[00:00] [Intro music: J. S. Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, piano recording by Opus33.]
[00:10] Hi. Welcome to the Insight Podcast. I'm Aslan Rana [name spelling to confirm] here, a student at the Western Academy of Beijing, joined by, just let you introduce yourself. Yeah. Hi. My name is Ross Fitzpatrick. I'm an admissions officer at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, UK. So just jumping straight in. One thing we're encouraged to think about in the IB theory of knowledge is
[00:31] being challenged to reconsider our assumptions on the past and things we previously took for granted. So how would you describe the culture of intellectual disagreement at St Andrews, particularly in subject matters, which I'm interested in, where philosophy and international relations bridge, and particularly students within the lecture hall may have disagreements regarding global issues. Yeah, totally.
[00:53] I think there are two key parts of the institution's identity, which have a big influence on that. The first of those is that we're a very international university. So 44% of our students come from out with the UK. Yeah. What that means is that we have a lot of different perspectives,
[01:09] a lot of different backgrounds, people with different cultural settings that inform their worldview and their expectations, both in an academic setting and in a wider geopolitical setting.
[01:26] The other thing that I think is really important is the university's approach to teaching. So at St Andrews, we focus on research led teaching, which means that the academics who are leading these discussions, who are your tutors, who are assessing your work and assessing your contribution in class, they are always teaching you the things that they are currently researching.
[01:55] Particularly in the senior schools. So your honors years, your final two years out of four. The modules that you study there are designed by the academics to reflect what's happening right now. So the research that they are involved in as leaders in their field.
[02:13] So that means that quite a lot of the time, while they're teaching you are still working out their perspective on an issue. So there is a structured teaching syllabus there, but the room for student discussion, because these are fresh issues, these are questions which don't have answers.
[02:32] Yeah.
[02:32] The room for student discussion is infinite. And generally the lectures will shrink or expand to meet students where they're at, particularly in subjects in the humanities where so much of what we do is wrapped up in theory, is wrapped up in different approaches, differences of opinion.
[02:51] I think the university encourages students through having a lot of contact time, a lot of class time, proportionately to other universities, and through that research led teaching where the discussions that happen in your tutorial group in October can influence the direction of research that that academic will carry forward in February.
[03:13] So it's almost moderated through their research.
[03:16] Totally. I think so. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that they're only interested in talking about the things that they're working on. Because they are such active researchers alongside large teaching commitments, they're very, very open to help students who have their own ideas and who have their own research that they would like to take forward. And it's very collaborative.
[03:37] Yeah. So one of the main differences between, as we've discussed earlier, was a US liberal arts system and a Scottish or UK system.
[03:48] And a lot of the autonomy within that is geared towards students who have not generally decided on a career path at the ripe age of 18 years old, right?
[03:59] So I think that can be quite daunting and scary and almost attract people to the US rather than Scotland.
[04:09] So how does St Andrews accommodate students who haven't necessarily have one driven idea towards what they want to do in the future and have university directly geared to that?
[04:18] For sure. So I think it's really, really important here to distinguish within this pool of UK universities in the UK applying to the UK.
[04:26] In there, there are two extremely different systems. The system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland follows the three year structure that I think you're referring to, where you apply for a major.
[04:38] It's very hard to change once you get there. Usually the degree you come in on will be the degree that you graduate with.
[04:44] So that is a very pressurised decision for people when they're 15, 16, choosing their IGCSEs or their IB programme.
[04:52] That's a lot, a lot of pressure, even for students that know what they want to do.
[04:56] The pressure to then achieve exactly what they need at the first time of asking is immense.
[05:02] So the system in Scotland works slightly differently. So you're still within the UK.
[05:07] You still have depth of study. You still have everything else that's tied up in the UK as a study destination.
[05:14] But the Scottish system is actually four years and significantly more flexible.
[05:22] I didn't mention this in the talk I just gave to your classmates.
[05:24] But a little fact that I like to throw in is that the US liberal arts system was actually imported to the US by Scottish academics.
[05:33] So the US liberal arts system grew out of that flexible Scottish four year degree system.
[05:39] So, you know, if we go all the way back, then our structure where students will typically study three subjects in first year, second year, they will either stick with three or cut it down to two.
[05:52] And then at the end of their second year, they decide what programme they're going to graduate with based on what they've done so far.
[06:00] That's probably more similar, actually, to a US liberal arts system than it is to that fixed, rigid English system.
[06:08] So, yeah, I think students sometimes don't know that that option's there because Scotland is smaller.
[06:14] Our universities are, we have fewer of them, but they're similarly prestigious.
[06:19] Edinburgh, St Andrews, Glasgow. These are top, top schools.
[06:23] Schools, yeah.
[06:23] Schools. So, yeah.
[06:25] Congratulations on the Sunday Times.
[06:27] Oh, thank you.
[06:27] I saw that infographic I have been showing to everyone.
[06:31] Yeah, you brought it up, not me.
[06:33] I was telling people today, I was like, number one university in the UK.
[06:36] Yeah, yeah.
[06:37] I was shocked.
[06:38] Anyway, just actually, I've been talking to a lot of people within this international student community.
[06:45] And a lot of people may be misinformed about the system you've just explained and are therefore seeking a joint degree structure.
[06:53] I may be privy to this where you only take, choose that pathway because you feel it will give you more autonomy and freedom within that structure.
