University Of Bristol

Bristol University is one of the best in the country. It is seldom out of the top five and pretty much always in the top 10. As a result it tends to attract a lot of Oxbridge rejects. I got rejected because I wanted to defer, but I’m now enjoying the city as a professional rather than a student so it’s win win really. Anyhow, the Uni has some excellent research going on, including the Avon Longditutinal Study of Parents and Children. It offers well-​respected courses in the arts too, with History and Sociology very highly sought after. While it’s not strictly a campus uni, with some wonderful buildings (including the iconic Wills Memorial building) in the Redland area it does have halls of residences up by the Downs, which aren’t dissimilar to those at Oxford University. You can expect to see some of the more Toffy students in pink shirts and chinos playing croquet on the lawns between the halls in the summer. It may sound like something out of a film, but seriously, I have seen it with my own eyes!

I am in my second year studying a BA in English Literature, and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t bask in the glory of my decision to come and spend my student days in Bristol. The University is a large city based University, that is well regarded in all of its subjects across the board. The students as a whole have a good balance to life, there are a huge number of sports clubs and societies, and this inevitably means that there is a very energetic feel to the institution that rubs off on the city as a whole. Not to be confused with UWE, Bristol is in the centre of the city.

The University of Bristol is a city university, unlike the other big Uni in Bristol, UWE, which is a campus university. The Bristol Uni buildings are located all around the centre of the city, and most are very old and pretty.
The university is pretty large, with around 13 000 students, and they, along with their UWE counterparts, mean that the city is buzzing with life.
The university does pretty well for itself; it’s high in the league table, and draws a very Clifton-​esque student population every year.

Let’s get straight to the point — I wish I’d gone to this university. No offence to Cardiff where I did choose to study, but Bristol is clearly better. Up there in the heady heights of the league tables with Oxford and Cambridge, Bristol Uni is an old-​skool red brick institution with some of the most prestigious medical courses, English and history degrees in the world. It looks all towering and cool at the top of park street and has educated comedy genii such as David Walliams, Matt Lucas, Chris Morris, Simon Pegg and errr Lembit Olpik, plus the famed feminist author Angela Carter (I’m bowing down to her as I write this). Stunning architecture and a past that stems back to 1876 — this is the educational and philosophical pulse of Bristol in all its glory.