Advice

The results of the 2017 TEF are now available

When you’re thinking about where to study, a very relevant question to ask is how happy you’ll be at different universities.

Although this is impossible to predict for an individual person, it is nonetheless useful to get a sense of how satisfied other students are with their experience at university.

If you want to know which UK universities give you the best chance of securing a professional job upon graduation, there are two ways to look at it.

In absolute terms, the prestigious Russell Group universities, which include University of Cambridge, are some of the best universities for graduate employment.

“Trans (self-)advocacy isn’t some amusing pastime of mine. It’s a survival technique, and it’s exhausting & unrewarding.” – Morgan Potts (@mrgnptts)

With the rise of tuition fees and changes to the repaying of student loans, it is more important than ever to get reliable information about student grants, living costs and budgeting.

Financial support for students varies across different countries, as do student living costs. However you intend to manage your money or fund your studies, we have a wealth of advice and student finance guides.

Cambridge, Harvard, Imperial, Stanford, Durham, Williams – these are among the world’s top universities, and institutions that have great appeal and inspire awe in many students considering degree study. If you are thinking of applying to these or other highly selective US or English universities or liberal arts colleges, this article is written for you.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from my undergraduate degree was not non-linear dynamics, or even behavioural neuroscience, or 20th-century harmony. It was that within most degrees there is plenty of room for freedom – but to exercise it you need to read the fine print and know the right people.

More than 4,000 students began their Ucas personal statement with exactly the same opening line as more than a thousand other students. So much for standing out from the crowd.

Ucas has released the most common opening lines from the 2015 application cycle. Almost all of them featured general assertions about the applicant’s motivation, but the seventh most common phrase was specific to one degree course, used identically by 211 applicants.

Mobile phones have a bad reputation within education, with the words “time wasters” and “distractions” being thrown around more often than a netball in a match. But what if mobile phones were proven to be helpful within education? I’ve found five mobile applications that have been godsends to me at university so far, and they help dispel the myth that mobile phone apps are useful only as procrastination tools.

University can be a big jump from high school, and for many it is an overwhelming change. The close-knit relationship students may have had with subject teachers at school; those many role models, who appeared to focus on your educational career alone, are replaced by a personal tutor who you might see once or twice in a semester unless you make the effort to seek them out yourself.

Whether it’s a demanding upcoming exam, the bachelor’s or master’s thesis that needs to be perfected, or applying to a university; these “little projects” are associated with factors influencing your future and therefore the pressure can lead to anxiety, frustration and sometimes sheer despair. In the end, most of the energy that could have been used for facing the hurdles gets put into destructive action, such as worrying and overthinking. So, what can be done about it?