiest, enjoy the course the most, and therefore probably be the most successful. That's the same advice I followed at 18, and it must've worked, as I'm still at the same university now loving my PhD almost a decade later!

Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions.
Kingsley
University of Exeter Student Ambassador

Reply 3

University of Plymouth Undergraduate Student Rep

Official Rep

Original post by amyellis20

Hi there! I'm a current second year Zoology BSc student here at Plymouth! 🙂

Speaking honestly from my student experience so far, I couldn't recommend the course more! It really is fantastic with some state of the art facilities and great natural surroundings to complete lots of field work and trips to local areas, making the balance of lectures, practicals, field work, and other sessions, great fun. Recently, we've been to Lyme Regis to study fossils in comparative zoology, Slapton Ley for our residential field course, on the University boats in the Plymouth sound for marine invertebrate studies, local rocky shores for coastal research, and will be travelling to Kenya this summer for our main field course too! 😀

I also applied for 3 of your choices but when attending two Plymouth open days, I really loved the student-friendly city with lots to do (without being too busy), whilst being in the centre of natural areas like Dartmoor, beaches, the Plymouth National Marine Park, and more. The campus itself is modern and vibrant with lots of events and societies to get involved with, as well as state of the art facilities like our labs or marine station which we use for any marine modules and field work.

I'll be taking a placement year next year and the careers service has helped to support me finding a 3 month placement in South Africa with a white shark diving research organisation, as well as one of my lecturers helping me to secure a 3 month research internship in Norway/Plymouth to help with some PhD research, both of which will be great experiences!

The course is really varied and interesting with a range of areas covered, assessment types, and teaching methods to support your learning. What is it you're particularly interested in? Or are you not too sure yet? Either way, the course is personalised to you with optional modules available to choose from, with more available as you progress towards your final year to enable you to direct your degree in the direction you want to go with it afterwards!

The class size is also small with only about 25 people maximum in Zoology here, which works great as it means everyone knows each other really well and you can work more closely with lecturers and staff to get more out of your degree. Modules also overlap with other courses often so there are opportunities to get to know students from biological areas and marine courses.

If you have any specific questions you'd like to know or anything else you're interested in knowing, feel free to reach out as I'm always happy to help! We also have a Zoology student available to chat to on Unibuddy if you'd like to hear another student's experience 🙂

I would also definitely recommend visiting one of our offer holder days as there will be zoology-specific activities, sessions, and a chance to speak to students and staff. I hope that you'll love it as much as I did when visiting the university! 😀

Best of luck!

-Alfie, University of Plymouth Undergraduate Student Rep