By Elena Sanvincenti, Year 12
Over the course of a three-day period from Wednesday 26th of April to the Friday of that same week, or the 28th of April, a group of Year 12 students considering studying in the UK visited a multitude of universities in England, including choices such as King’s College, Imperial, UCL, Cambridge and Oxford, University of Surrey and more. Students who were a part of this trip had a three-day itinerary planned out, where they would have the opportunity to choose from a selection of universities they were curious about, and as a result, participated in guided tours throughout the course of this trip.
Supervised by Mrs Walker, and other extraordinary teachers, the teachers that visited these universities had different motives. Of the three interviewed for this article, one stated that their main goal was to “get a better feel of the campuses and their atmospheres”, while another claimed that they were “there to better understand the university courses and the competitiveness of the universities”, and a third said quite simply “it was just to assure myself that this was where I wanted to go later on, I was curious about the other [universities] but am now assured of my top choice”. Two out of three of the students also answered yes when asked if the trip helped narrow down the university search.
The trip’s focus was in fact based on the atmosphere and general standards of the universities, but also their surroundings. Given that around half the university options were London-based, the students also had a chance to go out to dinner and explore the neighbourhood and area around their sleeping arrangements. Thanks to a combination of their exposure to the university atmosphere as well as that of the city or surrounding cities or areas of the universities, it can justifiably be said that this trip on a large scale was useful, however, one interviewed student pointed out that the trip “didn’t provide any specific data or information as to the universities and was more focused on discovering the environments of each uni”.
For the future Year 12s, trips of the sort are very much worth considering if you aren’t yet sure of the type of university you’d like to attend, and it’s also a great opportunity to simply gather basic general information on universities in countries such as the UK.
