- One of the first things you need to do
when thinking about university is picking what course.
And the types of courses at university
can be wildly different from
the stuff you studied in school.
I mean, what is biochemistry or chemical engineering?
Do you really understand what is involved in architecture?
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Hey guys, I'm Jen, I'm a teacher,
and I've been guiding students through
the complicated maze that is
the university application process for years now.
I am gonna be talking you through
loads and loads of different things,
from how to pick a course in this video,
to writing personal statements, to interviews.
So, make sure you subscribe so you don't
miss anything else.
Now, how do you pick a course at a university?
Even if the title of the course is familiar,
there is no longer a set curriculum for universities.
When you're at school, maths A level in one school
is gonna be pretty identical to
maths A level in a nother school,
because there's a curriculum set up by the exam boards.
This doesn't happen at university.
At university, the courses are determined by the lecturers,
and they're gonna lecture in what they're interested in.
So, a history degree at one university
could be completely different to a history degree
at another university.
The first thing you need to do is decide
what you're interested in,
because you're gonna be studying this for
two, three, four, five, six years potentially.
That is a long time to be doing something
that you're not interested in.
Take a look at the subjects that
you're studying at the moment,
and even if the whole subject doesn't interest you,
is there one module, one topic,
a part of a subject that interests you?
Is there part of this subject
and part of this subject that interested you?
So, like two half subjects that you really like?
Sit down and think about this.
And even if it's something outside of school,
outside of the scope of
what you've been taught in class that interests you,
put that on your list as well.
If there's anything you're doing that's extracurricular,
like you might have set up a business,
you might be doing a lot of local leadership in the Scouts,
you might really, really like
visiting bridges all over the world.
These are things that you're interested in,
and the wide range of degree courses means,
chances are, you're gonna find a degree in it.
The next thing you need to do is think
far ahead in the future.
Do you have any idea what you want to be doing in
five, 10, 20 years' time?
And if the answer is no, well, that's fine.
Most people don't know what they want to be doing
in five, 10, 20 years' time.
But some of you do, and some of those courses are gonna have
really, really obvious, direct career choices,
direct career paths, the degree is gonna lead
straight into a career.
For example, my brother did an accountancy degree,
and he is an accountant.
My cousin did a geography degree and she's a PA.
Direct link, and no direct link.
Some of you may have a very, very certain career in mind,
but a degree doesn't exist for that career,
so we need to start thinking skills.
Now, I'm gonna throw a few degree suggestions out there
that may surprise you:
physics, chemistry, history, geography.
These are all great, great degrees
because of the skills they teach you.
All of them involve writing reports, analyzing data.
Physics, collecting data, following procedures.
Geography, again, being out in the field.
History, looking at past data sources.
The skills that these type of degrees teach you
are really, really valued
by loads and loads of different employers.
For example, if you really, really wanna be a spy,
you really wanna go to work at MI5,
MI6, the CIA, something like that,
you can't do a degree in that,
but you can do a physics degree,
or a computer engineering degree,
or a law degree, a history degree.
All of these teach you really, really
valuable, important skills that employers love.
I know that people that come out with a physics degree
are snapped up by employers really quickly
because of the fantastic things
they've learned to do on the course,
not necessarily the physics that they've learned.
Now, after you've done those things,
thought about what you enjoy,
thought about careers, and thought about skills,
we need to start softly searching,
and I want you to make a really, really long list here.
Anything that catches your eye
goes on that long list.
And there are two ways to do this.
There's using the Internet,
but I don't think that's a great place to start,
because to search something on the internet,
you have to know what you're searching for,
and at this stage you might literally have no clue at all
what you want to do.
So, I'm gonna suggest something
a little bit old fashioned, which is
getting the university prospectus,
getting a hard copy of the prospectus.
You can get those, just ask for one on the website,
and sit there, and flip through the prospectus.
Have a look at all the course titles,
the course description, and see what catches your eye.
It might be something really, really surprising.
It might be something you've not thought of before.
It might be something you didn't know existed.
And searching on the internet is great,
but you can't search for something
that you don't know exists,
whereas having a flick through a university prospectus,
you know, get five, 10, get 20,
will give you a really, really good idea
of the broad range of stuff that is out there.
