Choosing the course you’re going to study for the next few years of your life is a huge decision, so you’ll need to make sure you consider a wide range of different options.
Updated: 16 Oct 2025
Your course choice affects a lot of different things, from the universities you can study at to your future career options, to your postgraduate study options. It’s important when you choose a degree that you consider different aspects of your education and future. You’ll want to think about things such as:
What are your academic strengths?
What career do you want after you’ve finished university?
What do you enjoy?
Ideally, you’ll find a course that brings together these main three factors so you can study something you’re good at and that you enjoy, and at the end of it all progress on to further education or your dream career.
Remember you’ll probably spend three years studying the course you choose and potentially several decades working in a related career, so it’s important to think about your interests and not just which degree seems easiest or will make you the most money.
Read more about how to pick the right subject for you.
When you’re browsing for courses, there’s lots of different terminology thrown around to describe different types of courses. It can be confusing, so we’re going to break it down for you.
What are the different types of undergraduate courses?
A bachelor’s degree is what most people think of when they talk about university study. It’s an undergraduate degree, typically taught over three years (though this isn’t always the case) and will usually lead to a BA or BSc in your chosen subject. These are the degrees most people start when they finish their post-16 study at college.
Joint, dual or combined honours degrees simply means that you’re studying multiple subjects. For example, a common combination might be BA History and Politics. You’ll spend about half your time studying history and half your time studying politics on a course like this.
There are also joint honours courses such as BA English Literature with Creative Writing. On a course like this, you’d expect to spend more time studying English than creative writing.
On combined honours degrees, you may be able to focus more on one subject as you progress through your course, but this depends on your university.
Joint honours degree UK: a guide
On an integrated master’s degree, you’ll complete the undergraduate level of study (usually this will take three years), and then you’ll automatically progress into postgraduate, or master’s, level study. Integrated master’s courses are usually one year longer than their bachelor’s counterpart.
If your university offers both a bachelor’s and integrated master’s in the same subject, you can usually swap between them during your studies, dependent on your performance.
Sometimes, you want to get a degree FAST. Accelerated degrees aren’t very common but allow you to complete a bachelor’s degree in two years of study instead of three.
You’ll usually have to study over the summer and have shorter breaks in between terms, and these degrees also typically cost more to study per year. However, you’ll only have two years’ worth of living costs to cover, and in most cases your total tuition cost is less than a standard bachelor’s degree.
Sandwich courses are sort of an umbrella term for a course where you take a year out to either study abroad or do a work placement. These degrees normally take three years to complete, and you’ll usually do your year abroad or work placement after your second year.
These courses can be similar to a sandwich course, where a years’ work experience is added into your degree (usually after your second year), but in some cases the year of work experience replaces your second year of study, meaning the degree still takes three years to complete. It’s more common to find that the year is added into your degree, but make sure you check how long the degree runs for so you’re clear what the arrangement is.
Why choose a degree with a year in industry?
Foundation degrees are usually two-year courses, but upon graduating you’ll be awarded an FdA or FdSc. These degrees are worth two thirds of a bachelor’s degree as you study the equivalent of the first and second years of a normal bachelor’s degree.
Some universities offer a ‘top-up’ year which you can normally complete at any point after gaining your foundation degree. Completion of a ‘top-up’ year would bring your qualification up to a full bachelor’s degree.
Not be confused with foundation degrees, courses with a foundation year allow students with lower grades or who didn’t meet subject specific requirements a path into studying a bachelor’s degree. The foundation year will be added onto the start of the degree and is sometimes known as Year 0.
Upon successful completion of the foundation year, you’ll be able to progress onto the regular bachelor’s degree course. As a year is added on at the start of the degree, these degrees are often four years long, however you may have the chance to also do a year in industry or year abroad which could extend your degree to five years.
HNC stands for Higher National Certificate and is equivalent to the first year of undergraduate study. HNC courses usually take one year to complete if you’re studying full-time.
HND stands for Higher National Diploma and these courses are equivalent to the first two years of undergraduate study, so they typically take two years to complete when studied full-time.
Both HNCs and HNDs are usually practical, vocational courses, so they equip students perfectly to go straight into work. HNCs and HNDs are commonly studied by people who want to go into a trade such as engineering, construction, agriculture and health and social care.