[07:04] Understood.
[07:04] Whereas the US, you naturally have that, right?
[07:07] But in Scotland, how would you recommend to someone who does want to bridge two ideas but also may be able to receive similar kind of schools of thought within a single degree structure?
[07:21] Yeah, so I guess what you're asking is, if I apply for a single major within the Scottish system, will I still have flexibility to expand upon that?
[07:32] How does that distinguish from a joint degree structure within St Andrews?
[07:37] In Scottish universities, the degree structure is modular.
[07:43] So an economics program and an IR program and a history program, they are all separate single entities that are designed to be combinable.
[07:55] Yeah.
[07:55] So when we think about a joint major, the structure of the Scottish degree for a joint, I think you said IR and philosophy, right?
[08:04] Yes, yes.
[08:04] International relations and philosophy.
[08:06] Our joint majors don't necessarily find the intersection for you between those two areas.
[08:13] Because it's a modular system, those subjects are designed to be combinable with other things as well.
[08:19] So the difference from maybe the UK, the English system, where if you apply for a joint major, it will be intersectional because they don't have the time to waste.
[08:27] You're only there for three years.
[08:28] It's in depth from the start.
[08:30] and they will find the intersections and they will teach them together
[08:34] In Scotland, in that flexible system, we give you the room, first of all, to change your mind.
[08:39] Yeah.
[08:40] If you want to focus on one subject over the other.
[08:42] If you want to bring in a different third subject.
[08:45] But we also give you the space and we almost encourage you to take the responsibility to find the intersection between those subjects.
[08:54] If you wish.
[08:55] If you're studying IR and philosophy and over the course of your four year degree, you find one area of IR that you're super interested in.
[09:04] One area of philosophy that you're super interested in.
[09:08] If those two have a natural intersection or maybe there's an intersection that hasn't yet been explored.
[09:14] Then we would love to support you to find that.
[09:16] So you can do.
[09:17] We do that through joint dissertations in the final year.
[09:20] So if you are studying two subjects, you will have the choice either to complete essentially a half year dissertation in one and a half year dissertation in the other.
[09:32] Or a full year intersectional dissertation.
[09:35] And is that quite common?
[09:36] The intersectional dissertation?
[09:36] Really, honestly, I would say 50-50.
[09:39] We don't want to say, hmm, okay, well, you need to find an intersection.
[09:43] Yes.
[09:43] You can study those two things independently in the depth that you want.
[09:47] Okay.
[09:48] But most students, if they find something that they like and they're excited about, will do that over the course of their four years.
[09:55] And may decide to do a joint dissertation, which is, yeah, super common.
[09:59] Around half of students, I would say, that study a joint major.
[10:03] Yeah.
[10:03] Probably do an intersectional dissertation.
[10:06] I agree with the fact that IR typically has a very wide breadth that not many other majors cover within that.
[10:13] Because it's, a lot of people see it.
[10:16] I hate to perpetuate this US bias.
[10:19] But equivalent to political science in the US.
[10:22] And if it's equivalent, for example, at King's or LSE, it's politics and philosophy.
[10:28] But there are just many variations and names for that.
[10:32] War studies.
[10:33] Yeah, exactly.
[10:34] How do you see that as the IR course specifically?
[10:36] Yeah, totally.
[10:37] So this is speaking about St Andrews specifically rather than Scotland.
[10:41] We keep the titles of our degrees across arts, humanities.
[10:46] It's a little different in the sciences because sometimes it can be helpful for your degree to say specifically marine biology or astrophysics.
[10:53] Sometimes that helps in terms of employability.
[10:56] In the humanities, we don't find it makes as much of a difference.
[10:59] So what we do is we keep the title of your degree broad.
[11:02] MA honors international relations or IR and philosophy.
[11:07] But within that, yeah, the range of specialism within that is incredible.
[11:11] And it's up to you to guide that.
[11:13] We don't say here are the mandatory modules beyond, I think probably beyond second year for IR.
[11:20] I wouldn't expect there to be maybe one mandatory module a year.
[11:24] And the rest is all up to you.
[11:28] And in terms of when it comes to your final year and it comes to your research, if you need support and you want us to give you some inspiration for a project, our academics are there to do that.
[11:38] But if you have strong ideas and you have things that you really want to pursue, leads you want to chase down, areas you want to explore, then you will have all the support you could need to go and do that.
[11:50] And so, yeah, we really encourage that.
[11:52] And I'm trying to think whether that answers the question you asked me.
[11:56] Is IR like political science in the US?
[11:58] I would say it's much more similar to political science than it is to politics.
[12:05] I would say that sometimes that's a trap that students fall into.
[12:08] They're applying to IR in politics.
[12:10] They write a personal statement for politics.
[12:11] It comes to us for IR and we say, guys, this is not going to help us.
[12:16] So that's really tough.
[12:18] And you get a lot of very qualified students every year who maybe just don't quite grasp that distinction.
[12:25] So, yeah, it's tough on UCAS sometimes to navigate that strategic personal statement writing.
[12:32] But that's why St Andrews is on the Common App too.
[12:35] So that's another little bonus for listeners.
[12:38] Speak to your schools.
[12:39] If it's going to be easier to throw us an application on Common App, then that can be an advantage.
[12:45] So on the topic of UCAS, of course, you're someone who's completed it and I believe you review admissions.
