Attending Open Days Can Help You Choose Your University | The Student Pocket Guide
by Danielle Sephton

Before jumping straight into choosing a university, attending their open day is a must when making a final decision. You can never get a true feel for a place unless you go there yourself. The degree may be perfect, but your well-being and happiness can be determined by your environment and so the university must be the place for you too…

Choosing the University

Initially, you must sieve through universities and courses on the internet or through prospectuses, but once broken down to a smaller number, attending an open day is essential. Visiting several universities before making your firm choice is a very wise idea. Having gone through the application process for university this year, and due to begin in September, I can assure anyone that visiting a university is the only way to know if you belong there. The whole atmosphere of the place can be the decider as to whether you wish to study there. Happiness is crucial to your health.

Meeting Lecturers

Although you will only get the first impression of your potential lecturers, you can still gain a better perspective of what the course has to offer when speaking to them. The specific modules that your degree consists of and what your options are can be explained to you in much more detail, and in a less formal manner, by the lecturer, therefore you can grasp a better idea of whether it sounds like the course for you.

Getting a slight insight into the personality of lecturers and the sort of people you may be involved with will help you out when making the decision of which is the right university for you.

Meeting Others

There is nothing that can make you feel more isolated than being thrown into an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar goings-on and unfamiliar people. However you must remember, absolutely everybody is in the same boat.

Everyone feels isolated, scared and anxious to begin with, but university is supposed to be an amazing time for you to grow and develop as a person. Meeting others before attending university can make you feel much more comfortable, as you may make some friends beforehand and feel less alone when beginning. You will get to know the sorts of people who wish to attend the university too, and know whether you will enjoy being there.

If you don’t attend open days when going through the choosing a university process, you may end up somewhere you have no feel for. It is so important to know the environment, the content of your chosen degree, the people you will be working with and where you will live. Without any knowledge of these aspects, you may well be bewildered by the turmoil of the change.

Danielle Sephton is an online blogger who thrives from writing on controversial issues, her outlook on life and expressing her own points of view in an unbiased tone. She writes for GKBC.