 Hello and welcome to this video about how to choose a university in degree course. This video is suitable for all prospective students who are considering their university options. My name is Dan and I work at Sowash University of London. I'll be taking you through some of these different topics in this video. If you're at the start of your university research then you might actually find it helpful to pause the video here and take a note of these headings as you might want to use these as the framework for your research. So to begin with we'll look at choosing your degree course. So first of all it's important to consider the subject that you want to study at university before deciding which university to go to. If you do this the other way round and find the university first and you think it's amazing and can see yourself going there but then you go on to discover that it doesn't offer the course you want to study it's likely that you'll feel disheartened and disappointed. So to avoid this happening I'd really recommend that you decide which subject you want to study first. Then when you are actually in the decision making process if you're unsure about the subject you want to study maybe you should consider your reason for going to university. This could be for you that you're interested in a particular career path and you know that there's a certain degree needed to pursue that career so that'll probably make the decision up for you. However you might not have a particular career path in mind you may just want to get a degree to broaden your general career prospects and that could include developing your transferable skills and becoming more independent which many people are able to do at university and this is really sought after by employers. There are lots of different degree subjects that will allow you to do this and it's very common across all degrees so here it could be a good idea to study something that you actually enjoy as that will allow you to have the best experience at university and this in itself is a really popular reason for actually going to university for the ability to study something that you're passionate about and you have a desire to learn more about. So if this is the case then you may actually know what subjects you want to go on to study and when you're exploring your options you'll most likely come across different types of degrees that are available so it's a good idea to consider which of these is actually best for you there's lots of terminology that's used so I'm going to run through a couple of bits that you might want to keep in mind. The standard degree that most people go on to do after their further education qualification is called an undergraduate or bachelor's degree. This is typically three years long and is often involves a student studying one subject. You may come across something called an integrated foundation year and at SOAS we run a couple of those and they're designed for students who don't quite meet the entry requirements for the bachelor's degree but it allows students to study for a year to gain the skills that they need to be able to qualify for admissions onto an actual bachelor's degree program. Something else you might come across is a joint honours or combined honours degree. These programmes allow you to actually study two or occasionally more subjects at the same time so these are great if you've got two subjects that you really can't choose between you might be able to study both of them. Fortunately as well they're not double the workload so you'll be actually splitting your time between the two subjects 50-50 and not having double the work. Another term that you might come across when you're doing your research is a sandwich degree and this refers to something that is placed in the middle of your degree program so it could be a study abroad year or potentially a work placement and that's all part of the degree. Often this happens between the second and final year of study but could also cover a shorter period of time as well. There are more types of degrees out there and more pieces of terminology there to use so if you do come across something in your research and you're not familiar with it or it doesn't make sense then look into it a bit further just to see if it's something you need to be aware of and finally on this list you should probably think about the entry requirements for your course. Entry requirements is a capsule term which refers to anything that a university asks you to provide to show that you're suitable for their degree. Often this will be your A level or equivalent grades and for this it's important to think about a spread of entry requirements so I'd kind of recommend that you choose one to two universities that have grades which are aspirational so they're above what you're expected then two to three that are on par with the grades that you're expected to get and then one or one to two as a backup choice just in case things don't go to plan. As well as your grades, entry requirements can also refer to other things so GCSE results might be included in here or you might be asked to provide a portfolio or to attend an interview or addition or potentially to take an admissions test as well. Now moving on to course content this is one of the most important considerations when choosing your degree course as this is what you're going to spend the majority of your time at university actually doing this is what you're studying. It's really important to remember that two universities offering a degree with the same name will not necessarily offer the same content and this is because there's not a national curriculum for degree subjects and the content of the course is often influenced by the research that's going in going on in the department that that course is being run by so the professors and lecturers at university they do more than just teaching they're involved in researching their subject and expanding the knowledge about that particular topic. Unfortunately this trickles down into what you're taught about so that's why university course content can actually differ. You might find that there is some similarity depending on the course you're interested in if your courses are credited maybe something like law then you might find there are some things that are common across different universities and the programs they offer but generally course content can vary quite a bit. The individual topics that make up the course content are called modules and there are generally two main types of modules so firstly you have those that are compulsory and these are the ones that the university say you have to study and typically that's to ensure that everyone has a good baseline level of knowledge and they're studying the core components of that course but then universities will often have a number of optional modules available and these allow you some flexibility to actually tailor the course to your needs and interests so you can decide what you want to study. The amount of flexibility will vary and this will change from year to year and degree to degree so it's important to look into this especially if the flexibility and module selection is really important to you so do some research and you can find out on different university websites the number of compulsory and optional modules that you'll need to take and often a bit of a breakdown there as well. Some other considerations that you might want to make include contact hours and contact hours means the amount of time that you spend in timetable teaching and learning so there are some courses that have higher contact hours and other universities also might offer higher contact hours than others so this is something to look at. Universities will differ in the number of hours they offer and as I said this will vary from subject to subject as well as a guideline at SOAS our courses