Advice

When you join university, your acceptance usually depends on whether you have or haven’t met your entry requirements . The admission-tutors will most probably not take into account the many other ways you are suited to or can positively contribute to your degree course. How can they? Unless you are applying for a master’s or a PhD degree at the same university at which you completed your bachelor’s, they won’t know you. Similarly, they won’t be aware of your full potential.

Considering applying for a job as a student assistant at my university, I was desperately seeking for an article or any kind of information about the duties, tasks and challenges in that position.

Despite an only vague idea and limited understanding of what could await me, I applied and got the job. Now, with an eight month working experience I would like to unveil the more or less hidden secret of student assistants and to provide an insight into the everyday life of a “professor’s brownie”.

It’s that time of year when university departments all over the country open up their doors in a bid to recruit students and graduates onto one of their Masters courses. But, with so many institutions, and even more courses, there’s a vast amount of choice out there, which can often make thinking about postgraduate study a very overwhelming and difficult experience.  

When you apply to medical school there is the unspoken idea that the London medical schools are best. With three of them consistently in the top ten for medicine in university league tables it’s unsurprising ‒ they boast high levels of research, wide catchment areas for placements and some of the brightest and best lecturers and clinicians to learn from.

When I imagined what life would be like on my year abroad, I pictured myself drinking beer with my new best friends (Günther and Julia) whilst watching Goodbye Lenin. When the film ended, we would devour a black forest gateaux and go on a hike (probably in the black forest) so as to utilise the sensible footwear and rucksacks that Günther and Julia would have inevitably brought with.

So you’re thinking about attending university. You’ve been to the open days, written your personal statement and taken a stiff drink to numb the pain of those impending student debts. However, the one thing no-one has told you about is what your day-to-day life may be like. Allow me to rectify that as I share a day in the life of a UK university student.

Wer die Wahl hat, hat die Qual - The bigger the choice, the harder it is to choose

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.

“If I’d only known then what I know now”

So what do you want to study at university?

Geography, I think. Yes, Geography. I'm good at Geography and it’s interesting. I mean, I really love English Literature but there are so few contact hours and it’s not really that employable…so I want to do that, but I don’t think I can justify it, not for £9,000 a year. So Geography, that’s better, I’ll do that.

Welcome, Marty McFly!

Today, on the 21st of October 2015, Back to the Future’s intrepid travellers are due to arrive in a time-travelling car that quite literally runs on rubbish – all the way from 1985.

Back to the Future II predicted many wondrous inventions for 2015, only some of which bear any resemblance to life as we know it today.

In June 2015, Aaron Chapman travelled from his home in the UK to Japan, hoping to study for a master’s degree there the next academic year. His motivation was almost entirely selfless; he felt a duty to become a cultural ambassador.

“I feel like it is my mission to ensure that a good level of understanding happens between countries,” he says.