Summative Assignment - Durham University?

Seminar 6 – Group Report

After attending Durham University Business School for almost two terms now, as group we felt like this report summarises our reasoning for choosing Durham University, including views from National and International students, allowing us to develop a greater understanding as to why Durham University is one of the most highly selected university to begin your mature studying career.

Summary –

        National Student: - When I decided that I wanted to take on university and begin a new chapter of my life, my first thought was that I wanted to achieve greatness and become a leader of the future, what better way to do that than at a Durham University, the encouragers and inspirers of success since 1832.

        Upon beginning my research of Universities I found that Durham was in the top five for business and management studies in the United Kingdom (The Guardian, 2015), this immediately attracted my attention, placing the imagery of Durham University of have a prestigious business school and in particular somewhere I would want to study and pursue my business aims and goals.

        With the current course that I am studying being a four-year course, the third year offering a business placement, strong respected connections and links with companies such as P&G, Jaguar Land Rover and Barclays where extremely significant in my decision making. As well as the figures of recruitment after graduation that arose from such a placement year where also a notable factor when deciding where I would become the Business man I wanted to be.

        Finally, after the open day and upon discovering that I would in-fact be studying in Stockton-upon-Tees rather than in main campus Durham, for me, this really was a major influential factor, not only did this fill my parents with confidence that I would be safer rather than being in a large and overwhelming city. This was such an important aspect for me due to the fact that I am from a rural countryside village and thus I believed I would prefer the smaller campus feel and it settled me as I thought maybe I would be treated more as an individual rather than, compared to a city campus, just a number.

International Student (Outside the EU) –

As a British expat attending a British International School, all the systems in place to aid in the application journey to universities were mainly designed for those choosing to apply to either a British university or an American university, likely due to the fact that both countries hold some of the most globally reputed universities. Furthermore, the UK was appealing as it would allow me access to many of the larger service sector companies that are not located in just any other country. The main priority in choosing University was reputation; the right university on your CV can often be a determining factor in you being hired by a major corporation.

International Student (Inside THE EU) –

        As an EU student that obtained an international diploma (IB) that was fully taught in English, my choices were based on international universities because I did not want to have an international high-school diploma but not put it to use. Thus, my choices were limited to English speaking universities. I was conflicted between the US and the UK and some other English speaking universities in the Netherlands. Ultimately, the US was not worth it due to the high college costs and great distance from home. The Netherlands was eliminated because in rankings they did not compete with UK universities. So ultimately, I was fixed on UK universities because of lower costs, closeness to home, and better academics.