[12:51] We do, yes.
[12:51] So how, within the UCAS personal statement, it's very tailored.
[12:57] It's, you have to be succinct.
[12:58] There's not many words, again, compared to the US where it feels almost like narrative writing.
[13:02] Totally.
[13:02] Where it's spoken in prose.
[13:04] Whereas, you know, how do you, what are your top tips for writing a structured, detailed personal statement that a university can see directly in those 4,000 characters?
[13:16] That's right.
[13:16] Something like that where they are looking, you are what they're looking for with regard to the subject.
[13:21] Yeah, totally.
[13:22] I would say that the number one tip for the UK personal statement is quality over quantity.
[13:30] Like you said, 4,000 characters disappears in the blink of an eye.
[13:35] UCAS have now structured it a little differently.
[13:39] It's three questions.
[13:40] The first one is, why do you want to study the subject?
[13:44] If you don't have an answer for that, I'm not sure how much I can help you.
[13:48] But seriously there, I think sometimes students feel that with the wording of that question, they need to justify their love for the subject.
[13:55] So they need to provide us like a Spider-Man origin story of why they're interested in economics.
[14:00] If you have a good one, then tell us.
[14:03] But I think students sometimes feel that they need to give a justification or an explanation when really you can just launch straight into something that you love and your subject that you're really excited about.
[14:15] That you can just say, I had my mind blown, not in these words.
[14:21] You can talk about it more eloquently and just say, I was really excited to learn about concept A or research piece B or project C.
[14:31] So you don't need to give us a big long-winded origin story.
[14:34] That will eat up characters faster than anything else.
[14:37] So be succinct there.
[14:38] Second question, how is my curriculum preparing me for studying at university?
[14:42] Obviously, tell us about your IB, your A levels, your APs.
[14:46] But this is the place.
[14:47] So St Andrews specifically, other universities in the UK might be different.
[14:51] We won't grade or give credit for the EPQ.
[14:59] If you do A levels, you do an extended project.
[15:01] Obviously in the IB, TOK and extended essay, they're wrapped up into your 45.
[15:06] So that's a little different.
[15:07] So we do look at those scores there as part of your 45.
[15:12] If your extended essay or your EPQ is relevant to your subject, that question two is the perfect place to tell us about it.
[15:20] So even though it's not entirely led by the school, that's the perfect place to tell us about that project there for question two.
[15:27] To be honest, the question structure doesn't really matter.
[15:31] I'm just saying this to help students structure themselves.
[15:34] You could put everything in the question one box.
[15:36] And if it's good, we would still take you.
[15:39] Just a follow-up to that.
[15:41] A lot of degrees don't necessarily have a direct, within the humanities, a direct course that correlates with that within the IB, for example.
[15:52] So if you look at biology, a student can take IB biology and they have a lot to write about for that.
[15:57] But within, for example, international relations, there's so many things to cover.
[16:00] That could be history, global politics, language and literature in a sense.
[16:05] So how do you suggest someone synthesizes their current subjects into a way that it fits that degree structure?
[16:12] Yeah, really interesting.
[16:14] So I think for subjects, for majors like that, in that second box, it's really important to tell us about transferable skills.
[16:23] You guys are clever people.
[16:25] If you're applying to competitive UK schools, you're clearly very capable.
[16:29] But don't forget to handhold us a little bit in this application.
[16:35] It helps us to understand that you know the skills that these things are teaching you.
[16:40] We know what skills they're going to teach you, but we need to know that you can identify those skills as well.
[16:45] So don't be afraid to hold our hands a little bit in this section.
[16:49] We just need to see that you are aware of what you're learning and the skills that you're developing that are going to be relevant to your future major.
[16:56] Then I would say for majors like that particularly, which don't have a direct correlation to an IB subject, even more than other majors, question three becomes the really important one, which is what am I doing outside of school to help prepare me for university?
[17:15] As we spoke about in the presentation, as I'm sure other UK universities have told you on your podcast, we are interested in extracurriculars.
[17:22] We do want to know, but they're not a part of the academic decision making.
[17:27] So they don't factor heavily into who will receive an offer and who won't.
[17:32] So that question three is where we're looking to see super curriculars.
[17:36] Those are still important for biology, chemistry, physics, IB related subjects.
[17:41] We do still need to see the students are taking their curriculum as a jumping off point to go a little further and explore the subject on their own.
[17:49] But yeah, if you're applying for a major which doesn't directly correlate to an IB subject, then it's even more important in this part to show us that you have an understanding of what it is that you're applying to.
[18:01] So that doesn't have to be super complex. Like we spoke about, it could be a journal article, it could be a book, it could be a documentary, it could be a podcast.
[18:11] Anything that shows that you're engaging with either important foundational research that has kind of shaped the field or possibly more excitingly for you as students and future researchers, new stuff, things that are happening right now in your field that you're excited about.
[18:29] And sometimes that can be the easiest to find as well. We live in a multimedia age.
[18:34] If you do want to explore podcasts, documentaries, there's some really, really high quality stuff being released, whether it's news outlets, whether it's citizen journalism, whether it's, you know, there's lots out there that you can find, which can be super exciting and super informative.
[18:53] So we don't have a preference necessarily for the historic forms of research.
[19:01] If those are interesting and you find good stuff, tell us about those.
[19:04] But if there's a podcast led by economists, led by political scientists, and you find it really interesting, then tell us about that too.
