So you’re thinking about university? University can be many things: challenging, rewarding, lonely, boring, a winning investment, or a huge waste of money. Some students heading to university give it a lot of thought, others just make a spur of the moment decision. This book doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, or even provide coverage of all the issues. Instead, it aims to give some useful tips and to highlight some of the most important things to be aware of.

This book has a number of features which makes it different to many other guidebooks:

The book can be read in its entirety, or you can just dive into a chapter that you find interesting. I’ve tried to write chapters so they can be read independently. For this reason, there is sometimes an overlap in coverage. You may find some chapters too detailed or boring, if this is the case, try just reading the highlighted tips and notes.

Given the constraints in length, it isn’t possible to cover every topic in great detail, but hopefully the book will at least make the reader aware of important issues. They can then research these further if needed.

Each university is slightly different, so some details will vary depending on the one attended. Always confirm information by looking on the website of the university you plan to attend.

One thing you might notice is that the book makes some critical comments about a variety of different degrees and subjects, which may infuriate some readers. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t study those degrees, but please try to keep an open mind when considering the benefits and drawbacks. If you decide the opinions in this book are wrong, that is fine, but do it based on evidence, rather than just seeking out opinions that simply confirm a choice that has already been made.

Over the coming decades, the job market is going to change dramatically in ways that are hard to predict. Make the best decisions you can with the information you have available. It’s common for people to change careers several times during their working life, so don’t think that by studying a subject you must always work in that area.

In recent decades, the overall trend has been a large expansion in the number of graduates. This can mean intense competition for genuine graduate roles. Many areas are oversupplied, this can mean whatever major a student chooses, a decent job isn’t guaranteed after graduation.

An important point to keep in mind is that universities operate like businesses. They don’t necessarily care that much about individual students, just the amount of revenue they are making. Degrees that aren’t popular, or cost too much to teach relative to the income they produce, are going to get cut. Others will be crammed with students to the extent that quality suffers. Admission standards for some degrees are lowered, and academic misconduct ignored, in order to maintain a certain level of revenue. Universities are happy to take your money and deliver a course, even if that course doesn’t lead anywhere. As a general rule they aren’t looking out for a student’s long term interests. This doesn’t mean that individual instructors or university staff are bad, many are conscientious and hardworking, but the organisation as a whole is extremely revenue driven.

Some of the chapters contain student quotes. These are often at the beginning of the chapter and are used to highlight common issues. The quotes were taken from various platforms like facebook, reddit, discord, and TikTok. Some are edited for clarity, brevity, or to protect the original author’s privacy. Because of privacy and the fact that some posts have subsequently been deleted by the original author, no link to the original source of the quote has been provided in the references section. The names of the students aren’t their real names. I assigned a fictitious name to each student.

In this guide the term parents is used as shorthand for primary caregivers of students including parents, guardians, stepparents, grandparents, or other adults with supervisory responsibility. It is recognised that many types of family structure exist.