To Get into a Particular Career
Many students told us they wanted to go to university to pursue particular careers, including medicine and psychiatry.
If you have a particular career in mind, many degrees offer practical elements or placements abroad to help you develop your skills in a real working environment. This means you’ll be able to take your classroom learning and apply it in a practical and work-related setting, which looks mighty impressive to potential employers.
Not only is this a great way to actually use your brand-new skills, but it will also give you an idea of whether you’re really suited to that career, or whether actually you’d enjoy working in a completely different environment.
For the Social Life
Of course, university isn’t all about sitting in lectures, heading to the library for more reading before heading home for more studying, (although don’t tell your parents that obviously!) There’s also lots of opportunities to increase your friendship group and let your hair down at social events.
If the social aspect of university is important to you, make sure you check out their rankings in the Whatuni Student Choice Awards for its city life, students’ union as well as clubs and societies, as these all play a BIG part in whether your social life is buzzing like a bee’s family reunion, or as dull as the greyest paint you can buy.
To Experience Somewhere New
Whether you want to experience the hustle and bustle of a new city, or go somewhere a bit more remote for some peace and quiet while you study, the idea of exploring somewhere new was a seriously big draw for several of the students that we spoke to.
Get to know your new city with the help of student-based city guides.
To Get Smarter
No matter how much you think you know about your favourite subject, university will show you how little you actually knew.
Enhancing your knowledge and teaching you the tiny details of subjects that you hadn’t noticed before over at least a three-year period (or more if you choose to do a placement year or go on to study a postgraduate course), you’ll certainly get smarter at uni, probably in more ways than one too.
To Meet New People
From your housemates, to your course mates, to the friends you make in the societies you join, to the random people you meet on nights out that become your BFFs instantly, there are so many opportunities to meet new people and make friends at university, you can’t count them all on one hand. No wonder so many people told us that the chance to meet new people was one the main reasons they were applying to uni.
To Live On My Own
You don’t have to live with other students when you’re at university, in fact many people told us that they were planning on living on their own and be completely independent instead. Even if you don’t want to share with your course mates, your university will still be able to help you find accommodation, so make sure you go to them for help and support.
For Opportunities
From opening prospective employer’s doors to getting a brand-new hobby that you never thought you’d be interested in when you first signed up at the fresher’s fair, university is all about embracing new opportunities. So, it’s no surprise that so many students told us it’s a big factor in why they want to go to uni in the first place.