[19:12] So you would say there's a stigma to our certain mediums of which you are receiving that information?
[19:17] Not at St Andrews, no. We're happy, obviously, I would say try not to just talk about one thing.
[19:23] Of course, yeah.
[19:23] Pick two at least, three probably at most, and tell us in depth about what you're learning from those, why those are exciting or relevant or interesting.
[19:34] When I say in depth, I mean maybe like a sentence or two sentences.
[19:37] For the UK personal statement, that is depth. You don't have much room for much beyond that.
[19:41] But so, yeah, I would say tell us, pick, yeah, two, three things.
[19:46] And you're tailoring your application towards an academic of that subject.
[19:51] That's right, yeah.
[19:52] For that third question specifically, you don't want to talk to it as if you're saying it to someone who's new to the subject.
[19:59] You don't have to. So for other parts of the application, for what you're learning in your curriculum,
[20:03] or if you're telling us about an extracurricular and the skills you learned there, tell me like I'm five.
[20:09] For the academically focused part of the application, yeah, don't be afraid to get technical, to get specific.
[20:16] At St Andrews specifically, in admissions we do an initial read, and all of the appropriate applications are then sent on to academic admissions officers.
[20:27] So professors of economics, anthropology, whatever.
[20:31] So, I mean, obviously I won't name any names, but a lot of schools with, for example, St Andrews has very high IB requirements.
[20:40] And other schools don't pay so much heed to the personal statement if your grades are at a certain level.
[20:45] But you would say unequivocally St Andrews will always read your personal statement.
[20:49] It's an absolute deal breaker, yeah. Super, super important.
[20:53] And that's not, we're not the only school in the UK with that policy.
[20:57] Other similarly sized and similarly competitive schools are the exact same.
[21:04] But I think particularly because St Andrews doesn't generally do interviews,
[21:09] possibly even more importance is placed on the personal statement because we don't have another stage where a student can kind of pick up after that.
[21:19] So I would say, yeah, it's super, super important for us.
[21:22] And recommendation letters, you guys pay a lot of attention to it.
[21:26] Yeah, absolutely. The whole application really is important for us.
[21:30] You're right, there are schools in the UK, and they will tell you usually, they'll be honest with you,
[21:34] that don't bother too much about personal statement.
[21:38] And happy enough to take everybody that meets the grades.
[21:42] But yeah, absolutely not the case at St Andrews.
[21:45] They want a sense of your personality.
[21:46] Totally. The reference, I would say, is super important, but you know your counsellors.
[21:52] They will always write a fantastic reference letter that says,
[21:55] this is the best student I've worked with in 25 years, I'm going to retire, I'm going to leave them my house and my will.
[22:02] You can trust your counsellors, you can trust your teachers to write a great recommendation like that.
[22:08] What you can sometimes forget is that you have input here too.
[22:11] This reference letter should represent you.
[22:14] Yeah.
[22:15] So keep in touch with your counsellors, keep in touch with your teachers, whoever's writing this letter.
[22:20] And the things that you want to tell us, but you can't fit into your personal statement.
[22:25] So I'm thinking mostly about extracurriculars, school leadership roles, things like this podcast.
[22:31] This is pretty cool.
[22:31] So you probably want to tell universities about this.
[22:35] But if you're struggling to fit it in and you need to focus on the academic stuff for the UK, so that's priority one.
[22:40] Yeah.
[22:41] If you're struggling to fit it in, ask your counsellor.
[22:44] That's what the reference is for.
[22:46] They will tell us all they need to tell us from your teachers, from their perspective.
[22:50] But if there's things that you want us to know.
[22:52] Yeah.
[22:52] And you don't have the room to include.
[22:55] Use your counsellor letter and just say, at the end of your reference, can you please hit bullet points A, B, C.
[23:01] Yeah.
[23:02] Of things that I've done that I want universities to take into account, but I don't have room to talk about in the required quality in my personal statement.
[23:12] That's a great tip.
[23:13] As a little insider tip.
[23:14] I haven't heard that one before.
[23:15] Yeah, it's a great insight.
[23:16] If they listen to the podcast, that's great.
[23:18] Well, yeah, hopefully.
[23:19] Maybe they make it through.
[23:20] Makes a big difference.
[23:21] I had a quick question also about there is a lot of students that apply both to the UK, the USA.
[23:30] And counsellors specifically, like they can't write more than one letter of reference, right?
[23:34] Okay.
[23:35] And sometimes, you know, it's difficult to both accommodate for the UK and what they're looking for more like supercurricular and what you're doing, like reading books and things like that.
[23:44] Whereas in the US, it's more focused on your extracurriculars, your impact at school.
[23:48] And is there like some advice that you have, like how to balance that and how to kind of...
[23:53] Yeah.
[23:54] Yeah.
[23:54] Because that's like a common one.
[23:55] I'll just add to that.
[23:56] A common one.
[23:56] You talked about how we care, but we also don't care.
[24:00] About your extracurriculars, right?
[24:02] Yeah, of course, kidding.
[24:03] But the US schools definitely want to see the impact you've made as a human being on your school, right?
[24:09] But within the UK, how do you like efficiently and in a smart way tailor that into your application that it's also not going to take up too much time within the personal statement?
[24:23] Because if there are some things you've achieved that don't necessarily directly correlate with your degree, but you think that demonstrates your ability as a human to make an impact in your community.
