Articles
Something new every week!
Search all articles
Making big decisions with a bias to action
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece about five mindset changes that I’d learned about in “Design your Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I described one of these mindsets as “try stuff”, but the term they use for it is having a “bias to action”. For me it’s been such a game changer in my life that I thought it worth exploring a bit more deeply.
What is a “bias to action”? What does it look like when making long term decisions? And how can I start to make it a part of my mindset?
Choosing between different universities
Every so often I come across questions that challenge my assumptions about the university applications process.
Right now, loads of students are receiving their offers and starting to make firm and insurance decisions. Meanwhile, there are parents out there asking questions online that make me realise just how much I take for granted, having worked in the university sector for so long (30 years and counting…)
One question on a parents facebook group that has surprised me most in recent weeks has been a parent asking for thoughts on choosing between Loughborough and Nottingham Trent.
How to start building your career while you are still at university (Part 2)
Last week we began looking at how you can start building your career while at university, and in particular how understanding your own specific situation can help you work out what type of opportunities you should be seeking during your course.
This week we have a look at the huge range of opportunities that there will be for you to do this; all while studying your degree. While breadth and scale of opportunities will vary from place to place, every university in the country will have at least some of these available.
I outline the types of opportunities that will be available to you, and for each I have given an example of a university that you can look at to find out more.
How to start building your career while you are still at university (Part 1)
I am a member of a whole bunch of Facebook groups for UCAS advisers, parents and prospective students. They give incredible insight into the questions and motivations of different people, and occasionally I’m able to help answer some of the questions asked.
Earlier this year I saw a post by a parent which basically said:
“My son is in his final year of Finance and Accountancy, and we are wondering where he should be looking for jobs, as we aren’t really familiar with this sector.”
This is an unnervingly common question, and every time I see such questions I’m left pretty dumbstruck: How did it get to the point that three months from the end of a degree, parents are still worrying about their son’s next step?
Five mindsets for designing your life
I’ve just finished reading Design Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. It takes the principles of design thinking and uses these to help build your career. It's a great read, and whatever stage you are at in your career, if you feel things aren’t quite going to plan, I’d happily recommend it.
And for those of you who are in the process of making your university choices, there are five basic mindsets in the book that you can definitely apply to your university search.
So, today I’ll look at each of these mindsets, and how you can use them as you research and make your university course choices!
A super-quick guide to the Scottish Universities
I grew up in Scotland, studied at Edinburgh and then worked at Stirling for the first phase of my career. I absolutely loved my time at university, and it’s safe to say that I am a big fan of Scottish education. But is it really all that special? Is there really anything that sets Scottish universities apart from others in the UK?
Well, there are certainly some differences, but whether they are special, depends on you and what you are looking for.
Building on the approach that I took a couple of weeks ago, looking at similarities between universities based on a bit of history, I thought it would be interesting to look at the Scottish universities in three quite distinct groups:
Personal Statement checker
Have you finished your UCAS Personal Statement and want to know if it's any good?
Are you a parent who is looking at their child’s statement so you can give them feedback?
Or are you a teacher or adviser faced with providing feedback on lots of Personal Statements?
If so, this checklist is for you!
Just check for these eight essentials, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether your statement is good to go!
Six things I’d do if I were choosing a university course right now
OK, so I applied to universities in the 80s.
No league tables, no social media, and in fact no internet at all. Just a very large book in the school careers library with some serious lists in it. And a handful of prospectuses - though even those weren’t quite like the glossy brochures of recent years.
I basically chose on the basis of hearsay, reputation, and following in the footsteps of my siblings.
No disrespect to my siblings, but it was a pretty terrible way to choose a university.
Knowing what I now know, after a 30 year career spent in university marketing and admissions, it’s no surprise that if I had another chance, I’d do things a bit differently.
If you like… you might also like…
So, you’ve found a couple of universities you really like. Perhaps it’s the location, the campus, their approach to teaching? Or maybe it just felt right when you visited.
Now you want to find a couple more that are similar so that you can have a range of different options on your UCAS form.
So what about looking at universities with a similar history?
I know it might sound crazy, but history can tell you a lot about a university; its type of location, its architecture, its approach to teaching, its community feel, even its purpose; its very reason for existing!
Is it OK to apply for two different subjects through UCAS?
It's that time of year when loads of students are finalising their UCAS choices, and a question consistently asked of advisers is “Can I apply for two different subjects?”
Well, as with most things about applying to university, the answer is “it depends…”
But what exactly does it depend on?