And don't limit yourself too much at this stage.
I want you to make a really, really broad,
a really, really long list.
It doesn't matter if you've got something like
humanities subjects on there,
something like history subjects,
English, and then some science, and then some maths.
At this stage, we're just coming up
with a broad list of what interests you.
Then we need to start thinking about
the nitty gritty just a little bit,
because while our broad list is great,
we do need to narrow it down a bit.
Start looking at things like sandwich courses,
placement courses, anything that has
work experience associated with it,
and then think, is leaving university
with that work experience already there,
already sorted, already part of your course
going to be useful?
Because the job market is very, very, very competitive,
and anything you can do to give yourself
a bit of an edge once you get out there.
I did a year's work experience in the middle of
year one and two at university.
I went and spent a year working in London,
then went back and did my fourth year,
and that gave me a year's work experience
and an amazing time in London.
It was so much fun.
And, you know, I had that little bit of an edge
when I eventually went to get a job after university.
If you can't narrow down your long list at all,
think about combination courses.
A few of my friends went to Bath
and they did electrical engineering and psychology.
Completely, completely bizarre combination,
but bizarre combinations do exist.
If you wanna think about sciences
but you don't wanna narrow yourself too much,
you can think about a natural science degree.
It's not just Cambridge that do natural science degrees.
There are a few universities
that offer liberal arts degrees,
which are just combinations of
loads, and loads, and loads of different things.
These are quite rare, but they're becoming
more and more popular.
The lovely Viola is doing one of these
over at Oxford, and she made just
a little, little vlog for me
talking all about her UCAS experience.
If you wanna see how she combined
loads and loads of different courses together,
then you can go and check out her video
and her fantastic channel.
Once you've started to narrow down a course,
start looking at the details.
Start looking at the syllabus,
because if there is something
that you love, love, love, love, love,
you want to go do English to study this author,
to do history to study this time period,
you want to go and do biochemistry
because you love epigenetics,
then look at the syllabi.
They are gonna tell you exactly what is taught year by year.
And check that the bit you're actually interested in
is taught at the university that you want,
because there is no point in going to a university
to study this if your university doesn't teach it.
Some universities will have an element of
professional exams in there as well.
For example, accountancy, some universities will do
the professional accountancy exams
as part of the university course.
It's gonna be the same with medicine.
Obviously, when you come out of that,
you want to make sure that
you're going to be an actual doctor.
The most valuable, valuable resource that you have
in deciding whether a course is gonna be right for you
is people currently doing the course.
So, go to the open days.
Be gutsy, be brave, go and talk to the other students.
I mean, I literally just want you to walk up to people
having coffee in the coffee shop,
or just after lectures, and ask them what they think.
If they like the university,
they are going to give you that honest opinion.
If they don't like the university,
they are going to give you their honest opinion.
They might be rude and tell you to go away,
but they might not be, and it is really, really worth
trying to get as much information as you can.
And obviously, there are loads and loads
of university YouTube vloggers,
and they're gonna tell you about their university,
their course, their accommodation, their UCAS experience.
Do as much research as you can,
get as much information as you can
from as many different people.
We need to start thinking about
matching a course with a university.
So, if you have your ideal course in mind
and your ideal university in mind,
hopefully they match up.
If you have your ideal course in mind,
but you hate the university,
then that's really, really bad luck.
But there are so many different courses
and so many different universities
that I'm sure you will find some things that you like.
And then finally, we need to
think about entrance requirements.
When you make your five choices,
you need to have a range of entrance requirements.
You cannot put five choices down that all have Bs,
because, well, that's just not very sensible.
You need to have a range of things going on.
So, some with high entry requirements,
what you're predicted to get,
some with low entry requirements,
just in case it all goes a little bit wrong
on results day.
So, lots and lots of stuff for you to do there, guys,
loads and loads of stuff for you to be getting on with.
And that is just how to pick a course.
I'm making loads and loads more videos,
talking you through how to pick your university,
where to live, how to write your personal statement,
what to do in interviews,
so I'm gonna do as much as I can to help you out.
If there's anything you can think of that you need,
just let me know.
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