Journal 3 – From Scotland to London: A Diverse University Tour Experience
As promised, some reflections on the two university tours. Both tours were successful, and I received some very good feedback from the schools’ staff who accompanied the students. Although both lasted about a week there were two very different itineraries.
The first started in Scotland with visits to St Andrews and Edinburgh and then continued south to end up with a couple of nights in London. Students on this tour were from Y12 and Y10 and it was quite striking the age difference with some of them. While the Y12’s were very focused on the university visits and looking for what would make each place a good one for them to consider for their future studies, the Y10’s were much more on a general fact finding mission. In both respects the range of university types that we visited allowed all students to gain some valuable insight into their possible futures,
The second tour was much more of a two-centre tour. Starting in Oxford and moving to London after a couple of days. Again, we saw several different types of institution and I was particularly taken with our visit to Northeastern University London. This is basically an American university campus in the UK. Previously the New College of the Humanities and based in Bedford Square, it had now moved into a building right next to Tower Bridge and the views from the classrooms would prove very distracting for me! That aside the interesting thing was that it is accredited to offer a full 3-year UK degree, with the possibility of then moving to the US for a fourth year and getting a US degree from there. There were also opportunities to continue on to Masters degrees at either the US ‘home’ institution or at the London campus as well. Obviously, being quite new the number of students is small at the moment, but the plans are to grow. It was reassuring to know as well that it isn’t as limited as some in terms of the course offerings available.
So, two very different tours and two very different groups of students. I hope they go back to their schools with increased knowledge of what the UK can offer for their studies and having had an enjoyable week on a Univisits tour.
