Birmingham

Posted August 2nd, 2007 by csc104

What we say

What we say:

This Red brick Uni, lies slap bang in the middle of England. The campus is just over 2 miles out of the city in Edgbaston. It is Europe’s youngest city and with more students than any other UK city outside London, it’s not surprising that Birmingham’s club scene is one of the liveliest in the country. It normally appears in the top 30 in Uni rankings.

Home of the BullRing, the city has a Harvey Nicks, a Selfridges as well as every high street chain you can think of. There is an IMAX cinema, the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), the National Indoor Arena (NIA), hundreds of bars and restaurants, an extremely lively clubbing scene and curry houses galore. Currently the home of two Premiership football teams, Villa and Birmingham.

Strong academically, great socially, central location! Sounds good. Only real downside is the housing, not surprising in “the UK’s 2nd City” the decent stuff is pretty expensive.

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University Introduction

University:

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Address:

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

Contact number:

+44 (0)121 414 3344

Website:

http://www.bham.ac.uk

Brief history:

Joseph Chamberlain, the first Chancellor, had a radical vision to create a new and innovative model of higher education. He was the driving force behind the University and his pioneering spirit led to the following firsts:

- Acceptance of students from all religions and backgrounds on a completely equal basis
- A Build on a campus model
- Incorporation of a medical school
- Creation a purpose built students’ union
- Provision of a sporting option for all students in the interests of promoting health and well-being

University Life

Accommodation & Surrounding Areas:

Availablilty
- 1st years guaranteed accommodation given you are not a local or a clearing student.

Costs
- Self catered ensuite room costs between £97.62 and £107.86 per week
- Self catered standard room costs between £74.00 and £95.60 per week
- Catered en suite room costs £134.99 per week
- Catered standard room costs between £111.38 and £116.90 per week

Contract period
- 42 or 50 week

Locations
- The Selly Oak Village is next to the campus, Vale Village is around 1 km from campus and Pritchatts Park is over 3 km away.

Facilities
- Utilities included
- Internet access included

Resources:

Library
- 2 700 000 books
- 13 000 printed and electronic journals
- 4300 study places

Opening hours
- 68 weekday hours
- 16 weekend hours

IT
- 1000 computers
- Wireless
- 24 hour access

Welfare:

Services
- Student mentors
- Guild's (student union) advice and representation centre (ARC)
- University medical centre (full general practice) and dental centre near main campus
- Chaplaincy
- Counselling service
- Childcare on two campuses
- Nightline

Safety
- 24 hour security team
- CCTV

Sporting facilities:

Indoor
- Fitness suite, with extensive cardiovascular, resistance and free weights equipment
- 25m deck-level swimming pool
- 3 multi-purpose sports halls
- 7 squash courts (3 with glass backs)
- Dance studio
- Gymnastics hall
- Martial arts room (Dojo)
- Bouldering wall

Outdoor
- Floodlit athletics track
- 2 floodlit water-based synthetic pitches
- Floodlit Third generation pitch
- Floodlit Grass pitches
- Tennis courts
- Raymond Priestley outdoor pursuits centre, Coniston Water

Costs
- Gym, swim and squash annual membership costs students £276
- Gym and squash annual membership costs students £254
- Gym and swim annual membership costs students £192
- Squash and Swim £165
- Gym annual membership costs students £170
- Squash annual membership costs students £143
- Swim annual membership costs students £81

Sports Clubs
- American Football
- Archery
- Athletics & Cross Country
- Badminton
- Basketball (men's)
- Basketball (women's)
- Cheerleading
- Cricket (men's)
- Cricket (women's)
- Cycling
- Equestrian
- Fencing
- Football (men's)
- Football (women's)
- Golf
- Gymnastics & Trampolining-
- Hockey
- Jitsu
- Judo
- Shotokan Karate Academy
- Kayak & Canoe
- Korfball
- Kung Fu Black Dragon
- Kung Fu Wing Chun
- Lacrosse
- Lifesaving
- Netball
- Ninpo Budo
- Orienteering
- Rowing
- Rugby League
- Rugby Union (men's)
- Rugby Union (women's)
- Sailing
- Ski & Snowboarding
- Squash
- Swimming
- Table Tennis
- Taekwondo
- Tennis
- Triathlon
- Volleyball
- Waterpolo
- Windsurfing

Going out and social life

Club nights:

Birmingham Student Nights

Student union & social clubs:

Venues
- Huge 10 000 square metre Student Union building.
- Raising the Bar is a lively venue with a capacity of 700 that shows sports and serves fancy cocktails at nightime.
- Bratby bar is a pub like venue with some decent grub.
- Fusion nightclub provides the dancefloor for 1200 students and houses another bar.
- Numerous catering outlets on campus

Student media
- BurnFM.com is the student radio station.
- GTV (Guild Television).
- Redbrick is the weekly newspaper.

