I’ve never been good at making decisions. I tend to hope if I put off making my mind up it will be made up for me by factors outside my control, or that divine intervention will suddenly make everything clear. Unfortunately, this is not a great approach for a decision as important as choosing your university.

If you’re a prospective student you may well have more than one potential uni on your list. You may have multiple offers to decide between or you could be trying to narrow down your shortlist of where to apply. In the end it can all get a bit confusing.

Every university claims to have the best course, the best teaching, great facilities and an impressive campus/library/gym/ Students’ Union or all of the above, and every shiny prospectus has promising photos of happy students sitting on rolling green lawns. Choosing can all get a bit overwhelming. I remember my sister actually just flipped a coin to choose where she’d go to for her undergrad. I’m not advocating the coin toss or relying on divine intervention – though these may be the easiest options. In this blog I will let you know my own reasons for choosing BU, the factors I considered and the reasons I had in the end for choosing this particular uni.

I don’t want this to be the blog-version of those fake-smiling, rolling lawn photos.  I want to give you my honest (perhaps not all totally rational) and in no particular order, top ten reasons for choosing BU.  Of course they’ll be different to yours but maybe seeing someone else’s deciding factors will help you with your own…

• About three years ago I met a nice guy on a summer work placement who was really excited to be going to start a Cinematography course at BU. Two years later when I was considering MA courses I was reminded of his enthusiasm and thought I’d Google whether they had radio courses. I got back in touch and asked how his course went- he only had good things to say. A personal recommendation is really useful.
• I wanted to study something specific after my broad and very academic undergraduate course. I wanted practical training and industry skills and Bournemouth seemed to offer just that (and has lived up to expectations).
• My Mum’s cousin works in TV production and told me that in the media industry BU is well respected.
• I like to be by the sea (honestly, that was a deciding factor).
• It’s not too far from my family home. It’s a plus to be able to get home and back in a weekend if I need to.
• They offer a wide range of scholarships and financial support (this wasn’t the case for other universities I looked at).
• I turned down a reasonably paid grad job because it ‘just didn’t feel right’, Bournemouth ‘felt right’ (yeah, I know how woolly and non-specific that is, but don’t underestimate the power of your gut feeling).
• There’s an airport in Bournemouth with direct flights to Paris, which makes being in a long distance relationship a bit easier.
• It’s very international and I enjoy making friends with people from different countries.
• Many of the staff on my course have worked or still work in the industry, and can offer advice and guidance based on their own experience.

So there you go, the reasons I had for choosing BU in the first place, some more sensible than others. I’ll leave you with a list of reasons to choose BU which I’ve learnt since being here and which if I knew before coming would have made me even more sure of my choice.

• The international reputation
• The new shiny buildings going up on campus
• The impressive alumni and all their achievements
• The wide range of guest speakers
• The close proximity between the town centre and campus
• The free and fascinating talks organised by the diversity and equality team
• The chippy in Winton
• My wonderful housemates (granted this is all about luck of the draw!)
• The industry standard kit we can access through the tech team
• The careers advisers and help they offer in finding internships and placements.

So good luck with your decision making! And try not to resort to the coin toss…

By Olivia Beazley