Hi. Yeah, it really helps if you know what you want to do, something that's very rare. I can't say I have a precise line I want to follow yet, but it gets more focused each year. I started out at Loughborough on their Automotive Engineering course, but it proved to be something different to what I had expected, but I left it too late to make my decisions and spent/wasted two years there. I learned a lot, and it's an extremely strong course, but not what I wanted, and the staff/lecturers were terrible in my opinion. Very intelligent, knowledgeable and experienced people, but not lecturers.
It's very hard to know just what you're letting yourself in for before you start a course. Only now, after four years of university education can I really say I'd know how to decide if a course was right. At most it seems, uni's tend to show the first year modules to prospective students, and that's about it. What you really need is a list of modules for each year of the course, plus a breakdown of the topics covered in each of those modules, and any other details you can get. I remember thinking what a drag it was at school, looking through courses and their details, but that was only the beginning. You really HAVE to see precisely what you'll be studying for the three or four years of the course, that's the only way you can be pretty sure you'll end up with what you want. I had an in-depth interview for Loughborough, and an open day is thoroughly necessary too.
So, in short, my guide to getting exactly what you want from your course choice:
1. Decide what sort of course you want to do.
2. Find who offers that sort of course.
3. Get their prospectuses.
4. Weed out the ones you think sound a bit crap/look crap/bad location.
5. Visit the ones you're left with, or at least the top three most promising.
6. Follow up the ones you really like the look/sound of by getting as many details of modules over the course of the degree as possible.
7. Hopefully you'll be left with two or three really firm choices, places you believe you should be able to get into in terms of entry requirements (pick some above, some below what you're hoping for). Perhaps an additional visit to your favourites to talk to lecturers, see accommodation again, workshops or whatever would be a good way to prioritise your university selection list on the UCAS form
