Review: University of Central Lancashire (UCLan)

Hi everyone, last month I went on a 'university road trip' and the first uni I went to was UCLan. I was quite impressed with UCLan overall so I thought I would give you a run down as to why I have decided to apply for this one as one of my 5 choices.

Positive

• Studying abroad: UCLan give students doing (I think) any course the option to spend a term or even a year abroad studying at another university. They also have lots of students come to UCLan as part of the programme so the diversity of students at UCLan is very wide. If that is something you are into at a university or have ever wanted to go to another country this uni offers you the best opportunity to do so. If you want more information on this visit the page on their website here.
• Accommodation: The accommodation here is really cheap - like the cheapest I have found! Here is a price list of all the accommodation:

4 of the accommodation blocks where open on the open day (two non en-suite and two en-suite). These are the ones that were open and where they were:

I was very impressed with all the accommodation I saw and you definitely get more then your money's worth. However, my favourites were the en-suite rooms I saw (IQ Preston and Roeburn). The en-suite Boatmans/Bowran I was told are the nicest although they have more advanced equipment and a but further out than the rest so those are usually given to mature students.

I took some pictures of each of the accommodation I saw which I will show you now:

Whitendale

Ribble

Roeburn

IQ Preston

As you can see the en-suite bathrooms have been updated already as has the bedrooms (the showers now have a curtain rather than a shower door apparently for safety reasons) and I was told the other rooms will soon be receiving the upgrade as well although the prices are fixed apart from the annual increase so these upgrades won't make it really expensive. 

The accommodation is randomised but you can request a certain hall (however it's not guaranteed you will get that hall).

If you want more information of the Halls of Residence visit the page on their website here.

• City campus: It is a positive as it means the uni is pretty much surrounded by shops.
• Course: Of course I am just talking about the course I am interested in (psychology) so if you wish to study psychology then read this point. The professors were really nice and it's great how they do things there - for the first couple of assignments they provide you with a template of how to write it and the sorts of things to include to help you where as at other universities they tell you briefly then leave you to it. Here is the course structure for the psychology courses at UCLan:

Negative

• Cars: Not a negative for me as I don't have a car but for those of you who do they do not allow cars on-site so you can't bring it with you basically.
• City campus: Although I put this in the positives I also think this has some negatives: as you are near the shops it is a lot easier to spend more money then you should, and also I like it when the university is kind of a bit away from the near-by town.

Although there are negatives I don't see these as big enough to put me off the university.

I hope this helps some of you

♥
*Disclaimer - these opinions are all my own*