How is royal Holloway for psychology?
I’ve been looking at royal Holloway and Manchester as the two main unis I would like to go to, I’m familiar with Manchester but unsure about royal Holloway. Does it have a good south Asian population and how is the university in general for psychology students? Would love to have some input, thanks.
Reply 2
I relate to your options since it’s the same ones I had. The University of Manchester made me offers for both their Psychology degree and their Criminology degree. For reasons I had back then, but they’re not relevant today, I chose Psychology at RH.
If I could advise the me back then with the knowledge I have today, I would definitely choose Manchester between the two. Knowing what I know about Royal Holloway, their Psychology Department, and some of the more senior professors’ poor attitudes towards their own students, I don’t feel I can recommend it. If you’d like to read more about my experience and my understanding of the place, you can read my insights in my recent post Challenging and Long-lasting Experience at Royal Holloway Psychology .
Noteworthy is also the discrepancy in rankings. I think at least to some extent rankings are important to how competitive you are for post-graduation endeavours. Very important also is how well you do in your degree, relevant experience acquired etc. Few years ago, RH was ranked around 100 in the world, now it’s around 350. Meantime, Manchester maintained its ranking around 50 and also has a higher ranking psychology department.
Like you, I also come from outside the UK. One memory from RH that stayed with me over the years is when a psychology professor told me words to the effect “You’re not a native English speaker, so it might be problematic to work with you. But maybe not such a big problem after all.” And then this person laughed in my face at what they said and made reference to me coming from a different culture in a discriminatory way. Ironically, although a native English speaker, this professor was a foreigner themselves.
In the end, the final decision is yours. Think where you’d feel more inspired, welcome, and which place aligns more closely to your academic goals.
If I could advise the me back then with the knowledge I have today, I would definitely choose Manchester between the two. Knowing what I know about Royal Holloway, their Psychology Department, and some of the more senior professors’ poor attitudes towards their own students, I don’t feel I can recommend it. If you’d like to read more about my experience and my understanding of the place, you can read my insights in my recent post Challenging and Long-lasting Experience at Royal Holloway Psychology .
Noteworthy is also the discrepancy in rankings. I think at least to some extent rankings are important to how competitive you are for post-graduation endeavours. Very important also is how well you do in your degree, relevant experience acquired etc. Few years ago, RH was ranked around 100 in the world, now it’s around 350. Meantime, Manchester maintained its ranking around 50 and also has a higher ranking psychology department.
Like you, I also come from outside the UK. One memory from RH that stayed with me over the years is when a psychology professor told me words to the effect “You’re not a native English speaker, so it might be problematic to work with you. But maybe not such a big problem after all.” And then this person laughed in my face at what they said and made reference to me coming from a different culture in a discriminatory way. Ironically, although a native English speaker, this professor was a foreigner themselves.
In the end, the final decision is yours. Think where you’d feel more inspired, welcome, and which place aligns more closely to your academic goals.
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