Choosing a University - Help!

[Danny]

Greetings boffins and boffins alike

I have a predicament. I have been accepted into both Kings College London and London School of Economics. Mans smart, who knew? Problem is I cannot choose between the two.

For LSE I chose to study Sociology, its the oldest Sociology department in the UK, a Uni literally built around social sciences, that according to the tutors there is ranked as the 3rd best Sociology department in the world. On top of that, I actually like the modules in the course. There are a lot of interesting Sociology modules and also opportunities to study modules outside of Sociology too. On top of that they have the LSE100, which is a collaborative course across the entire Uni where students from different subjects are grouped together to analyse a specific issue within the world and attempt to theoretically create a solution for it using multiple disciplines. There are a lot of modules that I like within the Sociology modules, such as Gender and Society, the Sociology of race and empire, atrocity and justice, law and violence. The only downsides I can imagine are a. Sociology can be a bit too caught up in theory and styles of thought, marxism vs the new right, radical feminists, marxist feminists, intersectional etc etc....yes it is good that you can separate the world and issues into multiple thought processes but also just give it a rest and come to some sort of collective agreement. It can be very tribal.

 

For Kings I chose to study Social Sciences, Kings is a much more well rounded Uni that offers a wider variety of courses. Doesn't necessarily have the same peak in terms of the perceived quality/reputation of some of it's courses that LSE might have, but it has a lot more courses at a high standard. The course itself is really interesting, some Social Science courses will focus a module on Sociology, or Psychology, or Economics, and the modules will be quire separate. This course rather than separating different sciences in different modules, looks at specific types of issues within the world such as Social Justice and Policy Analysis, Race Ethnicity and Society or Children Families and the States and then apply the teachings of different social sciences onto each topic. So if we are analysing Social Justice and Policy Analysis we'll do it from a Sociological, Psychological, Economical, Philosophical point of view at the same time. The course is quite well rounded and has a focus on trying to create real world solutions from the theory. The only potential downside is that the course may lack specialism and the deeper understanding of some of the boring stuff.

In terms of work they will both lead me in the same direction, though obviously having LSE on my CV will be a lot easier when finding work. But I'd rather not choose a Uni based on that reason alone.

 

Anyway, would be good to hear from anyone on here who had similar issues and how you made your choice?

[nudge+]

The main question to ask is what do you intend to do with your degree? In general, for social science disciplines like psychology or sociology, specialisation doesn't really happen until postgraduate. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Yeah, it depends really on what your plans are after school tbh. But regardless, I'd probably pick LSE if I were in your shoes.

[Mel81x+]

From what you've said the degree from LSE holds more weight for you in the more immediate future. But I think with degrees like these as nudge said, the real application comes in postgraduate if you choose to go that far. 

I tend to look at faculty more than the degree itself and thats how I chose my college because I figure that the topics can be learned by reading books but working with and interacting with good faculty far outweighs book knowledge. If any of them have good programs for what you want or are interested in then that's also a plus that needs to be considered imo. E.g. When I went to look at colleges for Computer Science I was clear that I wanted to work more on the securities side than the actual development side of things so I looked up colleges with folks who were heavily into the security space. As it turned out two of the professors I worked with in college were both heavily into this space so it really benefitted me in the long run. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

Personally I would attend whichever has more relevant post grad options. If both are equal in that regard I'd go LSE. 

For the hard part to tell you

I think you're studying a very interesting and fun, but complete dogshit degree. Is there no better compromise between what engages you and what is interesting to you? 

After painstakingly breaking my options down I chose a science degree over an international studies(minoring in mandarin) and economics degree. Purely because the particular science degree I'm doing is a golden ticket into post grad heaven. I could get 51% in every subject and the world would still be my oyster. 
Radiography 
Physiotherapy 
Exercise physiology
Exercise rehabilitation
Paramedicine 
All become1-2 year cake walks post grad.   

[nudge+]

1 hour ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Personally I would attend whichever has more relevant post grad options. If both are equal in that regard I'd go LSE. 

For the hard part to tell you

I think you're studying a very interesting and fun, but complete dogshit degree. Is there no better compromise between what engages you and what is interesting to you? 

I think sociology could be a pretty good and employable degree if he focused on choosing as many statistics, research methods, quantative analysis and programming classes as he can possibly get. That's a pretty decent path into data science and analytics (as well as business analytics and marketing) which is currently pretty huge and is only going to get bigger in the near future. So personally, I'd say use the uni to learn as much SPSS, R, SQL, Python as possible + get a strong background in general stat analysis, and if you're pretty decent at that, your skills will be in a very high demand once you graduate + you will have more postgrad options. Granted, I realise that's not the path everyone wants to take...

To add to that - from personal experience, none of the employers cared much about my degree; it was all about demonstrating the skills for the job... Your mileage may vary though.