George is a third year student studying Accounting and Finance, who has a puppy, a Yorkie named Ollie!
About me
I’m now in the last year of my degree, and the experience has been fantastic. It’s been a busy 3 years, and I’ve been lucky to get involved in loads of activities and sports which have fit around my studying.
I’ve managed to build amazing friendships along the way.
The Course
At school, I took biology, chemistry and maths, but the great thing for my programme is they teach you from scratch, and first year covers the basics, so, you can choose any subjects for A-Level!
I’m studying Accounting and Finance (not as gruelling as it sounds) with around 150 students in the year. We do a lot of coursework, thankfully mostly group work. It makes completing the work more fun and you really get to know people better when working together with tight deadlines!
Around half the year group are students who’ve moved to London for the first time, so if you’re like me and from the area it’s nice to be their tour guide and tell them about what London has to offer.
My course has around 15 hours a week of lectures and small classes, and you choose some of the timetable, so you may only be in 3 or 4 days a week. This makes it different to a school week.
Opportunities
An interesting opportunity is the chance to study abroad. It can be a summer school, for a single term or for a year! Some of my friends have gone to Austria, Singapore and Canada, making me jealous I didn’t do the same.
Where to study
A big decision on choosing my university was the location in London, I’d studied before in Scotland and I wanted to get a city centre experience and I’m able to live at home as well. I love the freedom being in London gives you, while on campus. (Pre-Covid) I could easily go out for food, catch a movie in Angel or get some shopping done.
The university has a high proportion of students who commute in, and I’ll quite often see a friend on the tube with me on my way in.
Extra-curricular life
Outside of my studies, a big part of my time has been playing sports. I’ve been playing table tennis with the university team for 3 years and have also been the captain of the team.
I’ve developed my skills, met many friends who I’ll stay in touch with and have represented the university at the national championships in Nottingham. I’ve also visited around 10 universities such as Essex, Sussex and Imperial playing away matches.
There’s over 20 sports teams you can join 
including things such as American Football and Cheerleading where the team are now 2 time National champions! To the right is a picture of a volleyball game held at City Sports (which holds the largest sports hall in central London!)
Working whilst at uni
While studying, I’ve taken some part time jobs at uni to help earn some pocket money.
The university has a temp agency called Unitemps where you can sign up and apply for jobs that fit around your timetable, the great thing is you can work as little or as much as you are comfortable. There are the large open day events with hundreds of student ambassadors working.
I’ve been lucky to do things such as a Programme Seller at a Classic Car show on Oxford Street to a job at Kings College London as a Room Surveyor, working at a Conference in the News Building (“the Baby Shard”) and at a UCAS fair in London’s Excel Arena.
These experiences have not only been really enjoyable but have helped me get a job after leaving university and developed my skills.
George has really taken advantage of some of the opportunities available at university. If you want to do the same you can research different universities to find out more about their sports clubs, volunteering and job opportunities, societies and social events as well as study abroad programmes. And yes, there might be a global pandemic going on right now, but there are still amazing online global opportunities you can take part in like volunteering with the United Nations!
Find out more about the kind of things you can get involved in here at City through:
