The Student Room Group

Computer Science in Bath or Birmingham?

Struggling to decide what to firm, only thing holding me back from bath is the ethnic demographic lol
(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 1

Birmingham's got better research and better graduate prospects for this course.

What appeals to you more about Bath, other than perhaps the qualifications of the entrants as Bath has higher entry grades for it?
(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

Original post by Picnicl
Birmingham's got better research and better graduate prospects for this course.
What appeals to you more about Bath, other than perhaps the qualifications of the entrants as Bath has higher entry grades for it?

i heard they are very good for the placements

Reply 3

Bath - its one of the most competitive CS courses in the country and the placements system is probably the best in the UK.
What ethnicity are you- and what do you think the 'demographic' at Bath actually is.

Reply 4

Original post by McGinger
Bath - its one of the most competitive CS courses in the country and the placements system is probably the best in the UK.
What ethnicity are you- and what do you think the 'demographic' at Bath actually is.

I am British Indian, but I actually went to the summer school in Bath it was really nice, didn’t get to really know much of the diversity there as most of us were from ethnic backgrounds as it was contextual.

Reply 5

Original post by kiranmanoj_
I am British Indian, but I actually went to the summer school in Bath it was really nice, didn’t get to really know much of the diversity there as most of us were from ethnic backgrounds as it was contextual.

Its not 100% white - there are a good number of brown students of all ethnicities and you would certainly wouldn't be the only British Asian on campus. Join us and improve the mix!

Reply 6

Original post by McGinger
Its not 100% white - there are a good number of brown students of all ethnicities and you would certainly wouldn't be the only British Asian on campus. Join us and improve the mix!
What about black students?

Reply 7

Original post by Anonymous
What about black students?

Black as in Afro-Caribbean, not so many - but we all go to Uni to meet different people and experience life outside our current environment, so it doesnt have to be full of 'people who look like me' for you to feel you belong.

Reply 8

Exact same dilemma i am in, Im british asian and have an offer for CS at Bath and sheffield. Ik Bath is better but everywhere ive tried to look, its mainly just saying that a huge majority of people are white, which i dont have a huge issue with but i personally find that i get along with other races more easily and naturally. At this point i dont really have a choice whether i want to go there or not as I only have two offers, but it would be nice to feel some comfort by the fact that there are others who are worried about the same thing.
Edit: another thing i realised is that most of the threads/discussions etc ive seen about diversity in Bath were really old, like 5-10 years ago, and the fact it has gone up rating quite a lot since then has given me some feeling that it has maybe slightly changed, due to attracting a wider audience of applicants.

Reply 9

Original post by Anonymous
Exact same dilemma i am in, Im british asian and have an offer for CS at Bath and sheffield. Ik Bath is better but everywhere ive tried to look, its mainly just saying that a huge majority of people are white, which i dont have a huge issue with but i personally find that i get along with other races more easily and naturally. At this point i dont really have a choice whether i want to go there or not as I only have two offers, but it would be nice to feel some comfort by the fact that there are others who are worried about the same thing.
Edit: another thing i realised is that most of the threads/discussions etc ive seen about diversity in Bath were really old, like 5-10 years ago, and the fact it has gone up rating quite a lot since then has given me some feeling that it has maybe slightly changed, due to attracting a wider audience of applicants.

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7471008#post99407020

Similar discussion here!

Reply 10

For those of you doubting Bath's ethnic/racial diversity, look at this photo of Bath CS students - Congratulations to those invited to the Lovelace Colloquium (bath.ac.uk) - as just one example

Reply 11

Original post by Picnicl
For ethnicity, something like 80% of Bath students are white whereas it's about 50% at Birmingham.

This is false information. Bath publish their diversity data yearly, and you'll find that as of December 2023, 65% of students are white and 35% are BAME. I'm not saying that Birmingham is undiverse because I've been there and I know it isn't, but they only claim a 32% BAME student population, less than Bath 😮

I would say that CompSci as a course at Bath is even more ethnically diverse than the average, so ethnic demographic should not be holding OP back from choosing Bath. For comparison, London, a very diverse city, is 55% white while Bath is 65% - not too dissimilar. The course itself is very good!

Reply 12

Original post by Anonymous
What about black students?

There's loads to be honest, but you won't struggle to find black students or anything. Bath have a very thriving ACS (African and Caribbean Society) which host events regularly if you're interested in that.

Reply 13

Original post by DemarcusIV
This is false information. Bath publish their diversity data yearly, and you'll find that as of December 2023, 65% of students are white and 35% are BAME. I'm not saying that Birmingham is undiverse because I've been there and I know it isn't, but they only claim a 32% BAME student population, less than Bath 😮
I would say that CompSci as a course at Bath is even more ethnically diverse than the average, so ethnic demographic should not be holding OP back from choosing Bath. For comparison, London, a very diverse city, is 55% white while Bath is 65% - not too dissimilar. The course itself is very good!

I see that my figures were from 2013-2018 so I've now deleted my post. As your link shows, Bath has clearly become much more diverse since then as they've gone from the white population being about 4 times the BAME population to now under 2 times.
(edited 1 year ago)

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