2nd year International Relations - Hannah Lane
2nd year History and Politics - Megan Baxter
(MB) I love my seminars. I love a good debate. Always have, always will. The seminars are a chance to have a smaller class and it’s you and your tutor and my tutors encourage us all to have a bit of input and to talk and debate amongst ourselves. They’re really good fun.
(HL) I think for me it’s more about the lectures and knowing that the person lecturing you is at the top of their research kind of level, that they’re researching into the areas that they’re teaching you about and knowing that they actually know what they’re talking about, you know, they’re not just kind of teaching you out of the curriculum. They know what they’re talking about. They’ve done the research into the areas so they’re really experts in their fields, so that has a really important role to play.
(MB) I remember looking round Birmingham and particularly Muirhead and thinking wow, this is spectacular. It’s modern, it’s new and the University has an excellent reputation, POLSIS has an excellent reputation and that’s what you want really, to know that you’re in safe hands studying in a place where it has good facilities and excellent people teaching.
(HL) For me it’s more about the lecturing staff themselves and knowing that they’re, again about research and that they’re at the top of their research kind of level. They’re the ones writing the textbooks that you’re learning from and knowing that they know their subject inside out so hopefully you will by the time you finish studying here.
(HL) I think definitely it’s all about getting involved in stuff on campus. We’re really a good university in that we’ve got 28,000 students; 9,000 students that are interested in the societies that actually play a really important role in societies and if you get involved in them like Megan and I have done in POLSIS then you can really get some really good skills that are really useful to you in the future. So you know, by getting involved in the committee of the Politics Society we’ve got transferable skills that will be really appealing to employers.
But on a kind of less CV basis we also have a really good time, you know, we’ve made some really good friends and it’s just making the most of the opportunities that are given to you because if you just go to the lectures and you just go to the seminars, you’re not going to have as good a university experience as we have by getting out there and getting involved in stuff."