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Article of the Month 
Every month we publish a topical article by a member of our panels or someone working in Higher Education. Our guest articles cover current debates on the student experience, higher education policy and student marketing.
September 2010
The university admissions system is unfair. It helps those applicants who have the correct predicted grades (regardless of whether those grades are good or bad). And it ultimately lets down those students whose grade predictions are wrong, even if they achieve great grades in the end. This gamble is surely the antithesis of a fair admissions system and it has to change.
As the demand for university places continues to » Read the article…
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By Mike Hodges
August 2010Don't look now but you, and all the other students out there, are being watched. Your every tweet monitored, every social network entry sifted for meaning and your opinions and attitudes sought. Why? Because the Brand-Mongers, those organisations that seek to turn you into a good little consumer of premium » Read the article…
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By Claire McWethy
July 2010The adage that 'idealism is what precedes experience, cynicism is what follows' is something often preached by older generations and frequently ignored by younger ones. When it comes to politics however, the 2010 general election has shown a number of first time voters that this journey from optimism to pessimism » Read the article…
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By Chantelle Booth, Peter Shin and Emma Fegan
June 2010We asked our panellists about their experience of graduating with STEM degrees. Chantelle Booth can't get the STEM job she so desires; Peter Shin won't be getting a STEM job now that he works in finance and Emma Fegan has finally got the STEM job she wanted after overcoming many » Read the article…
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By Ben Marks
May 2010The impact of the Leader Debates on the student vote has been nothing short of remarkable. Between the start of the current general election campaign and the second Leader Debate, student support for the Liberal Democrats increased by 23 percentage points, making them as popular as the Labour and Conservative » Read the article…
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By Andrew Georgiou
April 2010On Thursday 4th February 2010, Professor Benny Morris was scheduled to give a talk to the Cambridge University Israel Society. He is a man who has described Palestinians as "barbarians" and argued that "something like a cage has to be built for them." In his defence, he claims that these » Read the article… -
By James Rothwell
March 2010My friends thought I was pretty twisted. Why the hell did I want to leave our cosy Dorset secondary school to spend a week living with disgruntled, barrel-chested Bavarian students? Their reactions were diverse and numerous, ranging from apathy, to a suspicion towards the merits of such excursions. In fact, » Read the article… -
By Sophie Shorland
February 2010The US has everything. Even, believe it or not, a society called the United Fools of America.
This group aims to eliminate “discrimination based on intelligence, merits and ability” and thinks that “affirmative actions for disadvantaged people due to low intelligence are badly needed”. They want to end » Read the article… -
By Chloe Georgiou
January 2010I awoke bubbling over with excitement; after two years of countless e-mails, numerous letters, and endless phone calls I had finally been chosen to begin work at the much sought after Better! Magazine (not its real title). Ok, not work but a week's work experience but hey it was one » Read the article… -
By Andrew Rushton
December 2009Huge and burdensome. No, not my landlady, nor my final year workload: my student debt. Well, that’s one reality of it anyway. Living in London with the maximum student loan over my three year course is going to leave me with over £24,000 to pay back after I graduate next » Read the article… -
By Alice Violett
November 2009Too many people assume that students’ parents are almost universally willing and/or able to financially support them at university. When you apply for your loan and grant, the SLC explicitly say that what you will receive is linked to how much it expects your parents to help you. Whenever newspapers » Read the article… -
By Marta Szczerba
October 2009Freshers' Week can be a make-it-or-break-it time - here are some tips... 10 things you'd be a fool to do during Freshers' Week...
1. Take any embarrassments overly seriously
Imagine, it's your first night in halls. It's 11.30pm and everybody is out celebrating the first night of » Read the article… -
By Simon Dechant
September 2009There have been a number of articles in the news lately about the plight of recent graduates trying to get jobs after university.
Now, I’m all for the idea of government-funded graduate schemes but I think that students need to re-assess what they need to do in order to » Read the article… -
By Hannah Paton and Sam Burton
August 2009
This month's Video Article of the Month is from Hannah Paton and Sam Burton, two graduate employees who started at Opinionpanel in October 2008. They show you a typical day at the Opinionpanel Research office.
If you would like to be the next author of our Video Article of » Read the article…No comments - Post a comment
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By Anna Holdsworth
July 2009Meeting new people, or should I say, students, we know the scenario, the standard questions, where are you from, what are you studying, and oh, a gap year? Did you really? How interesting, where did you go?
Thailand
Thailand
Thailand
YAWN. No offense meant to those of you who’ve been » Read the article… -
By Tom Gilchrist
June 2009'Students! Bloody students again!' If you’re like me then this is one of those refrains you’ll have seen and heard countless times, whether from that family next-door who hate our noise or in the papers where we’re to blame for all the woes of the country. We, along with the » Read the article… -
By Laura Cobb
May 2009Generation Y. Us! A generation of technological information absorbing, time wasting zombies infatuated with texting, instant messaging, blogging, social networking, and oh yes, the latest craze…facebooking! With 100 million users worldwide, according to the devil itself, it is undeniable that Facebook has begun a new era of social networking. But » Read the article… -
By Amy Smith
April 2009
Our debut Video Article of the Month is from Amy Smith who has produced a video on why she loves Facebook. She talks about how she uses Facebook to organise events, why it's a good way for keeping in touch with friends and how it helps you to maintain a » Read the article… -
By Samantha Williams (editor)
March 2009We asked members of The Student Panel to share their best money saving tips with us. We received contributions from the cities of London, Belfast, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow and would like to thank: *John Angliss from School of African and Oriental Studies who is a Final year in Social » Read the article… -
By Rebecca Spencer
February 2009I'm 22, have spent over £3000 on getting a degree, lost 3 years work experience and wages and at present I'm being paid £6.00 an hour to answer telephones. Not exactly what I imagined as life after graduating!
