Current High-School Senior Considering UK For Undergrad in (International) Politics/Relations

[nyxelestia]

(n00b poster is noob, so forgive any glaring idiocy or posting errors)

I am interested in the general field of law and politics, with a dash of economics and an international emphasis - though admittedly I'm still looking into a career as a politician \o/ *sells soul to the dark side* in America. I would like to study abroad, at least for my

Comments

[ashkitty]

I'm at Aberystwyth, and we do have a phenemonally huge InterPol department. In general Aber and St Andrews seem to be the places for that; for IR there are some others but I can't remember them. (It's not my field at all, but seriously InterPol is SO BIG here, it is impossible to escape. *g*)

Would you not maybe be better off doing your undergrad in the US, maybe with a study abroad year, and coming to the UK for a master's? It's only one year, so much, much cheaper. You won't be able to transfer from an American CC just because the degree structures are quite different--since the UK doesn't really do general ed, you'll still have to take the whole degree once you get here.

Having said that, I'll try to answer your other questions specifically for Aberystwyth since that's what I know. :)

1) Yeah, you'll probably get in. The entrance requirements for undergrads here are not terribly rigourous, and they need the money brought in by international students. April is early enough as long as you don't need funding. Don't wait till the end of June, though, because it won't be enough time to get the visa.

2a) I'm not sure about this, sorry--in my department (Celtic Studies) all the undergrads spend a year in Ireland or the Netherlands but I'm not sure on InterPol. I had a friend who did his in it and spent some time in Jordan, but I don't know if everyone does that.

4) Social things aren't really going to affect your acceptance one way or the other as they're not counted. The academic and ECs can; just built yourself up on paper as much as possible, but they can't really take you on the basis of gender/race/sexuality since it's not actual legal to (officially) take those things into account. (I'm not saying it can't happen, of course, just not out loud.)

5) We're pretty cheap. Avoid London if you want to keep your cost of living down. Wales in general is a bit economically depressed (we live on art and culture, or something). As always, living costs are as high or low as you make them--people who go out to the pub all night every night or eat out all the time will go through a lot more money than those who cook at home and limit their nights out. If you end up deciding to head this way, I can give you some tips on where to find the deals. :)

A couple other things I'll say about Aber--it's always at the top of the student experience survey for a reason. People love being here. If you're from LA, it might be a bit of a small-town culture shock, because thise place is really small, and it takes about a month tops before everybody in town will know everything about you. It's also a bit isolated--the nearest big city is Birmingham and that's a 3-hour train ride away--so we're kind of in our own universe, and don't have the selection of shopping/restaurants/etc that you'd get in a major metropolis. So if that's going to be a problem, know it ahead of time! But it means that everything's within walking distance (and man do you get in good shape) and that if you get bored or lonely, you can actually just kind of go outside and wander around until you run into someone you know. We were also named in the top LGBT-friendly universities in the UK by Stonewall last year. Because of the 'isolated and university' thing, it's fairly racially diverse, especially compard to a lot of Wales. Take the time to learn a little Welsh and everyone will adore you; the locals love when foreigners are interested in thei culture and the language is a big connector here. :)

[jessenigma26]

in my department (Celtic Studies) all the undergrads spend a year in Ireland or the Netherlands

This is completely unrelated, but...the Netherlands? Really? I will admit that the closest I've come to Celtic Studies was the time I got accidentally enrolled in a lit class taught solely in Irish on my undergrad semester abroad, so I'm hardly familiar with the area, but I didn't realise that any uni in the Netherlands would teach that subject. That's kinda cool.