[24:33] Yeah.
[24:34] How do you recommend to tailor that into your...
[24:36] Totally, yeah.
[24:37] So I'll start with that one and then we'll talk about the counsellor letter for sure.
[24:41] There's a little overlap here, but I would say that the two are distinct.
[24:45] So yeah, you're right.
[24:47] It's not that we don't care.
[24:48] Yeah.
[24:48] We do care.
[24:49] We just, we go quite hard on it when we visit schools because we don't want students to let themselves down by neglecting the subject related stuff, by not telling us enough or not telling us the right quality of subject related activities that they're engaged in.
[25:06] That's the number one thing that trips up otherwise excellent applicants.
[25:10] Yeah.
[25:10] And it can be genuinely quite frustrating as an admissions officer to go, for goodness sake, this is otherwise fantastic.
[25:17] Yeah.
[25:17] But there's just not enough in here for me to progress this alongside these other four applications that I would like to progress.
[25:25] Yeah.
[25:26] So yeah, we just, we go super hard on it when we visit schools.
[25:30] Actually, it's not, maybe it's not as strict as that.
[25:33] So we do need to see that.
[25:35] We do need to see quality and engagement and passion, but don't worry that you then, if you have room left over, you have, we try and say 80%, 80% should be subject related.
[25:46] 20% if you have extracurriculars you want to tell us about, that's the place to do it.
[25:51] And usually towards the end.
[25:54] Don't feel that you can't, don't feel that you have to use all those 4,000 characters for subject related stuff.
[26:01] Don't shoehorn subject stuff in there that isn't really, it's not something that you're necessarily proud of or you have something intelligent to say about it.
[26:10] You don't need to cram as many things as possible in there.
[26:13] You also don't fire hose that with information that the admission office already knows, right?
[26:17] They've placed their grades, for example, in a personal statement.
[26:19] Totally.
[26:20] That's, yeah, we don't, we don't need that.
[26:22] Yeah.
[26:23] But the extracurriculars, if you are telling us about school leadership roles, you're telling us about sports participation or leadership or achievement, music, whatever it is.
[26:34] Yeah.
[26:34] Community stuff, organizing, volunteering.
[26:37] Do tell us about it, but it's back to that, tell me like I'm five approach.
[26:41] We need you to say being involved in activity A has helped me develop my communication or teamwork or initiative or curiosity or blah, blah, blah.
[26:54] We need to see the connection as, as simple as that, really.
[26:57] We need to see that we can, it's very difficult for us to interpret what you want us to know about you as a person from just listing the name of an activity.
[27:07] Yeah.
[27:07] We need to see that you understand why it's important.
[27:10] Because that also just comes to it in the resume as well.
[27:12] Totally.
[27:13] Yeah.
[27:13] So, but the, the, the thing to come back with your counselors as well, you said it was about finding the.
[27:20] The right balance, right?
[27:22] Yeah.
[27:22] Because you don't want to neglect either the UK or the US.
[27:25] Or the US.
[27:25] Totally.
[27:26] So I would say that.
[27:30] First of all, your counselors will have experienced this before.
[27:33] They will have, I'm sure, ways to balance it.
[27:38] But I would say the super curricular stuff, you can try and it doesn't need to be 10, 12, 14 different things.
[27:49] You can do 10, 12, 14 different things.
[27:51] Take the most impact.
[27:52] To see which ones you find the most engaging or exciting or that you can write the most compellingly about.
[27:59] For super curriculars, when we talk about that, when we ask about that, when we put a massive focus on that in our presentations,
[28:06] drive at home, we're not, we're not necessarily asking you to build up like a, like a 10 page portfolio.
[28:12] We need two or three really high quality things that you can talk about in the personal statement.
[28:18] That's your opportunity to cover that off and the required quality.
[28:24] Extracurriculars.
[28:25] Yeah.
[28:25] For the US, I've never worked in that market, but I know it's super important.
[28:29] Um, and you probably do need a broader portfolio.
[28:32] I would guess you guys can keep me right there.
[28:35] Yeah.
[28:36] A million things.
[28:37] Yeah, exactly.
[28:38] So I would say that if you, so we, the counselor letter does matter for us, but it's going to
[28:45] probably matter less if you have a strong personal statement than it will in the US.
[28:49] So if your counselor needs to cover both bases, then they can focus their letter maybe more
[28:58] towards the US with little bits of super curricular because US schools will be interested in that
[29:03] too.
[29:03] Yeah.
[29:04] Um, but little bits of super curricular in there to tick the UK box.
[29:08] Um, but really, really the recommendation letter that you write for US applications would be
[29:14] something that we are happy to see too.
[29:16] That's not going to be a disadvantage.
[29:18] The vast majority of decision making at competitive UK schools will happen between grades and personal statement.
[29:26] Um, it's very, very rare for a reference to drag down an application.
[29:31] So I would say from our perspective, if that's all you're worrying about, you probably don't need to worry so much.
[29:40] If you feel like the rest is great and you're cruising, then I wouldn't let the counselor letter be the thing that you get really caught up on.
[29:49] Think about maybe maybe think about that more in your US applications.
[29:52] I know we focused on getting into St Andrews.
[29:55] For sure, a lot.
[29:56] We've also probably asked some questions about campus life.