I have so far applied for 5 graduate schemes in the » Read the article… -
By Aiora Iriarte
January 2009"Dear Aristotle,
What fascinating places these modern Universities are! They're something I have never seen before! Not only do the sons of non-aristocratic families have access to them, but also their daughters! However, the way of learning is so rigid, that each student can only focus on one area. And » Read the article… -
By Hannah Fletcher
December 2008Lovers of house music will remember Pete Waterman's outrage at revolutionary eighties track 'Pump Up The Volume' (a track composed of music sampled from existing records without permission). Waterman started a legal dispute calling the act "wholesale theft", and won his case due to the laws on plagiarism.
» Read the article… -
By Sorrel Meechan
November 2008It was 2006. I'd heard of Facebook but I had never realised that I was the only person in the world who didn't have an account. I had just moved to France as part of my course and a whole new social network opened up to me, but I had » Read the article… -
By Marta Szczerba
October 2008"It's over" - announced Christian Meissner to the employees of Lehman Brothers. Wow, I couldn't have imagined a quicker way to fire 25,000 employees, push down FTSE World by 3.59% and end up somewhere on every newspaper's cover in the world. Pretty impressive, I'd say. That ominous line, uttered on » Read the article… -
By Robert Leedham
September 2008If you're old enough to go to university then you will be more than old enough to understand that we live in a world defined by its flaws and the 2008 Beijing Olympics have provided plenty of examples of humankind's paradoxes. All of China's efforts in the run up to » Read the article… -
By Ciaran Kennedy
August 2008I have chosen not to have a festival adventure this summer. Now, when I say that I have "chosen" not to go to a festival, I'm mostly telling lies, as overdraft facilities only stretch so far, and so spending an absurd amount of money on a weekend in a field » Read the article… -
By Amanda Herington
July 2008Do you think it would really matter if you stated on your CV that you had achieved a Grade A instead of a Grade B in a subject at GCSE? Do employers really take note of such interests as being a 'keen fell walker'? I suspect not, which is lucky » Read the article… -
By Lucy Smith
June 2008‘You must be so excited to be finishing? What have you got planned over the summer? Have you got a job yet?’ The questions an undergraduate in their last week of term struggles to muster a response to amongst a cocktail of emotions: 5g of anxiety; 5g of sheer excitement; » Read the article…No comments - Post a comment
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By Kayle Brown
May 2008So everyone is making such a big deal about going to university. But does anyone else understand the fear welling up inside of me the more I think about it? I mean, my parents are all for it, but I'm only 17. What if all these plans I have made » Read the article… -
By Ashley Hall
April 2008The popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and My Space has exploded over recent years, especially among students. This popularity is probably down to the host of features these sites offer all in one place: blogging, instant messaging, personal profiles, photo albums and games to name but a » Read the article… -
By Lara Khoury
March 2008For centuries being a doctor has been a revered profession. This can be seen even today in the way most people respect doctors, and in some instances literally put their lives in doctors’ hands. As a medical student I have heard many patients utter the words “Whatever you think is » Read the article… -
By Betsy Li
February 2008Whenever I used to go home from university to visit my parents, they would accuse me of looking frail and starving myself. It has taken three years outside of the parental radar zone, including one year in
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By Nicolas Barr and Iain Crawford
January 2008Many more people go to university following an enormous expansion of higher education. It has moved from an elite system in the 1960s, when 5-6% of young people went to university, to a mass system, with a 43% participation rate, and rising.
If we returned to the 1960s, seven » Read the article… -
By Emily Spaven
December 2007I've had enough. I really can't stand it anymore. Tomorrow morning I'm going to ring my parents and tell them to come and get me from Uni and I'm never going to return.
Ok...so that might be a little over dramatic, but I'm almost certain that this thought » Read the article… -
By Kate Webber
November 2007Did you know just how useless your degree was going to be? Undergraduates are always told to carefully pick their degree course because of its employment prospects, but maybe the advice should be more along the lines of ‘make sure you choose something you like, it’s the last thing you’ll » Read the article…
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By Paul Gillings
October 2007Boris Johnson commented recently “There are hundreds of thousands of dur-brained kids sitting for three years in an alcoholic or cannabis-fuelled stupor while theoretically attending a former technical college that is so pretentious as to call itself a university. After three years of taxpayer-funded debauch, these young people will graduate; » Read the article… -
By Patrick Ainley
March 2007Professor Nicholas Barr’s assertion that “university is largely free” is largely false. As he explains it, HE is only “free at the point of delivery”. This is like New Labour’s mantra for the National Health Service – which doesn’t mean you don’t pay for your treatment/ education later when your » Read the article…
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By Esmee Hanna
December 2006In July 2008 the LSC published the National Learner Satisfaction Survey (NLSS), which is the largest survey of learners in colleges and other training organisations in England. The NLSS provides the LSC with valuable feedback from learners on the quality of the learning and training provision it funds and reveals » Read the article… -
By Professor Nicholas Barr
December 2006When I was a lad, students were leftwing and campaigned for progressive causes. So it's good news that, last weekend, students campaigned to widen access.
The bad news is that they went about it the wrong way. Contrary to their intentions, the anti-fees demo was effectively campaigning to entrench middle-class perks.
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- Admissions to Higher Education Conference
Cavendish Conference Centre, London, October 2010 - Effective Marketing in Higher Education
76 Portland Place, London, October 2010 - Insight Show 2010
London, June 2010 - AGCAS Biennial Conference 2009
London, September 2009 - CASE Europe Annual Conference 2009
Liverpool, August 2009
