Newman University Birmingham

After establishing that I wanted to do creative writing as a degree, I researched courses in my local area. One that caught my eye was Newman University in Birmingham.

 

Newman University seemed to be the only university I could find who offered the course as a single honors degree. I found this very appealing.

In addition, creative writing as a degree was a new offering at Newman, they hadn’t offered it as a single option before and I felt this meant they would have a new and fresh approach to the course – compared to other universities who had been offering the course for years.

Researching it in further detail, I saw the university hadn’t got a lot of information on the single honors degree.

I assumed that this was due to the degree being new and they hadn’t fanalised all the details yet. Emailing the head of the English department for further information, I was given a lot of details on the joint honors degree and was told that modules in the joint honors degree were going to be the same in the single honors degree and I would be able to get a rough idea of what to expect.

Another thing that was impressive, was their response time to my enquiry, they were very quick and very helpful which relaxed me.

Very interested I went along to an open day to a look around. Straight away I saw the university wasn’t far from home at all, it was only a short car journey away.

So if I did choose to live away from home then it wouldn’t be so emotionally challenging.

On entering the university itself, I noticed that it was small, newly refurbished with up to date facilities. Even on the open day, construction was still underway.

Another promising factor was that the university had a relatively small amount of students; this made me feel reassured, as the corridors and student hub would be relatively quiet in the week.

It would also help me to avoid anxieties socially, as it would allow me to get to know more people around the university as well as in my course group.

Newman University also reminded me so much of my 6th form college and so it felt rather homely.

 

Everyone I met there made me feel very comfortable. Like Bournville College, Newman University’s classroom sizes and study groups were small and friendly.

They had a good disability support service that was able to make a range of suggestions regarding how they could fit the support to my needs.

This was another contributing factor, as this would mean a lot more one to one guidance, which I would find beneficial in helping me get the best out my chosen course and university life.

Overall Newman University Birmingham was one of universities worth applying too.