Best UK University for exchange?

Given I maintain my current GPA I am allowed to receive a grant from my university to do the PLT (practical legal training) component of my Australian LLB on exchange in another country whilst studying regular units at a university in that host country. I am tossing up between somewhere in the UK or the US. This is for the second half of 2015.

I will obviously research in great detail each individual institution but in the meantime would love your thoughts on which universities would be best for study, social life and all that! It would be a full time +25% load so probably only two days off a week to explore wherever I went. Have you had any experiences with these institutions? Any I should immediately rule out?

My university offers exchange with these institutions in the UK:

• Cardiff University
• Keele University (Extremely high GPA needed and very limited places)
• Lancaster University
• Oxford Brooks University
• University of Bristol (Extremely high GPA needed and very limited places)
• University of East Anglia
• University of Essex
• University of Glasgow (Extremely low GPA needed, practically accept anyone according to my program advisor)
• University of Leicester

Bristol, Glasgow, Cardiff and East Anglia are all good universities. Bristol and Glasgow are the best out of your list.

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Glasgow has old and pretty buildings. It is in Scotland so they will teach Scots law which is different from English/common law. Nice city, uni is respected internationally.

Cardiff is a very ugly city in my opinion but the university is good.

Bristol is in a nice compact city with everything you need, very good university but there are a lot of privately educated 'Oxbridge rejects' there.

East Anglia, nice uni near Norwich which is a lovely little city. Good academics in general.

Keele is not a good university and it is in the middle of nowhere.

Lancaster is distinctly 'meh', it is not near anything interesting or exciting. Academically, it is average at best.

Oxford Brooks...terrible, don't go there.

Essex is ugly and average to poor academically.

Leicester is very ugly and is also average at best.

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

Bristol, Glasgow, Cardiff and East Anglia are all good universities. Bristol and Glasgow are the best out of your list.

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Glasgow has old and pretty buildings. It is in Scotland so they will teach Scots law which is different from English/common law. Nice city, uni is respected internationally.

Cardiff is a very ugly city in my opinion but the university is good.

Bristol is in a nice compact city with everything you need, very good university but there are a lot of privately educated 'Oxbridge rejects' there.

East Anglia, nice uni near Norwich which is a lovely little city. Good academics in general.

Keele is not a good university and it is in the middle of nowhere.

Lancaster is distinctly 'meh', it is not near anything interesting or exciting. Academically, it is average at best.

Oxford Brooks...terrible, don't go there.

Essex is ugly and average to poor academically.

Leicester is very ugly and is also average at best.

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Wow, you must have got around a lot if you've studied at all those universities AND live in Norway!

The only advice I can give you about is the Uni of Leicester, the buildings are pretty old since there's not much room for expansion since it's in the middle of the city, they do have a lovely shiny library though :P But I wouldn't call it average, it's constantly in the top 15 Universities of the country, which is very good - Lancaster and Bristol are also in the top 15.

There's not really a campus... Just buildings. Nightclubs and accommodation etc are all away from the actual Uni itself.

The city itself is very, very diverse, probably one of the most diverse places in the country. I wouldn't say Leicester is spectacular though, and if I were you, Leicester wouldn't be my first pick.

I can vouch for Norwich (Where the UEA is located) being a really nice city, even if it is in the middle of nowhere. Also the campus has lots of open green spaces and for the most part looks pretty.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Wow, you must have got around a lot if you've studied at all those universities AND live in Norway!

The only advice I can give you about is the Uni of Leicester, the buildings are pretty old since there's not much room for expansion since it's in the middle of the city, they do have a lovely shiny library though :P But I wouldn't call it average, it's constantly in the top 15 Universities of the country, which is very good - Lancaster and Bristol are also in the top 15.

There's not really a campus... Just buildings. Nightclubs and accommodation etc are all away from the actual Uni itself.

The city itself is very, very diverse, probably one of the most diverse places in the country. I wouldn't say Leicester is spectacular though, and if I were you, Leicester wouldn't be my first pick.

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Leicester in the top 15.... dream on. I was being kind when I said it was average, I wouldn't go there even if it was free!

http://i.imgur.com/ohI6zIY.png

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

Leicester in the top 15.... dream on. I was being kind when I said it was average, I wouldn't go there even if it was free!

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Ranked 16th at the moment overall.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Ranked 16th at the moment overall.

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Not for Law.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Ranked 16th at the moment overall.

