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4.04.14.11107 Student reviews
Sort:Latest reviews18-24 years
First gen student
There are so many study spaces on campus so you can always study in an environment that works for you. The campus is very green even though it’s so close to the city centre. The staff are so helpful and want to make your university experience better. It could be improved by having more emphasis on the student union and what they do within the university.
18-24 years
I’ve loved the past 4 years at UoB and can’t really ask for much more. I love the feel of the campus having such a strong student community feel while the city is a 7 minute train away, so the nightlife is not far away! I think some facilities could be enhanced such as mental health student support by having more immediate resources.
18-24 years
Best: social life and interesting lectures Worst: strikes and covid taking away lots of time on campus
4.3
18-24 years
The University of Birmingham is such a lovely place to study and has everything you will need during your university years. When I was a prospective student I was reluctant to put Birmingham down as one of my choices because the grade requirements were a bit too high for me. However, after visiting the campus on an open day and being absolutely enchanted not only by my course but also the campus, the city and the entire atmosphere, I immediately placed it as my first choice. Since coming here and nearly finishing three years, I can confidently say that I do not regret my choice at all. One of the best things about this university is its location. The university has an entire, beautiful campus to itself just on the edge of Birmingham which makes it feel secluded but connected at the same time. The campus has so many lovely study areas and is one of the really green areas in Birmingham. The actual campus has its own train station that runs towards the city every ten minutes which means that you can always escape the studying if you need to. Birmingham itself is an amazing city - it has such a cool up and coming art scene, loads of independent and yummy places to eat and lots of places to shop at. The balance of a campus university but also being near a city means you get the best of both worlds and there are so many different things you can do with friends, course mates, flatmates etc. rather than just spending your time studying. Another thing I love about the university is the community here. Through the attention placed on accommodation for freshers and making sure the first few weeks ran smoothly to the number of societies Birmingham has here - I feel situated in a community, which I don't think I would have gotten anywhere else. My course is also brilliant. I am being taught by professors who are within the industry themselves and are currently all part of the literary scene. It means that as a student I get to be in touch with what is going on currently in the industry that I want to work in and also gives me a chance to make better connections. My workload is manageable and because of the option to study at the campus, in the city and at my student house - I never feel like I am always stuck in one place with no escape. One thing I think Birmingham could work on more is listening to the students and really connecting with what the students want - doing university during a pandemic is never easy on both sides, but I feel like the student's concerns could have been paying attention to more. I also feel that because Birmingham is becoming such a green city (one of the first cities in the UK that is about to become car-free in the next year or so), the university should start to follow suit more. While there is some effort in becoming green in the accommodation and some university buildings, it would be good to put more focus there.
Doing English and Creative Writing is a niche course and this already places you in a different place to some of the mainstream degrees that are taught. What is the best thing about this course, is how creative writing is treated as an equal to English Literature - if not valued more. At Birmingham, you will do your dissertation in Creative Writing and the English Literature side is more like the added extra rather than the other way around. I appreciated this balance as it was exactly what I was looking for - the lectures and workshops we do in creative writing challenge different aspects of my writing and has challenged me to look beyond the traditional forms of my writing and where I can go for the future. We meet about five hours a week to work on a few different modules that covers these different forms, and looking back to what I was like in first year, I can say with confidence that y writing has flourished and become much more fine tuned and sophisticated. While the degree is more focused on Creative Writing - I did find that the workload from English was a lot more than I expected, and I spent most of my first and second year spending a lot of time doing the work from English rather than Creative Writing. In the first year, I didn't really enjoy not being able to have the freedom to choose my own English modules but once I reached the second year I understood why it was done. It was meant to reintroduce you to everything you know about literature but shine a new and more academic light on it - we were taught literature not to try and be good at it and to do well in exams, but to understand it, learn from it and love it. But, I did enjoy my second year of English much more as I was able to choose the subjects that really interested me. And I found that by honing in my interests in English and really putting in a lot of effort into my work, my writing improved drastically and I could begin to see why this is joint honours degree. I think my favourite thing about my course though is the freedom we get to work independently while also knowing we can touch base with our professors at any time. Compared to other degrees, your contact hours are a lot lower - I spent about ten hours a week in my first year at university and it's only gotten lower. This free time I had meant I was able to efficiently prepare for classes and also start working on my writing more outside the workshops. It also meant I had more chances to talk to my professors 1:1. All my professors have contact hours where you can meet up with them and talk over any concerns you may have. This has been the most useful during assignment periods and after feedback is given - going to my professors and getting their advice on my work has been one of the major reasons I have bumped up from a low 2:1 to a mid 1st. It really is one of the best things about my course and is also nice to get to know what your professors are up to and get more detailed responses to your questions and work. I would say the worst aspect of the course is the lack of focus on careers and internships - while the university overall is brilliant at helping you get on track for a career - my course hasn't been that good or clear on what we can do with our degrees once we finish. Any career stuff I have had to work out by myself or with other members of staff who work in the career section.
Bournbrook accommodation is a fab first-year hall to try and get a place at. The accommodation is situated not even five minutes away from the university and five minutes away from Selly Oak which is where most of the second and third years live and where all the massive food shops and restaurants are. The amenities are one of the few updated and modern versions compared to the other accommodations the university provides.