GOING TO UNIVERSITY
Before you finish your studies at Sutton College will have to decide what you want to do with your qualifications. The majority of students finishing with an A level economics qualification go onto university to study on a wide variety of courses. In September 2001, A Level economics students from Sutton College went to many different universities to start their degree studies:
Their reasons for going onto HE were many, including increased earnings potential, greater opportunities for developing future careers and following specific career paths. Also the old cliché "student days are the best days of your life" encouraged many to go to university for personal, social and cultural development.
If you are planning to go to university, you will need to start thinking about it towards the end of the first year of your studies. Hopefully your A Level economics studies will be pushing you towards choosing an economics based course. The Independent provides a general guide to different degree courses including economics:
The 2002 UCAS guide suggests that there are 1973 straight economics degree courses on offer, and a multitude of joint courses ranging from Agricultural Economics and Business Economics through to Social Economics. If you go to the UCAS website you will be able to select a course by subject, institution or geographical region:
When deciding on a course, you will need to consider a variety of factors including the course content (eg modules on offer, assessment methods, sandwich course etc); location (eg will you live at home or on site) and entry requirements (what grades are required).
The Times newspaper publishes a good university guide which ranks universities on things like the quality of teaching, research grade, staff student ratio and A level score per student. It is available online and can be found at:
It will probably be a good idea to visit the university beforehand to get a feel for the place to see whether you would like to spend three years of your life there. If you find a university you are interested in, ring them and ask them if they have any open days in the department which you are applying to where you can visit. Looking at these sites:
A Student View on tips for going on open days to universities
will give some indication of when universities have their open days and how you can benefit from them.
You should also speak to your subject tutor and personal tutor about your plans, and also visit the Information Centre where you can expert advice on applying to University.
At the beginning of the second year you will need to complete your UCAS application form which details what universities you want to attend and the courses you plan to study on. You will be given help with completing your UCAS form by your personal tutor, but if you go to:
many of your questions will be answered.
Going to university is probably the best time of your life. It can also bring up many problems including financial, social and health ones.
There have been many sites created to give advice to students planning to go to university. Some good ones are:
University for Me (produced for Open University students, but contains information for all university applicants)
They will give lots of information about things which are of interest to students including finance, grants and student loans, social scenes, good and bad universities, accommodation and eating cheaply and healthily.
An excellent book published every year is the:
which gives the lowdown on all universities from the price of accommodation to the ratio of female to male students. Well worth a purchase at £12.99.