Selecting the college course that you will study once you finish your secondary school education is perhaps one of the most significant decisions you’ll have to make throughout your student life.
While there are plenty of avenues to your desired career, you could definitely consider UCAS application to be the main door. The application offers both a sense of freedom and urgency in having students set the blueprint for their future years of third-level education.
Considering that you’ll likely spend somewhere between three and five years pursuing your education at university, there is an inherent need to find a course that you have a genuine passion for and envision yourself pursuing a career in once you graduate.
In order to arrive at the right course for you, you have an inherent need to look inward as well as outward. You’ll need to ask yourself about what drives you and what interests you so that you can seek reputable courses that align with whatever goals you have tasked yourself with accomplishing.
Understanding Your Interests and Career Goals
From the moment you enter the schooling system, you will follow a set path for the entirety of your education. With the exception of having a choice over the subjects you choose to study for your A-levels, there really isn’t any need to ask yourself some of the more challenging questions required prior to entering university.
While you might want to get the most out of the grades you worked so hard to achieve over the course of your secondary school education, picking a course merely due to its high entry requirements is rarely the best course of action.
That’s why the preliminary step in your decision process should involve a series of challenging questions so that you can better understand yourself. This will also help you draw up some tangible goals to work towards over the coming years.
A balance needs to be struck between interest and aptitude so that you end up on a college course that piques your interest and in which you perform well.
In order to assess your aptitude for a particular subject area, you can quite simply reflect on your learning experience and the exam results you achieved in your A-levels.
Whether you found yourself counting down the hours to your next class or counting down the minutes until the bell rang so you could make a swift exit, an important indication of whether the subject is right for you.
By adopting introspective exercises in your decision process, you’ll be able to pinpoint what genuinely fascinates you and, more importantly, what aligns with your core values.
Looking beyond the books, asking yourself a series of challenging questions as to what exactly it is that you’d like to achieve and what leaves you with a sense of fulfilment will help you decide on a course that suits both your personality traits and natural abilities.
The only students coming out ahead on this aspect of university application are those returning after a long break in their studies...
Projecting Years Into the Future
💼 Career Prospects
😃 Sense of Fulfilment
📈 Sector Trajectory
It's a great practice to think about whether a course will help you build the skills that will ultimately lead you closer to the career path you see yourself pursuing in five years.
It might be hard to envision yourself as a parent, as a relationship partner, and as a financial and social contributor, but these life situations should factor into your choosing a course.
We’ve already touched on employability; now it’s time to point out that some fields are far more marketable than others.
STEM subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths have long been touted as the sure path to professional reward, while Liberal Arts degrees have been perceived as namby-pamby, indecisive… useless.
Fortunately, there’s been a turnaround in that attitude of late. Not only do such studies yield a wider field of work – say, as opposed to the exceedingly narrow one-course-one-career field like professional studies, but they also foster the soft skills most needed in the workplace today.
So, if you are as yet uncertain of where you want to be 20 years from now, don’t discount Bachelor of Arts degrees just yet! Your turn to chime in: when is the best time to apply to university?
Researching Course Content and Structure
Equipped with a more refined understanding of what drives you and what exactly it is you are aiming for, the decision process becomes an awful lot easier.
Think of it like filtering your search for products online. Scrolling through endless pages of unwanted products can make your search seem rather daunting. By applying filters, you will arrive at a select list of options that align with what you are looking for.
With a better understanding of what you want, it’s just a matter of selecting from courses that offer the best vehicle to get you there!
When it comes to figuring out whether or not a program suits your academic and career goals, you’ll need to dig a little deeper than the course title. Make sure to thoroughly analyse the module descriptor so that you know exactly what’s covered and in what year.
Another aspect that should be considered is how you will be assessed on the degree, should you choose to enrol. If you are balancing your studies with part-time work, then you might be better suited to courses where the bulk of the assessments take place during exam periods.
On the flip side, you might want to prioritise courses where the assessments are spread out through various continuous assessment components, allowing you the opportunity to develop presentation skills and fill your resume with practical projects that might help in your desired career.
Even if you have your desired courses whittled down to a handful of options, looking at whether there are opportunities to specialise in a particular subject area may also help you enter your dream career.
If you are unsure exactly of the specific career you’d like to enter within the subject just yet, then opting for a more generalised curriculum will leave you with more options when you get around to graduating from the course.
The proximity of the university may also be an important factor in your education choices. Having to commute for two or more hours each day could take a lot out of you, which might catch up with you over the course of your education. Living away could ramp up the costs of your education as you’ll have to juggle the costs of rent and the respective living costs in the area.
Before you start applying for university, write down any course of study that interests you, no matter how improbable it seems you might select it.
Evaluating University Reputation and Resources
The reputation of a university is one of the biggest driving factors for students to enrol in a course. When it comes to finding the right course for you, the reputation and ranking of the respective university will give you a sense of the quality of education that is provided at the institution, as well as the weight your degree might hold among potential employers.
College rankings are compiled independently by organisations or media outlets, so it's crucial to supplement them with your research.
Some of the major ranking tables that you might want to use to guide your search are The Guardian University Guide, The Complete University Guide, The Times, The Sunday Times and Good University Guide.
So, what might these rankings tell you about the course you're interested in? They typically assess universities based on factors like student satisfaction, teaching quality, student-to-faculty ratio, and post-employment prospects.
It’s important to keep in mind that just because a university ranks well overall, it doesn’t mean that it holds the same merit in your respective subject area. So, if you're considering a nursing degree, then you’ll want to look specifically at where the Nursing School sits on the national or global rankings. Check to find a tutor here on Superprof.
Choosing the Right Course for You!
You might think that choosing your course of study based on what’s offered at UK universities you’d most like to attend is a bit loony but there is some merit in this idea. For one, consider why you chose those schools: their sterling reputation? Their cutting-edge facilities? Their avant-garde student programmes? Student life? The ease of obtaining student finance?
It might also be that the course offers students the opportunity to engage in an internship program throughout part of an entire academic year.
Internships can go a long way in securing employment once you graduate from the course, as it shows employers that you have prior experience in the respective industry and will be capable of making an impact from the moment you start working.
Although it is possible that, somehow, that name just popped into your head and won’t leave you alone, the more likely possibility is that you heard about it from somewhere, and it stuck with you because you are wildly interested in what you heard.
While research is going to be crucial if your end goal is to arrive at a course that speaks to your interest and projected career trajectory, there is only so much you can learn from ranking lists or a course prospectus. You may want to consider supplementing your research by asking past or current students who have enrolled on the course to hear their opinions on the learning experience and the opportunities that it has afforded them.
There is nothing that will give you a sense of what a course is like quite like visiting the campus yourself and attending one of the open days that are organised throughout the academic calendar.
This will give you a sense of the university's ethos as well as the opportunity to hear from the faculty and have some of your equations answered directly by those who are most capable of advising you. Do you know how to apply to university?
You may also benefit from organising a series of one-to-one sessions with an academic counsellor to help you map out a roadmap for your education choices.
As you can see, there is much to consider when filling out your UCAS application, so make sure to take your time and give the process the careful consideration it needs! Hopefully, after you've read, you will find yourself with some actionable steps that you can employ in your decision process so that you can make an informed decision as to what course best facilitates the direction you want the next few years to take you!
Now discover the steps to take in writing your UCAS personal statement...
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