As an undergrad, the university experience begins well before you step through the door of your fresher’s flat. I would argue that your university career begins the day you attend an open day. If you’re in the process of applying to university, you will be very familiar with open days: a chance for prospective students to visit the universities they’re interested in and get a flavour of what each degree course has to offer. Your degree course choice is a very personal and very difficult decision, with countless factors having an influence on your next big step. Attending all of your uni open days is therefore hugely important – but it doesn’t mean the experience can’t be loads of fun!
My Birmingham open day marked the beginning of my uni career in a big way. I caught the train up to Birmingham with my older sister the day before (taking that train journey for what would become the first of many times!) We were going to stay in Selly Oak with my sister’s friend, a final year student at the time, who had generously offered to show us around at the open day.
Open days can be taxing and it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to cram in every tour, talk and taster session. I’d already attended open days at several other universities across the country, and I’ll admit that before we arrived on campus the next morning, I was already feeling a bit sceptical. It’s impossible to squeeze all the information about your potential degree into a few hours, so it’s important to identify in advance the most important things you want to know; after you’ve found those out, you can go on. My sister and her friend helped me make a plan to achieve three things that day so that I wouldn’t be suffering from information overload: tour the campus, visit the materials department and attend a materials course talk. Things like student groups and accommodation, while important once you’ve enrolled at university, tend to be very similar no matter which university you attend, so we decided to only look at those things if we had time at the end of the day.
With this approach, I ended up having my most positive open day experience yet. We started by wandering the campus, with my sister’s friend describing her favourite points of interest. We then visited the metallurgy and materials department and ended up spending a few hours there, mostly chatting to staff and students. I attended two subject-related talks and even got to have a go on the scanning electron microscope, which was a huge deal for me (I ended up talking about this experience at length in my UCAS personal statement, and later in uni interviews)
Every open day experience will be different, but my number one advice is to spend as much time talking to current students as possible. Specifics about modules and assessments are easy to find out about online, but the opinions of current students will tell you a lot more. They also know exactly what you’re going through – remember they were in your position not very long ago. My other advice: make use of any friends or relatives who are current students, if you have them! I realise I was very lucky to be shown around by someone I knew well, and they may be more likely to understand what you’re looking for.
Lastly, enjoy it! Open days aren’t meant to be stressful. And when you come to graduate from your degree course, it’s nice to look back on your open day memories and remember where it all started…