[29:59] One of the questions I had is if you were a student again, what would your day in a week look like?
[30:04] Because for us, it's difficult to kind of understand.
[30:08] Envisage.
[30:08] Yeah, totally.
[30:09] You can bring us into your life in the winter, in the cold.
[30:14] So, yeah, OK.
[30:16] So let's let's not go for deepest, darkest winter.
[30:19] Let's say about November.
[30:21] So you've joined first year.
[30:23] You've had time to settle in.
[30:26] Clubs and societies.
[30:28] You've joined some academic families, which are something of a unique St Andrews tradition.
[30:33] Older students will sort of bring you under their wing.
[30:35] They become your academic mom, academic dad.
[30:38] You're their academic child.
[30:40] And they feel very protective over you.
[30:41] They'll make sure that you are settling in and engaged.
[30:45] So by November, you've started to find your feet.
[30:48] You've settled in there.
[30:49] You have done a lot of assessed coursework already.
[30:51] So instead of in first year, particularly second year, there will be very, very few modules where everything relies on one final exam.
[31:02] OK.
[31:02] So you will do a continuous assessment through the semester.
[31:05] So by that time in the year, you already have an idea of how you're performing.
[31:10] Am I struggling academically?
[31:11] Am I excelling academically?
[31:12] [unclear transition]
[31:14] So you start to settle into the place, I would say, around October, November, which is pretty typical, I think, if you're moving anywhere for college.
[31:24] So a day in the life at that point might look like, if we take a first year, three subjects.
[31:32] So you may have a lecture in the morning.
[31:35] Not many students choose the 9 a.m. slot, but sometimes it will be mandatory.
[31:40] Oh, no.
[31:40] Not always, not always.
[31:42] It really depends on your lecturer's availability.
[31:45] So you may have a lecture in the morning.
[31:47] You could go to the library for a couple of hours.
[31:49] Students will then maybe grab some lunch together, lecture in the afternoon, maybe a tutorial as well.
[31:56] So lectures will be large groups of maybe 100 up to maybe 300 students at St Andrews listening to an academic deliver.
[32:07] A lecture.
[32:08] Tutorials will be much smaller groups, around 12 to maybe 15 students in the first year,
[32:15] where you discuss either the material that was covered in the lecture or readings that were set in advance of the class that you have to prepare.
[32:24] So you'll get together for those small groups.
[32:26] Those are very discursive.
[32:28] And the academic will lead.
[32:31] They will have a direction that they want the tutorial to go.
[32:34] But as we said at the start, it's very, very open to be led by student discussion, particularly in the humanities we're talking about here.
[32:41] In sciences, it's a little more directed.
[32:44] It's a little more guided.
[32:45] But that's probably what you want as well.
[32:47] You want a rigorous scientific education.
[32:51] And the sciences will also have labs, maybe fieldwork.
[32:54] So once, I would say once or twice a week, depending on how many science subjects you study,
[33:00] maybe up to five or six times a week, you'll be in a lab.
[33:03] Or if you're doing something like earth sciences, maybe out at the cliffs or in the sea at St Andrews,
[33:08] gathering specimens, gathering evidence for coursework and things.
[33:14] So yeah, so that's what the kind of academic portion would look like.
[33:18] Very often in first year, students have classes at St Andrews at least four days a week.
[33:23] So four or five days a week, you will have a couple of lessons a day.
[33:27] Because we need to hit around 16 to 18 hours of contact time in the humanities, probably 18 to 20 in the sciences.
[33:35] That's quite high for a university.
[33:36] That's not super common in the UK, certainly.
[33:40] So that will be spread fairly evenly across the week.
[33:44] Usually a Wednesday afternoon in particular is free for sports.
[33:50] That's usually when the vast, vast majority of sports stuff happens across the UK at universities actually.
[33:56] Some of the competitive teams will train four or five, six times a week.
[34:00] But generally everything, if it's games, if it's traveling for camps and things like that,
[34:06] that will all tend to happen on a Wednesday evening across the UK.
[34:12] But other things than that, in the evening, after you've finished your classes,
[34:15] you've prepared your readings for the next day, which I'm sure you'll always do the night before,
[34:20] and never the morning of at 8am.
[34:22] He's cramming it on your phone, yes, I'm sure.
[34:25] Once you've put all that aside, then students will have their dinner,
[34:30] either in a catered hall where everything's laid on for you, you come down, it's very sociable.
[34:36] Some of our halls in the town centre are in quite historic buildings as well.
[34:41] So particularly, I'm thinking of St. Salvator's Hall and St. Regulus's Hall.
[34:46] They do, I wish there was a better way to describe it, but they do really look like Hogwarts.
[34:52] It's the go-to example.
[34:55] Look up some photos, you can see what I mean.
[34:59] Paintings of mysterious old men on all of the corners and landscapes.
[35:04] There's actually one of the, which one is that?
[35:06] University Hall.
[35:07] There's a painting of, I'm sure it's Dwight Eisenhower?
[35:12] Oh yeah.
[35:13] The US President.
[35:13] Painted in this strange kind of mountain scene.
[35:19] He's wearing like a yellow checked suit.
[35:20] It's bizarre, it's absolutely bizarre.
[35:23] But he sits over there and watches everyone have their lunch,
[35:26] so Big Dwight will keep you on track.
[35:29] After that, in the evening, it would usually be time for clubs and societies or events and things like that.
