Hi and welcome to Bath's Teams Conversations.This will involve me and a
couple of ambassadors discussing various topics around university such as what is
university, looking at applying and choosing a university as well as talking
about what life is like at the University of Bath. In this video we'll
be talking about potentially the biggest question of all - why Bath? I'll be
talking about the things that drew us to Bath, what we found particularly
attractive about Bath and some of our favorite things about Bath now that
we're here and why we decided to study at Bath and not elsewhere. We hope you
enjoy this video.
I'm Callie Rice and I am the student recruitment assistant here
at the University of Bath. I myself was a student also at Bath for four years and
I did biology as my undergraduate. I'm joined today by Mackyla, Vicky and
Jasmine. Would you like to introduce yourselves?
Hi I'm Michaela, I'm a
third-year student and I study social sciences.
Hi I'm Vicky, I'm a third-year
chemical engineering student.
Hi I'm Jasmine and I'm in my first year studying social work.
Great, so the burning question is why did you decide to come to Bath?
One thing that I really liked was the campus
itself. When I visited Bath there was just a really nice community feel.
It is a campus university so all the facilities are in
the same place, all the students are in the same place and I just really
loved the campus. It has everything you need,
it's not too big - I think it takes 10 to 15 minutes to walk from one
end to the other end. You have things like the library and you've got a bar,
the restaurants, a night club, you have a medical centre and all different
things like that. So for me that was just the selling point. When I visited the
campus I just got a gut feeling that that's where I wanted to go.
Yeah I was pretty much the exact same, there's a community feel on campus
and you don't really get that unless you actually come
and visit. There were some other universities I visited it was that 'oh
yeah these are quite nice' but then just going to Bath it was just kind of
like 'this just feels like the right one.'
It was quite a hard thing to explain but it is sort of community feel, how
friendly it all was and that's just been even more confirmed while I've been at
Bath, so you could be walking along the parade and going from one lecture to another
and you're like 'oh hi it's that person from that society' or 'oh it's that person from my house' or
something or 'it's that person from my course.'
Yeah, you always think it's going to take you five minutes to get somewhere and then you bump into someone.
You'd think because we're a campus uni you never have an excuse to be late for anything
But you try and walk from one building to another and because it's such a community
you always end up bumping into someone you know so you're always late!
Most first years live on campus and being able to just roll out of bed and
see the building where your lecture is, it's just funny. You miss that in your second year!
You get to live in town [in second year] which is amazing but you will miss living on campus
and being able to see the building that your morning 9 o'clock lecture is in.
I definitely agree with everything.
I was lucky to go to the summer schools that Bath hosted so I
got to live in Bath and I just had this feeling. I know it sounds
so cliche but it was like 'I can see myself here.'
We were sitting by the lake, all the ducks around us, summertime, weather was good
and I was like 'yeah this could work!' It's funny now because I'm
working as an ambassador and it was the ambassadors who organised the summer schools.
It was just that feeling and it was nice that everything was all in one place and also
it was really good for my course which is why I chose it rather than other unis.
I'd say for me if we talk about courses or departments specifically, you can just kind of get a
feel for how knowledgeable and passionate your lecturers are about their subject.
With regards to social work,
all the lecturers have such amazing experience in the field working. They can bring
in examples, like in social sciences all of the lecturers bring in
their own research and talk about it and it's just amazing to ask them
questions about their research and apply it to what you're learning.
I think that's what's really good here. Bath is one of the leading universities for
research and I just think you can completely tell how that
goes into their teaching and what you're learning.
Yeah I definitely agree with that.
When I first looked at Bath I was kind of looking at rankings.
I think social policy is about second in the UK at Bath and then sociology
is about third and psychology was about second. So you really do get a
feel from that that you're going to have really good high quality teaching.
I definitely have experienced that while I've been here. I think
one of my favourite subjects was a sociology one about
monsters, humans and machines and it was basically how humans are
interacting with artificial intelligence and how artificial intelligence could
really impact the workplace. It was really interesting and the
lecturer was so so passionate. Obviously he'd done a lot of research around that
as well.
