Student life

The London Venture Crawl, held in March 2018, took 200 students from nine London universities to visit a number of businesses and entrepreneurial ventures to learn about what it takes to start a business.

Students came from a number of disciplines and the following universities:

“It has to be China – it’s got the language of the future, and I’d be fluent!”; “I was only thinking about Germany, but if I studied in the Netherlands where they have loads of courses in English, I could visit Germany any time”; “I just love the US – it’s the only place I would go to university”.

View the overall results of the 2018 Student Experience Survey

Choosing the right university and the right course are at the top of many students’ lists when they are contemplating where to study. But what if you arrive at your chosen college and end up in a pokey room with no space to actually get any studying done?

View the overall results of the 2018 Student Experience Survey

Feeling safe while studying is a top consideration for many prospective students when they start thinking about where to go to university. Enjoying a sense of security, comfort and happiness during your time at college can make the difference between staying on and getting a good degree or deciding to look elsewhere or even drop out altogether.

View the overall results of the 2018 Student Experience Survey

One of the first things that a prospective student will look at is the academic offerings of the university. After all, a primary aim of most students is to come out of university feeling more educated than when they went in and to achieve their degree. 

View the overall results of the 2018 Student Experience Survey

While a key part of university is about studying and achieving a degree, it is also important for students to be able to have an active social life at university. Getting involved in extracurricular activities can help students to broaden their interests and bulk up their CVs as well as providing some time away from their studies. 

Tony Allen, BA in literature and history, University of East Anglia

“As a campus university, UEA’s facilities play a part in its strong cohesive feel. The students’ union building provides many services under one roof and seating for students to congregate. There are always students walking or jogging around the campus lake. Events like Derby Day and Pimp My Barrow create a university-wide buzz and fill up The Square – the historic campus centre – a great place to meet and relax in summer.”

Universities are facing new challenges to provide adequate pastoral care as rates of mental health conditions among university students soar. Research from YouGov states that one in four university students in the UK are experiencing mental health problems, spurring universities to adapt their support services to ensure that individual students’ needs are met.

This year, the annual results are based on the responses of 20,251 undergraduates, who were asked to describe how their university contributed to a positive or negative experience on a seven-point scale, from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. Questions have remained unchanged since 2005 to allow comparisons across years.

Data are collected from October to June from full-time, UK-based undergraduates. There is a one-year time lag between collection and publication. 

Get the full results of the Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey 2018

This year's Student Experience Survey finds Harper Adams University slips down to second place.