(This blog post was originally written for the blog of the Finnish Team of Project Access. If you want to read more blog posts about Finnish students abroad, check out their blog: https://projectaccess.org/finland/blog/ )

So, you have gone through the hardest part of the process. 

In other words, you’ve decided which course you want to study (and do with your life). 

Now it’s time for a decision that is just as important: 

Where?

Consider these 2 academic areas when choosing your university.

1. The research done at the university

When deciding where to study, definitely DO NOT base yourself solely on the headline title of your course. 

Let’s go through an example. 

You might love a subject like literature and have a very clear idea that you want to pursue the discipline to degree level. 

The key thing to keep in mind here is that the type of literature you will be able to study varies enormously between different universities. 

At some place doing almost a year’s worth of Shakespeare might be compulsory for example. 

So, what determines the contents of your course are personal academic interests of individuals who teach at that university.  

This is one of the most important distinguishing factors between high school and uni.

In high school, you the teachers taught what they were told to teach. 

In university, professors can largely decide what to teach you and which points to emphasize.

And this holds for most disciplines you can study at university. 

To have a clear understanding of what exactly you will be taught, and to determine whether that actually aligns with your own interests, be sure to check out the detailed breakdowns of the course contents.

This is necessary to prevent you from ending up in a situation in which you end up disliking your course because only the HEADLINE TITLE matched with your interests as opposed to the ACTUAL CONTENT of the course.  

Do this:

Check out the detailed breakdown of what your course entails.

Below are a few examples of what kind of pages you should find. If you need more information, always contact the university or department.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/degrees/management-science-bsc/2019

https://www.wbs.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/management/structure/

http://www.lse.ac.uk/Study-at-LSE/Undergraduate/Degree-programmes-2020/BSc-Management

2. The amount of choice you will have

After you’ve looked through the course structures, you should have a clearer idea of what exactly you will study.

You might even like what is offered.

The next thing you should look at is the balance between compulsory vs optional modules.

If the only modules you like are optional, you may end up studying a lot of stuff that doesn’t interest you.

Do this:

Check out which modules are mandatory and which are optional.

Pages on course contents (similar to those shown above) are usually good places to look for this information. 

Pro tip:

Remember also that universities may portray an image of the modules online that may not fully correspond to what the modules actually are.

To get a really accurate view of the modules taught at your course, get in touch with someone who is studying that course.

Project Access has mentors in most top universities in the UK and US! Which means you can sign up for free to get a personal mentor who will tell you exactly what studying the course is like in your dream university.

Pretty neat!