What Students Say
Likes
- The quality of teaching of some of the professors was top notch. I was quite lucky with a few of them.
- Our campus and the facilities provided to us were actually very nice. We had 2 libraries- The diamond and the information commons which were open 24x7 to support us.
- I think I made friends with students of many different countries. The people in our college were really diverse and came from different different countries which I never thought I would make friends from.
Dislikes
- The complaint I had with my course was it somehow lacked industry exposure and practical knowledge which would have made me understand things better. A lot of it focused on theory.
- Rising cost of living expenses in the UK. It still was used to be better when I was there but recently prices of accomodations and grocery stores have shot up massively.
- The weather could be a bummer for alot of people. Here in Sheffield, it rains almost everyday maybe and the weather is always gloomy. I was okay with it at one point but it used to bother a lot to my friends.
Course Curriculum
6
- I would say that for someone studying in India, the curriculum was not at all tough. It was easy to pass through, and with a little extra effort, you get top marks too.
- A positive thing about my course would be the demand for it all over the world. There were good labs and infrastructure to accommodate and provide the best technical facilities.
- Negative part would be the not so much focus on practical knowledge and focus on self learning in general all over the UK.
- There were typically 2-3 classes scheduled in a day only, which was very freeing, giving time to self-study and also socialise.
- Lectures had around 70-80 people. Lab sessions were divided and usually of 30-35 people.
- Out of around 80-90 people in my course, around 30 were Indians. So the Indian community was quite big there.
Admission Experience
-
I applied to 5 colleges.
- University of Sheffield
- University of Leeds
- Queen Mary University of London
- University of Bath
- University of Southampton
- I got accepted into Sheffield and Southampton for the course I wanted.
- Queen Mary offered me a different course to get in. Bath and Leeds, I got rejected.
- I wanted to get into a lot of the bigger universities in London and Manchester as well. But what I lacked was a decent score in my Undergrad here in India. I didn’t even qualify for a lot of colleges based on my CGPA and the ranking my college had in our country.
-
Between Sheffield and Southampton, I chose to go with Sheffield for a few reasons.
- Firstly, Sheffield was better on the world rankings chart.
- I really wanted the best university experience, and Sheffield rates very highly all over the UK. In hindsight, I love that I did not do my university in London because the student life and the uni part is really missing there. I had the best 3 years living in that city.
- It was next to Manchester, and I always wanted to study in Manchester because I am a big Manchester United supporter. Did came to work as I used to work in their stadium at one point.
- The admission process was quite simple for most universities in the UK. My work was simpler as I was taking help from a counsellor for my applications, as I did not want to risk anything. But the applications in the UK are pretty straightforward and don’t really ask for countless documents.
- The conditions are not straight-up set by any college and really depend on your overall profile. For me, they asked me to maintain a 7/10 CGPA in college by the end, and I did achieve it. Other than that, your SOP really matters, and that is basically when you tell them why you really want to join them.
- I was not asked for an IELTS exam as my school was recognised for providing overall education in my CBSE 12th grade.
- I applied for the September intake. Had started thinking and shortlisting universities by March-April and was actively applying from June-July. I got a conditional offer from my uni earlier because one semester was left in my undergrad college, and they wanted me to have certain grades.
- As soon as I got my result back in around July end or August start, I submitted my marksheets and got an unconditional letter.
- After that, the visa process started and took somewhere around 20-25 days to get my visa.
Faculty
8
- Faculty-to-student ratio in lectures was basically 70:1. The lab sessions and tutorial classes had one professor and 4-5 teaching assistants. So for those, it was around 7:1.
- The teaching methodologies were alright, but a lot of focus was given to self learning as a whole. You have to go out of your way and reach out to professors for more clarity on topics and extra help.
- The professors do assist students in finding jobs in our field by connecting us with people, only if we reach out to them enough.
- Part-time opportunities were provided by the career support team on the campus.
- 2 of the faculty members I loved, and they did help me a lot. Dr Dave Cameron and Dr Suvodeep Mazumdar.
Campus Life
10
- The whole city center in Sheffield was our campus. I wasn’t in one separate area. We had our department buildings all over the city, and that was the best part.
- Our campus had all the facilities. Libraries, sports venues, clubs, bars, food joints, everything.
- Sheffield Varsity was the main festival that happened in our college, which was sports competitions against the other college in the city, Sheffield Hallam University.
- There were tons of societies, and all of them had many events lined up all year. In general, our college had a lot of extracurricular events, be it sports events, club nights, or food festivals as well.
Part Time Jobs
- For all those student teaching roles, you had to apply actively and have good grades in the first place to secure these roles. I would say every batch of 60-80 people, at least 3-4, got these jobs.
- The pay range for all the campus jobs is much higher than the regular national wage. At my time, minimum wage was around £11 and all the DA, TA, RA used to get somewhere around £15-16.
- Other non-campus jobs could be maintenance and staffing in pubs, sports venues and cafes.
- 20 hours were allowed per week.
- If you actively look for these and make an effort, it wasn’t that tough to get.
- Students working anywhere used to earn around the minimum wage at the time. Indian students used to work in waiting staff roles or even in fast food joints. It wasn’t that tough to get these roles, and the pay was decent. The usual steps of getting part-time opportunities are making a CV in the first place. Then apply on Indeed and the Uni Job portal. Also, we were required to reach out to a lot of these stores in the city and ask around for the jobs available.
Placement
6
- Usually, that number could be high, but in the last few years, the job market in the UK has been really tough, which meant not a lot of people got the full-time opportunities very soon.
- Even for me, it took around 6-8 months.
- Average decent pay in Sheffield in my field was around £30000 for the start, or a little less. In London, you could get £40000 for the same job.
- All the big consulting companies had great hiring from our batches. A lot of the people got placed in Deloitte, PWC, Amazon, Deutsche Bank, etc.
Accommodation
Off Campus
10
- I used to live in a private university accommodation. It used to be a little better than uni ones and still had the whole community feel.
- My monthly rent was around £700, which included all the facilities in the accommodation and AC, a Smart TV in my room.
- There were no challenges. I looked up on the internet, and this accommodation was very well ranked.
- Prestige Student Living Steel City, Hollis Croft, Cosmos. These were the best accommodations there. My accommodation was a 5-7-minute walk from the campus.
- A lot of indians used to stay in Sheffield-3, Fenton House, because of the affordable pricing.
Exams
- There was no such exam required to take for the admission process. Didn’t require an IELTS score as my school and undergrad uni were English medium.
- For the documents, my undergrad marksheet, 2 LORs, CV, SOP and a few of the financial documents were asked.
- There were no such interviews to take place, and the application process was all digital and online.
Fees
- I did a master's course, so the fees for me were around £25000. We had an option to pay in full once or in 2 installments.
- I used to live in a private student accommodation which cost me around £8000 for 51 51-week tenancy.
- The fee structure was either yearly or semester-wise.
- I was very bad at cooking and did not want to waste a lot of my time. So I personally used to spend somewhere around £700 a month, which included my food, grocer,ies and in general, transportation and daily life expenditures.
- There were people who used to spend half of it as well and were comfortable. I just didn’t think much when I was spending my money.
Scholarship
- I don’t know about any general scholarships, but for our course, I used a £2000 scholarship just for simply accepting the offer letter earlier than the stated date. I think that was just to encourage us to pick out this college, and a lot of my friends got into this one. Also, if you do really well in your exams, your tuition fees for the next year will be reduced by half. ( Undergraduate course)
