What does your university say about you?
There are a lot of weird universities out there, and selecting the right university to benefit your future career can be a tremendously personal choice. But, once you’re in, it’s easy to forget all those other places you considered. All that research done through campus tours and prospectuses is useless.
You've settled in. You have flatmates and societies and courses to concern yourself with.
No use worrying about what could have been, right?
But what does your choice say about you? When you flaunt around your fancy degree in front of strangers, what kind of images come to mind?
We’ve taken a look at six universities to find out what their students symbolise.
1. Manchester University
Erected during a period of major industrialisation and aimed towards students searching for technical careers, it stands as no stretch of the imagination that Manchester students can come off as a boring bunch.
With Manchester’s notoriously wild nightlife, it is surprising that student get anything done, but famous Manchester graduates such as Brian Cox and Benedict Cumberbatch show that Manchester students are a talented bunch.
They come to the big city to party hard and get a decent degree but, at the end of the day, you know they’ll succeed. It’s not uncommon to see a graduate of the University of Manchester emerging fully prepared to enter into the professions or excel in science.
2. Durham University
Durham University boasts a diverse population of students driven by an ambitious mentality to succeed.
Often generalised as some of the snobbier students in Britain, Durham students can identified through their dedication to sporting unusual neck wear, a deep-rooted desire to shop at Jack Wills, and through frequent and spontaneous anecdotes about getting ‘absolutely smashed’ on their Gap Yah in Laos.
3. Leeds University
Without a doubt, Leeds has a strong drinking culture amongst its student population. In fact, it is often seen as the nightlight focal point for northern England.
This is, of course, not without some truth. Leeds has more bars than most zoos, after all. While student life here is largely about having fun and ending up on wild adventures, there is one universal truth that can be applied to the place: no work gets done.
4. Edinburgh University
Recognised around Britain as Scotland’s highly-prestigious equivalent of Cambridge, Edinburgh is home to a creative student populace. Young people here understand the value of hard work and moderation.
They are generally a sensible, intelligent, and highly driven breed of achievers, occasionally falling down to snooty behaviour. Nonetheless, Edinburgh is commonly thought of as the place where English students come to Scotland to work sort-of-hard and walk out totally justified in the outcome with a killer degree.
5. Oxford University
If an employer sees someone boasting graduation from one of Britain’s older, more admired universities, they will undoubtedly look on the applicant favourably.
To the rest of the world, however, Oxford graduates can come across as an over-privileged elitist sort, feelings that are often born of jealousy or bitterness from rejection of their own applications.
Beyond the stereotype, Oxford folks tend to be a well-rounded, efficient, and highly capable society of students with aspirations of great success and irrefutable chances of achieving it. The place is Hogwarts for grown adults who can’t do magic.
6. Cambridge University
Similar to Oxford, a degree from Cambridge can impress any future employers out there, yet similar to Oxford, many Cambridge graduates can be held in an elitist light by the majority of people.
Despite this, Cambridge students are generally a nice bunch and of course they’re super hard working.
Being a Cambridge student is a mix between wanting to have a normal student experience but then realising that you go to Cambridge so quickly backtracking on that idea- at least it’s nice to be surrounded by people as clever as yourself for once.
