Best universities

As a university student, you will probably spend the majority of your time on campus. And so, while this certainly isn’t the most important factor to consider (in fact, we strongly advise that it isn’t), it helps if the campus is somewhere you enjoy spending your time in. 

Universities come in all shapes and sizes and architectural styles. From the traditional grey stone buildings to the more avant-garde modernist structures, university campuses are some of the most interesting collections of buildings you can find.

You don’t have to be an architecture student (or indeed know anything about architecture) to appreciate the beauty of a well-designed or unusual university building. Although university architecture may bring to mind ancient cloisters and dimly lit old libraries, campuses around the world are home to some of the most unique, modern buildings on the planet.

As the American writer Shelby Foote once said: “A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.”

Though so much information for most people’s studies is now online, you can’t beat the feeling of sanctuary and calm you get from a good library. Whether you use them for research, reading or just to escape the world for a few hours, libraries are an essential part of the university experience.

When it comes to thriving tech sectors, certain cities and locations spring to mind: London, San Francisco and Tokyo, maybe. 

However, have you considered Mumbai or Frankfurt or the US state of North Carolina? According to a new series of Digital Leader rankings, these are among the top locations for a digital education. 

The university model of undergraduates studying three- to four-year programmes on large residential campuses, learning mostly by lecturers and culminating in a final thesis is hundreds of years old and how most universities in the Western world are organised.

Although you might not have heard of them, there are universities around the world that have chosen to rip up the rule book on this centuries-old approach. Here are four institutions whose philosophy, location, teaching structure and programme offerings are anything but ordinary.