University snapshots
Each university snapshot gives you some key information about the university (age, size, location, subjects taught etc.) plus a short opinion piece about the university.
I’ll attempt to give you a flavour of the university, identifying what makes it distinctive, so you can work out whether it might be somewhere you might consider studying.
The universities themselves have no input into these snapshots, nor can they pay to be included or highlighted. I will, of course, remedy any factual errors that are drawn to my attention.
I’ll add new snapshots every week!
Loughborough University
Loughborough Technical Institute was formed in 1909, and grew rapidly over the first part of the 20th Century, splitting into four separate colleges, three of which now form the present-day university.
It is located on the largest single-site campus in the UK, which stretches nearly 2 km end to end.
But… what is Loughborough really known for? Sport of course!
It's hard to think of a university anywhere in the world that is so synonymous with sports.
University of South Wales
The University of South Wales was formed through a merger of The University of Glamorgan and The University of Wales Newport. Glamorgan, the larger partner, had become a university in 1992 having previously been known as the Polytechnic of Wales.
The university's largest site is at Pontypridd, where three campuses cover the majority of their courses. The sites are a short bus-ride apart, and are a mix of modern and character buildings. The main site at Treforest in particular has that distinctive campus-university community feel, while the sports park has some truly world-class training facilities.
The remaining two sites meanwhile are in Newport (Education, Business and Cyber Security) and Cardiff (Creative industries). Each of these are super-modern, impressive business-like buildings focusing on a small range of disciplines.
University of Edinburgh
The Edinburgh I studied at all those years ago was quite a different place from the one you might be thinking about studying at. I haven’t been able to find figures for student numbers in 1989, but I’d be surprised if it was even half the current figure of 40,000. Buildings have changed, some for the better, some not so. And while the university has never lacked confidence in its own importance, it is only with the rise of international university rankings that it has become a genuine world-wide draw for international students.
Queen Mary University of London
Queen Mary really only became the large, multi-faculty university it is today through the merger of Queen Mary & Westfield College with Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1995, and legally it has only been called a university since 2013. But make no mistake, this is not a ‘new’ university.
St. Mary’s University Twickenham
St Mary’s was established way back in 1850, essentially as a teacher training college for catholic teachers. Teacher training remains at the core of the university teaching now; much of its teaching is still across the main school-teaching subjects, though health, sports, business and law have been added to the portfolio over the years.
University of Leicester
It’s tricky to put your finger on what exactly makes Leicester so special. There is no single unique selling point that makes Leicester distinct from its competitors, but The Times Higher Education pretty much nailed it when in 2008 they came up with a phrase about Leicester that we used widely in our marketing at the time:
“Elite, without being Elitest”.
It made perfect sense then, and it still makes perfect sense now!
University of Stirling
Created as a brand new university in the late sixties, the University of Stirling set out to be innovative in its teaching right from the start. They adopted a US style semester system (two 15 week semesters separated by the Christmas break), and enabled students to study modules from any faculty during their early years of study. Together, these result in the most flexible academic structure available at any UK university; ideal if you are unsure exactly what you want to study.