Clubs and societies:

Community Volunteering
- Back 2 Skoolz
- Carnival
- ComAc
- Conservation Volunteers
- Engineers without Borders
- International Volunteers
- Kids Adventure
- LINKS
- Medsin
- Ravens
- Wilderness Medicine
- Year Out Society

Media
- Burn Fm
- GTV
- Photographic
- Redbrick

Competitive Sport
- Baseball
- Boxing
- Brumski
- Ice Hockey
- Life Saving
- Motor Racing
- Snooker and Pool
- Ten Pin Bowling
- Ultimate Frisbee

Recreational Pursuits
- Battle Re-enactment
- Capoeira
- Diving
- Duke of Edinburgh
- Equisoc
- Flexsoc (Bodybuilding)
- Mountaineering
- Muay Thai Boxing
- Paintball
- Powerkite
- Scouts and Guides
- Sky Diving
- Tiddlywinks
- Wayfarers

Indoor Activities
- Anime and Manga
- BookWORM
- Board Games
- Bridge
- Change Ringers
- Chess
- Computer & Video Games
- Cocktail
- Fetish
- Film
- Neighbours Appreciation
- Poker
- Real Ale & Wine
- Roleplay
- Sci-Fi
- Talking Hands
- Wargames
- Villa

Religious/ Faith
- Adventist Christian
- Anglican
- Catholic
- Fusion
- Hindu
- Islamic
- Jewish
- Krishna Consciousness
- Methodist
- Navigators
- Sikh

Departmental
- American and Canadian
- Arena (Chinese Post Grad)
- Astronomical
- BEES
- BEDsoc (English)
- Civil Engineering
- COGS
- CWAS
- EconSoc
- French
- German
- Hispanic
- IAA (Archaeology & Antiquity)
- Investment
- Ironbridge
- Lapworth (Earth Sciences)
- Local Government Studies (LOCsoc)
- Mathsoc
- Shakespeare Institute Social
- Social Sciences
- SLOBS (Social Life outside of Biosciences)
- SportEx

Arts, Performance & Music
- African Drumming
- Art
- Ballroom and Latin American dancing
- Beatz and Pieces
- Break dancing
- Classical Theatre
- Dance
- Fashion
- Flashmob
- Goth
- Guild Musical Theatre Group
- Guild Theatre Group (Article 19)
- Indie
- Infinity Stage Company
- Jazz and Blues
- Modern Visual Culture
- Pirate
- Purple Mermaid Circus
- Rock
- Ska-Punk
- Three Bugs Fringe Theatre
- Twelve-Ten DJ’s
- Watch This (Original Theatre)

Campaigning and political
- Adam Smith (Economic awareness)
- Aegis
- Amnesty
- Anti Racism Anti Fascism
- Bust the War
- Conservative Future
- Debating
- Ethical and Environmental Committee
- Friends of MSF
- Green Party
- Labour Students
- Liberal Democrats
- Marrow
- Oxfam Outreach
- People and Planet
- Socialist
- STAR
- Stop Aids
- United Nations
- Vegetarian Food

Cultural and International
- International Student Association
- African and Caribbean
- Bharat Parivar (Indian Family)
- Back to USSR
- Arab
- Cypriot
- Erasmus
- European
- Hellenic
- Latin American
- Mauritian
- Mexican
- Nordic
- Pakistan Cultural
- Persian
- Portuguese
- Turkish
- TravelSoc

Cultural and International (Asian)
- Chinese
- Far Eastern Connections
- Indian Cultural
- Japan
- Malaysian
- Singaporean
- Sri Lankan
- Taiwanese
- Vietnamese

Representative and Welfare
- Black Minority Ethnic Students
- Freshers Off Campus
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans
- Niteline
- OddSoc
- Postgraduate and Mature Students
- Selly Oak Campus Committee
- Student Advice
- Student Reps
- Disabled Students
- Women’s

Volunteering:

The Guild runs the ComAc scheme which gives students the opportunity to volunteer for projects in the community. The University also has an International Volunteering Society (Intervol), which gives students the opportunity to work on projects including HIV and AIDS awareness in Uganda and tsunami relief in Thailand. Students can also become mentors or helpline advisers within the University community.

