As my previoud post suggested, I'm in the process of applying to university and today I was at Newcastle's open day (and I loved it but that's not the point) and my dad is full of advice, most of which is worthless.
A rather silly example of this is his claim that "Newcastle is a cold place, you need to think about that." I quickly moved the conversation onto other matters but he also seems to believe that university league tables are always totally correct and should be looked at very seriously.
My belief is that is league tables do have a use, but should never be taken seriously. For example; Durham are 36th for engineering in the UK; and Bath and Surrey are both in the top ten. I'm not saying these are bad, but Newcastle have placed all of last years mechanical engineering students (and are still getting requests from businesses for more) but yet are outside of the top ten!
Despite all of these inaccuracies, my dad, a man of 50+ and who didn't go to university him self, still regards them as vital, and as a result, believes that I shouldn't go to Newcastle (a course and place that I love) and should go to Nottingham, because onr league table puts them 4th in the country. Rubbish.
People of a certian generation don't appear to understand what we want from our universities, or the fact that not all official data is totally reliable (unless it supports his political agenda) It is my decision, and yes, advice is useful, but the overwhelming sense that he thinks I'm wrong it really not very helpful, or nice.
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