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So what? Everyone knows newspaper 'rankings' should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Only the very best unis stay at the top of the list year in, year out.

I can think of over 30 unis which are far better than Leicester (in no particular order):

Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, Imperial, LSE, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Durham, KCL, SOAS, the Courtauld, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff, Exeter, Newcastle, Nottingham, QMUL, Queen's Belfast, Southampton, York, Warwick, Birkbeck, East Anglia, Royal Holloway, Bath etc etc and so the list continues...

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

So what? Everyone knows newspaper 'rankings' should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Only the very best unis stay at the top of the list year in, year out.

I can think of over 30 unis which are far better than Leicester (in no particular order):

Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, Imperial, LSE, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Durham, KCL, SOAS, the Courtauld, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff, Exeter, Newcastle, Nottingham, QMUL, Queen's Belfast, Southampton, York, Warwick, Birkbeck, East Anglia, Royal Holloway, Bath etc etc and so the list continues...

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"University of Leicester ranked in UK top 20 by The Times for fifth year in succession"

It's not as if it's a one-off... And they're hoping to be in the top 10 by 2015. And please do tell, how you know all of these Universities so well?

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Originally Posted by Chippiewill

Not for Law.

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That is indeed true. I guess it depends what sort of tables you want to look at, I suppose in this case the Law table would be the most accurate, and a foreign students table if one exists :P

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Originally Posted by Kardan

"University of Leicester ranked in UK top 20 by The Times for fifth year in succession"

It's not as if it's a one-off... And they're hoping to be in the top 10 by 2015. And please do tell, how you know all of these Universities so well?

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5 years is not a long time, if they stay up there for 10 years then perhaps you might have a point. At any way the Times is just ONE set of rankings, they are all so different and none can be relied on. What really matters is RAE... does Leicester even have one RAE rated excellent department? lol

I have been researching unis for 6 years, so I know quite a bit.

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

What really matters is RAE... does Leicester even have one RAE rated excellent department? lol

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Good research and good student experience are not the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

5 years is not a long time, if they stay up there for 10 years then perhaps you might have a point. At any way the Times is just ONE set of rankings, they are all so different and none can be relied on. What really matters is RAE... does Leicester even have one RAE rated excellent department? lol

I have been researching unis for 6 years, so I know quite a bit.

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Leicester also emerged as having one of the highest proportions of staff who are research active in the UK, with approximately 93 per cent of staff submitted for the exercise, of which 87 per cent were deemed by the RAE to be producing ‘internationally significant’ research.

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Sounds decent to me.

My school recommended LSE, Oxford, Cambridge and Glasgow for law I think and my father graduated from University of Sheffield

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Originally Posted by Chippiewill

Good research and good student experience are not the same thing.

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I disagree. Good research means good staff, only with good staff can you have good courses. If the courses arent good then the students sure as hell wont be.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Sounds decent to me.

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Well, it isn't. That means that nearly all of their staff were average. No internationally excellent or world-leading departments... whereas every uni I listed above has at least one, and many have dozens.

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

I disagree. Good research means good staff, only with good staff can you have good courses. If the courses arent good then the students sure as hell wont be.



Well, it isn't. That means that nearly all of their staff were average. No internationally excellent or world-leading departments... whereas every uni I listed above has at least one, and many have dozens.

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It also revealed that the Department of Museum Studies at Leicester has the greatest cluster of world-leading researchers of any department, on any subject, in any university, anywhere in the UK.

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Well, there's one department for you.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Well, there's one department for you.

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Um... that isn't a rating. The dept doesn't even offer undergraduate courses.

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

Um... that isn't a rating. The dept doesn't even offer undergraduate courses.

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I don't really care either way, I already said I wouldn't recommend Leicester :P

bristol is a gd uni and pretty cool place

i guess u cud go to essex for the banter

to be honest okeanos u need to shut up u think u know more about uk than any of us that live in the uk actually do
kardan is right lets leave it at that xxx

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Originally Posted by myles

to be honest okeanos u need to shut up u think u know more about uk than any of us that live in the uk actually do
kardan is right lets leave it at that xxx

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Firstly, you are quite wrong to say that people from the UK must know more about their country than anyone else, as you have demonstrated, the UK has a lot of ignorant people. Secondly, I am British you moron. Kardan is not right.

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

Firstly, you are quite wrong to say that people from the UK must know more about their country than anyone else, as you have demonstrated, the UK has a lot of ignorant people. Secondly, I am British you moron. Kardan is not right.