have roughly 10 to 12 contact hours per week but again that depends on the subject. For those hours that you're not in timetabled activity you'll be expected to be partaking in independent guided study so this could be doing something like reading or a worksheet in preparation for your next class it could be working on coursework or an assessment or potentially doing something else really just to broaden your knowledge of your subject. You might want to also consider how the course is taught in terms of how practical or theoretical it is this can again differ from subject to subject and if you know that your subject could be delivered in both ways then you might want to look into this if you have a preference and at the end of this list is assessment different courses will all be assessed in different ways so you might find that some are very coursework heavy and without exams while others are the opposite and predominantly assessed by exams you'll probably know which one you have a preference for and therefore you might be able to look into this and find out how universities conduct their assessments and opt for something that suits you best. Now once you've settled on your subject you can begin to look at the universities which teach it. There are universities spread out across the whole of the UK and as part of this you might need to think about the location of where you want to study. For some people going to university is an opportunity to move away from home into a new place for the first time. If you are considering moving away from a home that you'll be returning to during the holidays then you should think about how long it takes to travel between the two and the cost of doing this and actually how easy it is. If you're moving somewhere remote they might not have as good public transport links so that's something to bear in mind. Along with location you should consider the actual living cost of the area that you're looking to move to. All different cities and regions in the UK have different prices and costs of living so that might factor into your decision making process. Aside from where the university is actually located you might want to think about the different types of universities that are available and the characteristics that make up a university. One of these is whether it's a city or campus-based university or a mix of the two. Campus-based universities have nearly all of their facilities including accommodation sometimes on one campus location whereas a city-based university are often located in the center of a city and surrounded by the business and the rest of the city life and they could be staggered out across the city. Another factor to consider is whether you would prefer to attend a more general institution that teaches a broader range of subjects or to attend a specialist institution. So us as a specialist institution which focuses on the regions of Africa the Middle East and Asia whereas there are other specialist institutions which could be standalone business schools or potentially conservatoires for courses in music and the performing arts. And then one other factor to consider in your decision making is actually the size of the university. Some of the largest universities have over 40,000 students at them whereas the smallest have less than a thousand. Now something else to think about is the facilities offered by universities. There'll be different things offered at each institution but something you can hopefully expect as standard is some form of learning resource space. This might take the form of a library or learning resource center or similar but whichever name this has it's a dedicated space for you to go to to do independent study. Although university really is about learning it's also a great place to try new things and to take part in different activities. Student unions usually offer societies which are clubs or groups of people who have a shared interest that you can join them. There are also sports teams available that you can join for both fun and competitive sports as well as plenty of volunteering opportunities for you to get involved with too. And these are important as they are really the cornerstone of socializing the university and most people going to university don't really know many or if any people who are also going to the same university as them so everyone's really in the same boat looking to meet people and make new friends so taking advantage of these socializing opportunities is really important. On top of this if you want to work while you're at university then you can think about the number of part-time work opportunities that are available. These may be available on campus or at the university or if you're in a city there may be places to find work nearby. Some universities also offer support to students who are looking for part-time work so if you're interested in this you can factor it into your research. And while you're doing your research you might come across accommodation. I wouldn't necessarily make this the focal point of your research but if you are going to be moving away from home and supporting yourself then you might actually want to look into the accommodation options available to make sure that there's something within your budget range. And finally universities offer a variety of different support services so if you know that there's some support that you're going to need to ensure you have the best possible experience at university then you should include this in your research. You can check out university websites to see what they offer but if you can't find information about the support services then just get in touch with the university send them an email and they'll be more than happy to come back to you and explain the services that they have available to their students and they can have that conversation with you as needed. So I'm just going to finally mention a couple of places that you can go to for further information. One of these is the UCAS hub. You could think of this as a sort of one-stop shop for all of your university research and application needs. There's information here about courses, different resources available, they have the what to study next tool, you'll see key dates on there and all sorts of things. You can really customize this as well to meet your own needs and because this is where you'll be actually doing your application through the UCAS platform I'd really recommend that you sign up as soon as you can if you haven't used this before and then you can start taking advantage of everything that's on offer. And then finally a few other places to find information. You might want to look at resources produced by universities themselves such as prospectuses, subject brochures and their own websites. As well as this many universities over the last year have increased the number of virtual open days that are available and virtual tours. When you can finally go to these in-person open days and campus tours I would really recommend it as you can get a great feeling for university by going in person but at the moment these virtual substitutes are also really good as well. You might find it helpful to look at league tables and consider university guide websites as well as visiting virtual and then eventually in-person higher education exhibitions often called like UCAS fairs or university fairs. You can look at a university's social media to get a bit of an insight into what their university is like and some universities also offer MOOCs which are massive open online courses which are great resources for finding out what it's like to study a particular subject at university and lots of universities including SOAS have these available. Thank you for watching this video. If you do have any questions or want to get in touch you can reach us at study at www.soas.ac.uk otherwise best of luck with your application.