[35:35] So if you're in any of the fundraising societies, there are various, you know,
[35:40] Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, local charities, other international charities,
[35:46] a great way to build your CV.
[35:48] Things like professional societies as well.
[35:52] So consulting, fintech.
[35:55] We have an engineering society, even though we don't have an engineering school.
[35:58] We have a law society, even though we don't have a law school.
[36:02] Because the students that come here, they come for the incredible academic and social undergraduate experience,
[36:09] even if we don't have a degree that directly aligns with their career trajectory.
[36:14] Sometimes that experience is exciting enough.
[36:17] The students will say, OK, I'll do my law after.
[36:20] I want to come here first.
[36:21] I want to kind of be part of that for a little while.
[36:25] Yeah.
[36:26] So, yeah, so I would say the evening is when the majority of your socialising will happen in a structured way.
[36:32] But students just spend a lot of time hanging around together.
[36:35] The campus is so small.
[36:37] The town is so small.
[36:38] The furthest you're ever going to be from a teaching building to your accommodation
[36:44] or your accommodation to the sports hall or place A to place B is about 25, 30 minutes walk.
[36:52] If you have a bike, most of our students will have a bicycle.
[36:55] It's like a 10-minute cycle from one place to the other.
[36:58] So the campus is, the campus, I think, facilitates sociability, which is nice.
[37:06] How do you prepare students, first-year students, that are preparing to go on to their first internship programs?
[37:13] Although I know it varies for, for example, economics and finance and biology and things like that might be very different.
[37:19] How do you prepare the students for that?
[37:21] And how does their timetable look like?
[37:24] How's their summer break?
[37:26] Yeah.
[37:26] Yeah.
[37:26] Totally.
[37:27] So the vast, vast majority of kind of prestigious internships that happen within the UK will happen over the summer break.
[37:36] Yeah.
[37:36] I think that's probably the same in the US.
[37:39] Globally.
[37:40] And globally, yeah.
[37:41] Because the, so places like St Andrews, yes, it's an hour on the train from Edinburgh.
[37:46] It's about four hours on the train from London.
[37:48] So it's easy to get from there to the big financial and kind of international centers.
[37:54] But yeah, but you couldn't go three nights a week during term time.
[37:57] But your workload wouldn't allow for that either.
[38:00] You're too busy.
[38:00] You've got too much work to do.
[38:02] Yeah.
[38:02] And that's not just a St Andrews problem.
[38:04] That's true at Oxford.
[38:05] That's true at Cambridge.
[38:06] Students don't have time during the semester to be working on extremely challenging internships.
[38:12] So that means that companies don't schedule them during the semester.
[38:15] They don't, they don't ask students to be available on a Tuesday night in October.
[38:20] They want you there for three or four weeks in the summer.
[38:22] And your visa will allow for that as well if you're on a student visa.
[38:26] So that means that those opportunities aren't automatically ruled out because of St Andrews location.
[38:32] I think sometimes students worry a lot about that.
[38:34] Yeah.
[38:34] But in practical terms, if you're committed to accessing the opportunities and you use the support that we have for that, which I will talk about because I know that's the question you asked.
[38:44] But I'm addressing the question underneath, which students often do have.
[38:48] When they see the location, they think, how can there be opportunity for me there?
[38:52] Yeah.
[38:53] And the opportunity that you have is the academic stuff that is really highly regarded, really prestigious economics.
[39:00] Our graduates go on to do some really, really incredible things, as do IR, as do computer science.
[39:06] And it's really, it's really highly regarded in the UK and in the US, actually.
[39:12] Our brand establishment in the US now is pretty, it's pretty damn good.
[39:16] Yeah, yeah.
[39:17] And been there for a long time.
[39:19] So the question you asked was, how does the university support you to find these opportunities and then to access these opportunities?
[39:31] And most of our majors, being a traditionally very academic, rigorous and teaching focused university,
[39:39] not many of our majors have integrated internships and industry experience in the way that more modern universities might,
[39:47] because the teaching is demanding and the learning is demanding in the same way as other competitive schools in the UK will be.
[39:55] You'll find that less when you look at the top, top schools, there will be less industry experience integrated into the course,
[40:02] because the course itself is designed to push you pretty much to capacity.
[40:07] You know, that's what you want. You come there for, to be worked hard, you know, exactly.
[40:12] You want to come out the other end of it, ready to just go and excel.
[40:16] But that doesn't mean that the university doesn't help you to find and access those opportunities.
[40:20] Each university in the UK will have a career centre, and that's your best resource there.
[40:26] So, in your first and second year, you specifically seem quite on the ball with internships and things like that.
[40:32] Not every student listening will feel that they have the same understanding, or they know where to look for the information that they need.
[40:40] So, the best thing you can do in your first year, when you are still transitioning to university,
[40:45] you're finding your feet, you might not be paying attention to exactly when all of the deadlines for application window A,
[40:52] and application window B, when all of that opens and closes.
[40:56] The best thing you can do in your first year is sign up to some bulletins from the career centre.
[41:01] Sign up to the, you know, law industry bulletin, the economics industry bulletin, the finance industry bulletin,
[41:08] and they will tell you, okay, this internship opportunity opens for applications on 5th of October,
[41:15] and closes on 20th of October.
[41:18] This one opens for applications on 10th of November, and closes on 1st of December.