That's really cool. I feel like research is definitely something that's
really great about Bath. I'm on my research project at the moment so I'm working
with lecturers at different universities doing cutting-edge research
but the stuff they do in the department is really interesting.
At the one that I'm at, the Department of Chemical Engineering, our
new head of department is amazing and she does tissue engineering.
She's invented engineered meat
which is grown in labs which sounds like a weird concept but just seeing
that in the news and having my family send it to me I was like 'oh wow
this is something quite cool!' So that's another reason, it's just really innovative.
[The lecturers] are always trying new things or doing new research incentives.
They try and get students involved which I feel is really important.
I would say, if we just ignore the university for a second and
just think about Bath as a city, it's just so beautiful. Every time I
walk around town I'm just amazed by it. It's such a stunning city, it's small
enough that it doesn't feel scary because for me I'm not from a city
and I was like 'I don't want to live in a city that's scary.'
Other people might think Bath is tiny but for me it's perfect.
You can walk everywhere and it's got so many
different independent shops and restaurants. You could eat
pretty much any kind of food in Bath. So if we ignore the Uni and focus on the
city it's just it's got everything you could need.
It's got brilliant transport links, you can get to Bristol on the train in ten
minutes, get to London in an hour and a half, even get to Bristol
Airport really easily. Definitely the city itself was something that
really drew me in. I actually didn't visit the city of Bath until I came and studied
here but I wish I did because it just confirmed how much I love it really.
I was the same because I'm from a
big industrial city and so when I did come and visit Bath, well I didn't go to
an open day I just came and visited with my Nanna. We walked around
the city and we went to the campus. Because it was so different from
where I'm from I literally just fell in love this city.
Bath is a World Heritage City and the only other one in the world is Venice so
as you can imagine it's really really pretty and beautiful.
Is there anything
unique about Bath? So maybe you visited a few other universities but actually
there was something that Bath had that you didn't really find elsewhere?
I don't know, it just had a good feeling about it plus it was green and had a good
balance of all the buildings and everything in one place, there's a
nice lake and lots of cute little ducks! It just seemed right.
For my course specifically, it has a really small course size.
Obviously this completely differs depending on the course
but I think it goes to show you that different courses can be
different at different unis. So obviously you do have to learn a set
thing at each uni but at Bath the numbers are capped at 40 [for my course].
So you know that when you go for a placement it's going to be a really high quality placement.
And another thing I've just reminded myself, what is so
unique about Bath is how much they encourage placements. Pretty much
everyone goes on a placement, it's about 70 percent of people I think.
They're so supportive with that, each department has their own placements
office. Some unis have one placement office for the whole uni whereas at Bath
every department has their own specialised placement office.
Placements are even sought out specifically for Bath. I know companies
like Dyson and huge companies love taking people from Bath. So that's one the great things about Bath.
Yeah I had completely forgotten about placements but I think they are a really unique selling point.
We are apparently about the second largest provider of placements in the UK
at the moment so we're really big on placements.
Yes and the top one was an agricultural uni anyway.
yes very vocational very hands-on.
I did my placement at Kew Gardens and there were eight internship
students so sort of eight placement students essentially. Three of them
were from Bath so that already made up the majority and the other five were from
five completely different universities and for most of them they were the
odd one out in their year [for doing a placement].
I remember one girl from a particular University who
had to create the course in order to go on a placement because they just didn't
offer it at all so she had to spend a lot of time doing a lot of admin and
behind-the-scenes stuff with the people on her course just to actually be able
to go on placement, whereas for us it was just so encouraged and so many people do
it all the time that it's just a normal process. Some people come to Bath not thinking of
doing a placement and then they realise 'oh all my friends are doing one, there are
some really cool opportunities, I'm gonna do one too.'
Yes I'd say that other unis are now providing placements
but they're only just coming on to the idea and realising how good it is,
whereas Bath is so established in placements that it is
basically the norm to go on placement.
Yeah [my reason to come here] was definitely to do with the placement year
as well because before I went to university I wasn't sure whether I
actually did want to go because I wanted to go straight into the workforce.
Being able to have the experience as well as the degree was definitely a
big thing for me.
I also like the fact that the campus is small and compact
but it's also not really far away from the city centre.
Some people are really scared that Bath has rubbish nightlife
because they never hear anyone say 'I went to Bath because the nightlife is great.'
I've never heard anyone say that but I think it's important to
know there are places and good nights out to go on because Bath does have two
universities so there are student nights out and I always say if you have the
right people, and Bath definitely has good people, then you can have a good night out!
Yeah between us and Bath Spa we actually make up about 25% of Bath's
population so they do have to cater for us. A lot of people say 'oh I
guess Bristol's not too far, I guess I've got to Bristol a lot.' But actually when
you're at Bath you don't need to go to Bristol at all, there's actually so many
clubs and you don't realise until you're actually a student because they're all
tucked away because Bath is such a historic pristine city that it's not
advertised that there are these bars and clubs downstairs but they're all
they're all hidden underground generally. So during the day the tourists
don't get to see them but during the night all the students can come out and
they know exactly where to go for a good night out.
Going back to placements, I know a lot of people that have been able to get a job
either in the company that they did their placement in,
or they just find it a lot easier going through job applications
because they have the work experience
and they have the experience of interviewing and everything.
[Placements] are like going for a job. I think that's what stands out for me.
I don't know what the official statistics are for graduate
employability at Bath but I feel like it must be quite high because of
placements and because of the skills that you can learn. Bath do CV workshops and everything.
They have a good careers service.
What's your favorite thing about Bath? I will say my favorite thing about Bath is
probably the ducks, a bit cliche, but I love the ducks so much that I actually ended
up buying a bag of duck food so I could go down and see them quite often!
I thought you were gonna say that you bought a duck then!
No unfortunately we're not allowed pets on campus!
No but it's quite nice, I'm quite an animal lover as well so just having that animal
interaction [is nice]. Having duck food means that sometimes I can take my
friends down as well and people are really shy and
timid around the ducks sometimes but if you put some food in your
hand go down and feed them then they'll actually just take it out of your hand,
they're really friendly, the ducks. Sometimes maybe a bit too friendly!
I know during the summer when some people are eating their sandwiches if you
look away a duck will pinch your sandwich! So you do have to be a little bit careful about them!
But for the most part they are really nice.
What's your favorite thing about Bath?
My favourite thing is definitely the campus because obviously there is a
really lovely community feel. When I first got here
everyone was nervous but because everyone's in the same place
it was just really welcoming and nice. So mine is definitely they campus.
It was just really welcoming and I liked the community feel.
It's quite a natural introduction I suppose.
I definitely really like both of those things and also like you said Bath is such a nice city and it
just is really convenient. Everything is all in one place and if
you want bigger city vibes then you can go to Bristol or go to London.
But I find that with Bath there's a little bit of culture as
well and history which is quite nice, like the Roman baths, the Pulteney bridge
and stuff like that. There are really good scenic spots as well.
I'd say the support, and that kind of goes in different ways.
There's so much wellbeing support and student support and at the moment
there has been a lot of support surrounding the coronavirus
and also with things like placement and employability.
There are a lot of people nowadays that are really worried whether going to
university is going to be worth it, am I going to get a job,
and I think I know what I am getting out of my degree
and I think just generally Bath is really supportive of students and wants them to
do well.
Today we talked about why Bath. We talked about a few different things
about Bath. A lot of us mentioned the community and the campus feel at
Bath and that we really like size of Bath and that everyone's quite friendly
and it does feel like there's a really big community at Bath. We also mentioned
the city of Bath itself which I think is quite an important thing because when
you're looking at universities you don't tend to think about the city itself but
actually you'll be spending a lot of time in the city. So when you are
visiting universities make sure you check out the local area as well
because it's somewhere you'll be living for at least three years of your life if
not longer. We also mentioned placements which is probably Bath's big unique
selling point because we provide so many students with placements every year
and it's actually the norm to do at Bath. That sort of wraps up our Why Bath session,
thanks again for listening and we hope to see you again on another Teams Bath conversation.