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kardan speaks more sense than u do
he wos only talking about a university that he probably lives close to. i am 99.9 percent sure u have not studied at all of them so who are u to judge and make up ur own judgements for each one. i know some may have a bad rep but unless u have been there/ studied there i dont really think u have a right to say anything

Glasgow is a phenomenal university for law, I'd choose there for sure! The nightlife is good and with the commonwealth games next year there will be lots to do. Okeanos doesn't know what he's talking about when he says it's different to common law as they both have their similarities. I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.

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Originally Posted by Mark

Glasgow is a phenomenal university for law, I'd choose there for sure! The nightlife is good and with the commonwealth games next year there will be lots to do. Okeanos doesn't know what he's talking about when he says it's different to common law as they both have their similarities. I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.

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Wrong. Habbox users make a habit of showing themselves up when talking about me, you really aught to read a few books before you try to contradict me. Scotland has a very different legal system to England, a Scots law LLB is completely useless in England or any other country whose legal system is based on English common law (like Australia).

Incredibly useful information in this thread. Very valuable stuff to think about when researching as review websites and the universities themselves can only give so much online.

+rep to all who have helped!

I have neg'd you for something in the past @Okeanos; so I will +rep you when it lets me (even if you are arguing it is somewhat beneficial to questions at hand).

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If it's any help to this debate I will most likely be studying Equity, Trusts and Advanced Torts. All of which I think have developed from English common law minus adv torts which is all over the place.

At the end of the day it's not a huge deal in actual content per university as my university wouldn't be offering these places for exchange if they didn't have corresponding units I could claim credit for in Australia.

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Originally Posted by Okeanos

I disagree. Good research means good staff, only with good staff can you have good courses. If the courses arent good then the students sure as hell wont be.

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Firstly, the good researchers will not do many lectures - if at all. Why? Because they're good at research. Secondly the good lecturers will not do as much research. Why? Because they're so good at lecturing.

Sure, there is a general correlation that shows better research means better experience over all. But whilst research is an indirect indication of the quality of the course, the league tables are a DIRECT indication of the course quality.

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Originally Posted by Chippiewill

Firstly, the good researchers will not do many lectures - if at all. Why? Because they're good at research. Secondly the good lecturers will not do as much research. Why? Because they're so good at lecturing.

Sure, there is a general correlation that shows better research means better experience over all. But whilst research is an indirect indication of the quality of the course, the league tables are a DIRECT indication of the course quality.

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Good researchers do run courses, teach, lecture and take seminars at very good universities, actually. I would be very surprised if anyone at Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Imperial, Durham or Edinburgh wasn't taught by excellent researchers.

League tables are not a direct indication of course qauality, they are an indicator of have content students are - just because a student from Surrey is happy with their uni/course doesn't mean it is any good.

If you bothered to look at league tables you'd notice they take into account more things than student satisfaction

University of Essex is an awful uni, plus you will be in Essex which lets face it isn't the highlight of England

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Originally Posted by Daltron

If it's any help to this debate I will most likely be studying Equity, Trusts and Advanced Torts. All of which I think have developed from English common law minus adv torts which is all over the place.

At the end of the day it's not a huge deal in actual content per university as my university wouldn't be offering these places for exchange if they didn't have corresponding units I could claim credit for in Australia.

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That's a bit here and there - many of the primary authorities for tort law come from abroad. Australia gave us the dicta that "... direct perception of some of the events which go to make up the accident as an entire event, and this includes … the immediate aftermath" with regards to secondary victims and psychiatric injury, which helped develop the British Tort law and helped set a precedent in McLoughlin that the wife and mother of the victims in a car crash can claim damages from a defendant IF she witnesses the aftermath of an accident e.g. the news that her daughter had died in an accident AND the trauma her surviving family members were going through. I believe the case was Benson v Lee that was sat in the High Court of Australia. I'm not sure what Donoghue v Stevenson is as an international authority for tort law (it pretty much created it) but that might be what you're thinking of :)

Also Okeanos is right - studying Law in Scotland is useless as the Scottish have a different legal system to the legal system of England and Wales.

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Originally Posted by Foregetfuhl

University of Essex is an awful uni, plus you will be in Essex which lets face it isn't the highlight of England

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Nothing wrong with the University of Essex :O

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Originally Posted by Foregetfuhl

University of Essex is an awful uni, plus you will be in Essex which lets face it isn't the highlight of England

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Haha!!! Guess that's one of my list for the future !!! ;)