10 amazing resources for making better university decisions
There are loads of league tables out there, and plenty of commercially driven so-called university advice sites out there.
But quite frankly, so many of them have lazy journalism, trotting out the same bland advice, or worse still, are filled with so many university promotions or “recommended unis”, that you can’t tell what’s impartial advice and what is paid-for advertising.
It’s tempting to name and shame the worst of these, but instead I thought I’d highlight some of the best, most genuinely useful resources.
10 ways to work out if a university and course is the right fit for you
Choosing a course and a university is a tricky business.
In this back-to-basics article, I suggest ten things that you should definitely be thinking about as you make your choices.
From campus life to teaching style, accommodation, cost of living and careers, we look at the essentials of finding your best fit course.
No regrets: How to choose the right subject to study at university
Nine out of 10 graduates would choose to do an undergraduate degree again if they could, with just one in 10 saying they would choose not to go to university if they had their time again.
Around half of the graduates say they’d choose the same subject.
But… four in 10 say they’d prefer to study a different subject.
This is according to brand new research by the Policy Institute at King’s College London.
That’s 40% of graduates who wish they’d studied something else, and 10% of graduates who wish they hadn’t gone to university at all!
Applying for highly competitive courses
Whether you are brand new to the university application process, or have been working in the education sector for as long as I have, you’ll undoubtedly have heard teachers, advisers and university staff talking about “highly competitive courses”.
It’s a term bandied about with little thought. On one hand teachers use it to make sure students take their applications seriously, and don’t make assumptions about their chances of getting into university. On the other, it is used by universities to make their courses seem more attractive; the more unattainable a course is, the more people want to get into it!
So, as students, applying through UCAS for the first time, how do you know which courses are genuinely “highly competitive”, and if they are, do you really need to do anything different with your application?
Wait… has the UCAS Personal Statement just been scrapped?
Earlier in the summer, just after the schools broke up in England, UCAS made an important announcement about the UCAS Personal Statement.
If you just looked at the headlines, you’d think that the Personal Statement had been banished forever. But in truth the Personal Statement is not being scrapped at all; it’s being reformed and restructured.
And it’s not happening immediately either.
So, what is the truth behind all those misleading headlines?
Top ten tips for results day and Clearing
For some of you, who have taken IB or BTEC, you’ll already have your results.
But for most students planning to go to university this year, your results day is just around the corner. For students from Scotland, you’ll get your results next Tuesday (6th August), and for A-level students, you’ll get yours the following Thursday (15th August).
This makes NOW an exceptionally good time to start preparing for the day, and having a plan in place in case things don’t go quite as expected.
Summer next steps
We heard from James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) the other week, that “You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to know your next step”.
As you finish your school year and head into the summer break, you are probably caught right in the middle of a dilemma: On one hand you are tired, you want a break, and you really don’t want to think about school or university. On the other hand, the fact that you aren’t 100% sure about what you are going to do next, and the pressure from parents and teachers to get some decisions made, or some back-up plans in place, is stressing you out.
So, how do you square this dilemma?
Your university application timeline, with key dates for 2025
Are you about to embark on your university applications for entry in 2025?
If so, this timeline is exactly what you need to help you get your head around the process.
I’ll give you all the key dates and deadlines, suggestions about what you should be considering and when, plus links to loads more advice and support for each stage of the process.
Is “Find your passion” really a good way to choose a course?
It’s advice that is as old as the sun: “Find your passion, and you’ll never do another day’s work in your life”.
Or when you are heading off to university “Choose a course that you are passionate about”.
But, most careers advisers nowadays would say that such advice is deeply unhelpful. It creates the expectation that every young person should have found their passion. And since most of you simply haven’t found your passion while still at school, it just creates unnecessary pressure on you. Which in turn just makes you freeze; unsure of how to progress and how to choose what to do next.
However, perhaps there is something to be said for working out ways to explore your potential passions; how to find challenges, industries, and roles that might feel more like you are making a difference, and less like you are doing a job.
So how can you go about exploring what yours might be?
New UCAS historical entry grades data: Just how useful is it?
For the very first time UCAS have introduced information on their website that attempts to show you what grades students actually had when they entered different courses, rather than just showing the university’s published entry grades.
It turns out, you see, that nearly 50% of students get into their course with qualifications below the level of those universities published by the universities.
So when a course says you need AAB to get in, it turns out, you don’t!
This new data is aimed at making this all a bit clearer and more transparent, so that you can make better decisions about which courses to apply to.