Get into UK Nursing School for Dummies by Evered Andrew;Evered Andrew;

Author:Evered, Andrew;Evered, Andrew;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2013-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Exploring Universities

In This Chapter

Thinking about the university’s reputation

Exploring the programme

Considering location and accommodation

Checking out the social side

Using websites to help you research

With over 68 universities to choose from, finding the best match for your requirements may be a bit of a challenge. Universities differ in terms of course material, assessment methods, clinical practice experiences and the overall student experience. You need to take your time, undertake some research and plan a strategy to ensure that your decision is the best one for you. Choosing the right course at the right university requires some work, and this chapter offers assistance in pulling together your thoughts and ideas.

Although all universities offering nursing programmes follow the same Nursing and Midwifery Council standards for pre-registration education, no national curriculum exists and each delivers their programme in a different way. All universities promote themselves as student friendly and show you all the good reasons that you should choose them over others. Few universities give detailed information of the courses or the not-so-good points of studying there, so you have to do some detective work, reading between the lines and investigating the evidence to find out what being a nursing student at each university really means. In this chapter, I help you consider all the options, review the different opportunities and identify drawbacks.

Some students make the wrong decision and choose a university that doesn’t suit them. Transferring between universities is a possibility, but no university can guarantee to find you a place. So focus on choosing the right university in the first instance, rather than holding on to the notion of transferring as a backup plan.

Probing Programme Particulars

Even though every nursing programme leads to registration as a nurse, you find that each university has its own way of running the course, assessing its students and managing the way you study. There are similarities across all universities as each course must meet the NMC rules and regulations; for example, every course requires students to spend time in clinical practice. But each university has a lot of scope to develop their own teaching, and this can have a big impact on your day-to-day learning.

When exploring universities, find out not only the structure of the course but also the finer details of how the course works, as it is often these details that have the biggest effect on your daily student activities.

Checking that the university offers the right course

Not all universities offer nursing courses, and those that do offer courses don’t necessarily offer all the nursing fields. For example, far more places are available for adult nursing than for learning disabilities, which has very few places on offer. Obviously, universities can’t run courses for just a few individuals, so you have less choice of university for the smaller fields. Table 8-1 outlines the number of universities offering courses in each field.

Table 8-1 Courses Available in Nursing Fields

Nursing Field

Number of Universities Offering a Course

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