Boring but important

Fees and bursaries:

Undergraduate fees
- All courses set at £3070

Bursaries
- The Birmingham Grant; £840 award for all UK students whose household income is £34,600 or less.

Scholarships
- The Birmingham Scholarship; £1300 per annum awards for students form low-income backgrounds who perform extremely well in their A levels (or equivalent qualifications). AAB in most cases.

- Subject-based scholarships; In addition to the Birmingham Grant and Scholarship, you can apply for a subject-based scholarship, offering around £1,000 per year. A selection of scholarships are available in (but not limited to) the following subject areas:

- Chemistry
- Computer Science
- Engineering
- Health Sciences (Nursing/Physiotherapy)
- Law
-Physics and Astronomy
- Learn more
For up-to-date information about subject-based scholarships and alternative grants and bursaries, click here.

- Music scholarships; 5 £1000 per annum awards for candidates who have already achieved Grade 8 in instrumental or vocal studies.

- Sports scholarships; Sporting and financial support for 30 elite athletes each year. Scholarship support consists of facility membership (gym and swimming pool), strength and conditioning work, sport science and medicine services (including physiotherapy), lifestyle workshops and help with sports-specific expenditure.

Future plans and investment:

How much?
- £225 million in the last five years.

On what?
- £15 million on Shakleton Hall accommodation in the Vale student village. It now comprises 340 single en-suite rooms, 57 self-catered flats, a large dining area, coffee shop, wine bar and nightclub, a supermarket, 24-hour reception and games areas.
- £32 million on Mason Hall accommodation redevelopment.
- Provision of the best-equipped Visual and Spatial Technology Centre in Europe, in association with Hewlett-Packard, which uses the newest technology for archaeological research.
- Construction of a new building and research block for the School of Sports and Exercise Studies at a total cost of £16.4 million. A further £2 million will be spent on furnishing laboratories, including physiology, psychology and biochemistry, with the latest research equipment throughout
- Major upgrade to the hard-wired network.
- A phased roll-out of wireless, improved learning spaces including new teaching clusters.
- Drop-in PC suites for self-paced learning and improved teaching rooms suited to a variety of learning styles.
- The construction of a national Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) centre which is opening up new areas of research in cancer studies.
- The improvement of accessibility in all areas – including web-based facilities – for students with disabilities.
- £39.6 million scheme to refurbish learning facilities at Muirhead Tower.

Notible alumni:

Chris Tarrant the Capital DJ
Victoria Wood the comedian

Visiting

Rail:

Most cross-country services to Birmingham arrive at New Street Station. Up to six trains an hour depart for the University on the cross-city line (final destination Longbridge or Redditch). The centre of the main campus is a five-minute walk from University Station.

Coach:

There are frequent express coach services to Birmingham from London, Heathrow and Gatwick Airports, and many UK cities. The long-distance coach station is in Digbeth in the city centre.

Road:

Approaching from the north west or south east along the M6:
- Leave at Junction 6 (signposted Birmingham Central) to join the A38(M)
- At the end of the motorway, keep to the right, go over a flyover, then through some underpasses to join the A38 Bristol Road
- The University is on your right, two and a half miles from the city centre

Approaching from the M42 north:
- Leave at Junction 8 to join the M6 northbound and follow the instructions above

Approaching from the south west:
- Leave the M5 at Junction 4 signposted Birmingham SW) to join the A38
- The University is approximately eight miles from the motorway

Approaching from the M40:
- It is easier to turn south on the M42 and leave at Junction 1, heading north on the A38 Bristol Road
- The University is approximately eight miles from the motorway

Buses:

Numbers 61, 62 and 63 travel to the University’s Edgbaston and Selly Oak campuses, while the 21 and 44 serve the Medical School and Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The services all run frequently from the city centre. There is a travel information office outside New Street Station, where you can obtain bus timetables and departure point information. Maps can be found throughout the city centre indicating bus stop locations.