Hola! My name is Elena, and if you haven’t guessed it by that greeting already, I’m Spanish. I’m a second year Business Management student and today I’m going to talk about why I chose to come to The University of Surrey.
Once I was certain I wanted to apply to English universities, I started researching and looking at the websites for different universities. The four points below are the main reasons that made me put Surrey as my firm choice:
Campus
I know this might not be a decisive factor or even important for everyone, but I knew I wanted to go to a university with a very nice campus where I could go on walks or study outside (in the summer). Out of all of the universities I had shortlisted, Surrey had the nicest campus.
Being a student at Surrey now, I love going on strolls around the lake or even just having a nice view going to my seminars. I can’t wait for it to be warm again so that I can have picnics with my friends there!
Location
Another important thing for me was location. I love how Guildford is just a 50 minute direct train journey from Gatwick, and an hour and a half away from Heathrow (by train). It takes even less time by car. This makes it quite quick and easy for me when I go home or come back. It’s especially useful now in Covid times, as I want to limit the amount of times I change trains, or shorten the overall journey time on public transport.
I didn’t just think of The University of Surrey’s proximity to airports when I was looking at universities, but also how near it is to cities like London, Oxford or Brighton. It’s great because Guildford is a lovely small town as you can see in this picture:
But if you want to spend the day or even a week (on Christmas or Easter break) visiting a different city, you can and it really doesn’t take that long to get to many places!
Placements
I knew I wanted to do a placement year, so this was pretty much something that would “make or break” my university choice. I was very happy to know that the majority of Surrey’s undergraduate degrees offer placements, including all of Surrey’s UG Business degrees. I also looked on many different graduate employability rankings and Surrey was always amongst the top universities. You can find more information on that here.
It was also nice to find out how Surrey had its own platform to help students look for and apply to placements, Surrey Pathfinder. I’m finally using it now that I’m in second year and I can tell you there are a lot of different companies advertising placements on there!
Societies
Oh, you don’t know how many different University Union sites I visited. I don’t know about you, but societies (along with everything else on this list) were a crucial part for me when choosing a university. I was quite upset to see one of the universities with a degree with modules I really liked only had about 5-10 societies. Needless to say, that university didn’t make it to my top 5.
Surrey has more than 150 clubs and societies, so there is definitely something for everyone. You can see the entire list here, but here’s a taste of what you can find:
For me it was very important to choose a university where I’d get to meet people from lots of different places around the world. So if the university had cultural societies (like Surrey does), that was a plus. I also knew I wanted to do something creative outside of my degree, so I definitely kept an eye out for those. I joined StagTV (the Student TV Station at Surrey) last year, and it’s probably been one of the best decisions I’ve made at university. I love what we do and everyone I’ve met being a part of the society.
Those were the four main things that made me choose Surrey. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the post!
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