Yes, sort of! Joint, dual or combined honours courses allow you to study two subjects alongside each other. There are restrictions on which subjects you can combine, which vary across different universities. Typically, the two subjects studied will be in a similar field, for example two humanities subjects, or two social sciences subjects, but this doesn’t always have to be the case.
Joint honours degree UK: a guide
Right here on Whatuni! We have lots of information on thousands of courses at universities and institutions all over the UK, so we’re the perfect place to start your search.
Once you’ve found some courses you’re interested in on Whatuni, we’d recommend getting more information about the course by checking out the uni’s website, or by ordering a prospectus. And if you like what you see there, you can book onto an open day to find out even more information and get any questions you have answered in person.
There are lots of things to consider when choosing a course. Some may be more important to you than others, but here are some things to consider:
There’s no point applying to courses that have entry requirements that are considerably higher than your predicted grades. It’s also wise to apply to courses that have a range of different entry requirements so that you’ll hopefully receive some higher offers and some lower offers.
Read more about university entry requirements.
Of course, it’s not just the course you’re choosing, but the university. So you’ll want to ask yourself whether it has the right facilities for you, whether you want to go to a campus or non-campus university, and whether the atmosphere of the uni suits what you’re looking for.
How to pick the right university.
The location is a big part of your overall university experience. You’ll want to think about how far away it is from home, and how long it’ll take you to get home and how much it might cost. As well as travelling home, you’ll want to consider whether the local area is offering what you want from a uni town. Is the uni close to amenities like a local high street, nightclubs, bars and restaurants? Do you want to live in a big, bustling city or would you prefer studying in a smaller town?
Most undergraduate degrees cost £9,250 per year (this will be rising to £9,535 in England and Wales from the 2025/26 academic year), but you’ll also have to consider the cost of living in the area you’re looking at studying in and the cost of tuition if it’s different than the standard cost.
Most UK students are eligible for a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan, but it’s especially important to consider how much maintenance loan you’re likely to get and how much that will buy you in the cities you’re considering.
Choosing a university you can afford.
For some careers, the degree you’ve studied is really important. You might want to have a go at our Career Matcher to see what careers suit your interests and think about what courses would lend themselves well to that future career.
For example, if you want to be an accountant, studying literature probably isn’t the way to go. But if you think that a career in journalism is for you, then a literature or journalism degree would be the perfect route to take.
How to pick the right course for your future career.
Not all degrees in the same subject are equal. Courses are written and designed by the lecturers at the university, so the modules on offer will vary across different universities down to the lecturers’ research areas and interests.
Of course you’ll find a lot of things in common, but the further you progress through the degree, the more varied you can expect the modules to be. While you can’t guarantee that all the same modules will still be on offer by the time you get there, you can take a look at what’s on offer and use it as a guide to the sort of thing that’s likely to be available to you.
Some people hate exams, other people quite like them as a method of assessment. Different courses at uni will be assessed through a variety of methods, but if you know you have a strong preference for one type of assessment over another, you may want to look for courses that have a heavier weighting on your preferred examination method.
Assessment methods at university include exams, coursework, presentations, practical work, group projects and class participation among others. Not all universities or courses use all of these methods, so it’s important to find out which you’re likely to encounter.
You’re going to be putting a lot of work and a lot of time into your degree, so you want to be interested in the subject. It doesn’t have to be your all-time favourite, but it definitely shouldn’t be a subject you moan about constantly and drag your feet to class every day. Pick something you’ll enjoy taking a deep dive into and your uni experience will be so much better.
Read more: Things to consider when choosing a course
The Final 5 is our name for the five courses you’ll enter on your UCAS application. As you can apply for up to five, it’s best to use all of your options. We’d recommend firstly creating a longlist of courses you’re interested in. Get prospectuses, check the uni’s website and go on a few open days.
After that, you can start narrowing down your longlist based on pros and cons you’ve found out through your research. Keep going through rounds of narrowing it down – you might need to get brutal – and eventually you’ll find the five courses you really don’t want to let go of. Those are your Final 5.
Learn how Whatuni can help you select your Final 5.
Other students used all the above information to help them choose their course, and there’s one more really important method you can use to pick a course: student reviews. We’ve got thousands of them and they can help you to decide whether a university or course will be the right fit for you based on real student experiences.
Got all the way down here? Congratulations, you’re now armed with all the information you need to go forth and start browsing, researching and longlisting courses. To help you on your journey, we’ve got a handy checklist for you, so you can make sure that None of all this important stuff slips your mind.
Get your choosing a course checklist.