[41:24] In the first year, you may not be too worried about applying for those things,
[41:28] but passively, by seeing those emails come through, you'll start to know,
[41:32] okay, when it comes time for me to look at these opportunities, I need to be ready in October,
[41:37] I need to be ready in November.
[41:38] I can't get to, after the break that we have in the fall semester,
[41:44] so the reading week that we call it, where students do a lot of reading,
[41:47] you guys can see me doing inverted commas there,
[41:50] after the reading week, students will come back and start to think,
[41:53] okay, now I better look at internship opportunities in my second year or my third year.
[41:58] And some of them are already gone, some of them have already opened and closed,
[42:02] by the time that comes around.
[42:03] So, by getting yourself, at the very simplest level,
[42:07] getting yourself on some mailing lists in those 1st and 2nd years,
[42:11] you just know when you need to be ready for those opportunities to come up.
[42:16] And when it is your turn to apply for them,
[42:18] then the support from the Career Centre is there.
[42:20] So, CV workshops, mock interviews, mock assessment centres,
[42:25] so much of that world is now done through kind of multi-faceted assessment centres,
[42:33] you might be in person, there will be various group tasks,
[42:36] some individual components, that can take a lot of preparation,
[42:39] they're a bit strange, they take a bit of getting used to.
[42:41] So, the Career Centre will help support you with stuff like that as well.
[42:45] And also with finding opportunities, that's a big part of what we do.
[42:49] We have regional opportunities managers as well,
[42:52] so someone looks after the UK, someone looks after North America, Asia, Europe.
[42:57] Oh, wow.
[42:58] Because we're so international as a school,
[43:01] we know that even if students love St Andrews for four years,
[43:03] they are going to want to go elsewhere.
[43:05] Of course they do.
[43:06] There are lots of exchange programmes.
[43:07] There are a lot of exchange programmes, yeah.
[43:09] We want them to go elsewhere too.
[43:11] We want them to go around the world and make a global impact
[43:14] so that they can come back and talk to future students
[43:16] about what they've gone on to do.
[43:18] So, yeah, the Career Centre has designated regional opportunities teams
[43:24] to facilitate that.
[43:25] That actually leads me to another question,
[43:27] which is, you know, do you have alumni and, I don't know,
[43:30] executives and professionals coming to the university
[43:33] and giving panels?
[43:35] I think also some firms might come to the group.
[43:39] Yeah, totally, 100%.
[43:40] Through the year, there will be various careers fairs.
[43:43] Some of them will be industry-specific.
[43:44] Some of them will just be a kind of mix of industries that come along.
[43:49] Some of them will be hosted by the university and the Career Centre.
[43:54] Some of those will be organised by student societies.
[43:57] So the consulting society will organise a consulting fair,
[44:01] law will have a law fair, engineering will have an engineering fair.
[44:04] Those are all organised by students or students with companies.
[44:08] So those links through those societies,
[44:12] they're not just to develop your skills alongside other students
[44:15] and to take on student projects.
[44:17] Those societies at the university have long-standing industry connections
[44:21] as well through those fairs.
[44:22] So sometimes the Career Centre is only one part of the network
[44:27] that's available to you at university.
[44:29] So that's not just at St Andrews either.
[44:32] Beyond that, the certain, yes, certain departments will have,
[44:37] usually in your final year probably of undergraduate,
[44:41] or particularly if you stay for a master's degree.
[44:44] Some departments are really, really good at getting industry people in to talk.
[44:49] So the one I'm thinking of in particular is Earth and Environmental Sciences.
[44:54] We're really well known for that.
[44:55] Our degree is really, really strong.
[44:57] So engineering firms will come in all through the final year
[45:00] and all through your master's year to say,
[45:03] have you thought about this?
[45:04] Have you thought about that?
[45:04] Have you thought about this?
[45:05] Because they know our graduates are really good.
[45:07] And they're like, you know, I'm sure they go other places too,
[45:10] but they really have their eye on our graduates.
[45:12] So that's one example of what one school does to try and then,
[45:17] even if we can't integrate employment stuff into the curriculum,
[45:21] because it's already quite challenging,
[45:23] the opportunities to engage with that are still there for students.
[45:26] So we try our best to lay it out in front of you,
[45:29] but the expectation is on you to come and engage with that.
[45:33] Some students do a really good job at that from the start.
[45:36] Some of them start to think about it maybe at the end of third year,
[45:41] start of fourth year.
[45:42] It's not that it's too late by that point.
[45:44] Your life's not over.
[45:46] But the earlier you engage, the earlier you know what is out there,
[45:50] the less stress, 100%.
[45:52] You took the words right in my mouth.
[45:53] The anxiety dips significantly
[45:56] when students just keep abreast of what opportunities
[46:00] are going to be available.
[46:01] Great. I mean, thank you so much for... pleasure
[46:03] Do you want to leave any gold nuggets for the listeners
[46:06] if they've made it through 40-ish minutes?
[46:08] Oh, gosh, wow.
[46:09] Yeah, let's see.
[46:11] The code word for listeners have made it to the end.
[46:15] You can add it in the comments or send it in for you guys.
[46:18] The code word is [Gaudie?] You can have fun trying to spell that. All right, great.
[46:22] Thanks so much.
[46:23] Thanks so much.
[46:23] Cheers, guys.
[46:24] Take care.
