Our son is 17 this week and in his AS-level year at college. He is expected to attain A* and A grades at A-level. He wants to study media at university, but so far our research has found most courses to be very self-directed with few structured teaching sessions. We are looking for a course that will offer a solid study base, with guidance and regular teaching. Please could you advise us?
Clive Barker, Lancashire
Regular readers of this column will know that I am not a great fan of media studies courses. I am neither convinced that media studies is a coherent academic discipline, nor that a qualification in it is necessarily an asset if you want to secure a job in the media. I am tempted, therefore, to advise your son to obtain a degree in a traditional subject and then, when he has a clearer idea of what kind of media career he wants, to apply to a specialist postgraduate course.
On the other hand, I think what matters most in choosing a university course is a passion for the subject to be studied. Check out The Sunday Times University Guide for details about the nature of the courses and the quality of the teaching offered in different universities.
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As a Bristol University graduate, I have applied to study medicine this year. Although I have received offers of places, I was shocked to find the lack of financial support for students wanting to read medicine as a second degree.
As it stands, I will not be able to take up my place because of the lack of finance: self-funding £36,000 in tuition fees alone is not easy. This policy surely means only the elite will be able to study medicine as a second degree. What are your views?
Amy Jackson, by email
The support students who wish to read for a second degree in medicine receive depends on where they live and what kind of course they follow. If they live in England or Wales, and have been accepted onto the four-year, fast-track graduate entry programme, they have to pay the first year’s tuition fees themselves, but from the second to the fourth year are eligible for the same financial support received by fifth-year students doing medicine as a first degree.
Students on a standard course of five years plus as a second degree are eligible for support with tuition fees only in the fifth year. Help with living expenses is potentially available for students doing either course. Further information can be found at money4medstudents.org.
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- Last week’s question about whether it is reasonable for a school to ban peanut butter sandwiches from everybody’s lunch boxes in order to protect a child who had a nut allergy prompted a good number of angry letters. Jenny Savage, who as a child had to eat her lunch with childminders because of her peanut allergy, wrote to tell me she “went from being a pretty sociable little girl to feeling like an outcast — all because of the rights of others to bring in their peanut butter sandwiches”.
Nobody supported my view that it was unreasonable to expect everybody to change their lunches because of one child. Mea culpa.
Sir Chris Woodhead, former chief inspector of schools, is chairman of the private schools group Cognita. If you have a question, please write to him c/o The Sunday Times, 3 Thomas More Square, London E98 1ST, or email him, with your name and address, at education-questions@sunday-times.co.uk