University of South Wales

USW is great, the lecturers are accommodating, especially in the strange circumstances that befall us. They have been great. However, I will say, you get what you put in. It's not an easy ride but if your willing to work with them, they will work with you. They have an open door policy which I have used for clarity on some assignments as some assignment briefs are not always self explanatory. But all in all a good experience. I've just applied for a Masters at USW.

Currently I´m doing a whole year as an erasmus student at USW and more specifically at Treforest campus. University infrastructures are awesome, the campus is huge and full of green spots but for example because I´m not a countryside type of person I decided it was a better idea to find accommodation at cathays which is Cardiff´s universitary area than live at campus which from I´ve heard is quite relax and boring since the campus is in the middle of nowhere, anyways is just a 16 min train trip so I think is worth it to live closer to the city centre. Lecture hours are not bad at all, most of degrees on the business area don´t require more than 12hours attendance and they try to make classes as dynamic and participative as possible. The only thing I haven´t liked at all so far is that I feel like the system separates too much international students from national students, while in my spanish university for example (University of Valencia) we are all mixed which I believe is better because it gives you the opportunity to get to know any kind of people as meeting foreigners is easy since they have some special events or trips specially organised for them. So far I would say USW is a standard university but I think I won´t recommend it basically because of the last thing I explained and the other 2 universities in Cardiff (Cardiff Metropolitan and Cardiff uni) have a better reputation and better reviews I´ve heard from my friends.

2 years ago I did my Erasmus exchange at the University of South Wales in Cardiff, for 1 year. The University has three campuses, one in the city of Cardiff and two in the town of Trefforest, which is quite far from the city center although it can be accessed by train. Depending on the degree you study, you will be assigned to one campus or another. At the center, there are the degrees in journalism, audiovisual and some related to economics and law. In the town they give the rest, from finance and accounting to biology, medicine or engineering. The price of transportation with the student card is 6 euros per day, so my recommendation in case you do not want to live in the town (which barely has a leisure offer) is to try to group as many hours as possible in a few days , since for example, in my degree, which is International Business, we only had 8-10 teaching hours per week. As for the residences, the one in the town is much cheaper than in the center (300-400 pounds compared to 700-800 pounds per week). They are usually all quite good, the format is usually buildings separated by plants, each floor has several corridors, for each corridor there are 5 single rooms with their own bathroom and a kitchen to share among the 5 inhabitants. As for an Erasmus destination, I don't think it's the best option, it's a pretty city but very small and with much less cultural offer than other cities nearby like Bristol. In summary, it is a University that I think is not bad, the study methodology is quite good because it is very practical and there are good professors but I think that Cardiff University is the best there is and I would recommend it before this.