Thinking out loud - uni decision
Morning folks (or indeed evening for myself), I've been up most of the night mulling this over and browsing various websites...
I'm off to uni this autumn after having 2 gap years working in IT, basically I want to do something different.. meet new people etc.
I've got 6 unconditional offers in front of me for the following uni's... bradford, staffs (2), loughborough, coventry and derby.
Well we can ignore bradford, coventry and derby as I just used them to fill the ucas form up :P
That leaves me with 2 choices:
1) Staffordshire uni - Network engineering - 4 year Sandwich course
2) Loughborough uni - Computer systems engineering - 4 year Sarney as above
This is where the dilemma starts..
The course at staffs looks great, CCNA and CCNP included ... I've had a look at the course material and I'm pretty familiar with it all due to working with networks and completing a few mcp's over the last 2 years.
However Staffs uni is pretty low down in the league tables (70th ish), and overall doesn't have a great reputation... also stafford itself is a dump. Although the accomodation is pretty new, and priced well.
Another major bonus at staffs is on site parking for first year halls of residence students... which means I can take my motor :)
Right on to loughs...
Good points:
- Way way way... better reputation than staffs. Rising in the league tables year by year... up as high as 13th iirc. Only 2nd to oxbridge in teaching standards.
- great campus with loads of sports and clubs on offer etc
- 15mins from me by train
Bad points:
- the course looks awful, not what I was wanting at all (was subject to change :rolleyes: )... I don't want to be learning about circuits, lazers and god knows what else! It is very very vague, and I feel it fits the bill of "todays boring computer degree" perfectly.
- no parking at all... basically I would have to sell my car. (maybe this is a good thing, another 4K capital + ~£2K less p/a running costs ....am I kidding myself thinking I can run this at staffs ? )
Not really looking for a definite answer folks, just your thoughts on the matter I guess.
I mean, is it worth stomaching a pretty shabby course (hell I might even enjoy the course, physics was always abit interesting at ALevel :o) ....for a greater uni on the CV + better social life and community...
...bah, Im starting to write dribble now...
Look forward to reading your thoughts !
Cheers, stu