The University of Adelaide [An Unbiased Review by A Life That Travels]

Good day! I'm Rob and welcome to A Life That Travels, and in today's episode we're at the University of Adelaide.

Let me show you around, and we're going to talk to students about what it's actually like to study here.

So no propaganda.

This is the truth about what students at theUniversity of Adelaide think about studying at this place.

Let's go have a look around.

(wind chime music) (techno music) What's the Uni of Adelaide all about? This place is old.

It was founded in 1874 and as you wonder around, there is tonnes of sandstoneabsolutely everywhere.

Why's that? Because one- it's one ofAustralia's, you know, we call them the sandstone universities.

It's one of the oldest universities and it's actually ranked.

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Basically number eight in Australia.

What's a ranking mean? We'll talk a little bit more about that.

Pretty comprehensive university.

It's got most types ofsubjects available here.

All of those kind of details, you'll find on their website, of course.

University of Adelaide.

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it's comprehensive institution teaching undergraduate plus graduate and research degrees here.

It is one of the Group of Eight, which means it does have avery high focus on research- and importantly, for you, ifyou're coming here to study, it's got one of the beststaff to student ratios in Australia.

So that's obviously aphenomenal advantage.

There are four campuses, University of Adelaide.

The campus we're on todayis the North Terrace campus.

This is the main campus.

It's actually anabsolutely stunning place.

You know, the sandstonebuildings everywhere.

Some incredible park lands, and then down, like the far end of campus- it's actually the northern end of campus- you actually run into Torrens River.

So it's like this beautiful river scape where you can walk, you can run, and it's incredibly scenic.

One of the things definitely picked up, in terms of a vibe around here: it's a really goodstudent vibe and culture.

Lots of facilities here, so.

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There's been amazing stuffdown in the central hub.

People are able to heat up their food.

Heaps of chill out spaces, heaps of study spaces, and I know the university'sinvested heavily in that kind ofinfrastructure over the years.

Just making sure that it's a place that people actuallywant to come and study.

You know, Adelaide's glorious.

People sitting outside on the grass.

Enjoying the out doors.

That sort of stuff.

The institution has definitely invested in creating those kind of spaces, which is fantastic, and like all gooduniversities in Australia, heaps of facilities here.

Great library facilities.

They're building tonnes here at the University of Adelaide, and that's been going on for some years.

So, incredible infrastructure.

On-campus accommodation, off-campus accommodation.

Accommodation, actually, at the centre of Adelaide is not that complicated to organise, and the university does have support to organise those sorts of things.

That's honestly a real positive, but I think what you really wanna hear is what students actuallysay about studying here.

So, let's go and talkto some of the students up in the central hub area.

So centre of the university, here at North Terrace.

It's kinda like where allthe food eateries are, places to study are.

So let's go and have achat with some people about what they thinkit's like to study here.

– I personal enjoy it.

Yeah there's lots oflike, different variety and subjects you canchoose, stuff like that.

So, I like it here.

– I would say it's very theory based, as opposed to practical, hands on learning.

Which can be a bitfrustrating at times, I find.

– [Sam] I like the campus.

How it's like, quite spread out in a way, but it's also quite close together.

It's like easy to get around.

– [Kyle] It's in the city, so it's like, close to the mall.

People are pretty friendly.

– Not really surprised, but I guess it's a lot of like, independent learning.

It's not like.

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the tutorswill give you that much help in terms of doing your work on time, doing all your readingsand stuff like that.

So that's something thatI didn't expect to be as kind of full on forsome of my subjects.

– I like the options.

I like how easy it is just to choose what you want.

How easy it is to talk topeople about what you want.

If you are struggling, youcan just go to the faculty.

They help you- it's just, it's easy.

If you're struggling, there's help centres.

Like first G, had P.

A.

S.

S students helping you, if you want to.

Again, optional.

You just go when you want.

I'm kinda surprised by how much it was just you being independent.

Like, you just pick your own subject.

You enrol in the classes you want.

It's just you doing what you want.

– I guess the uniquething about our degree is that we've got such abroad area of like, industry.

So there's like radio or marketing or journalism, that sort of thing.

– You know, movie production, game model- like yeah, the mediadegree was really broad and that's why I chose it, because I did media studies in year 12 and I loved it and I was like, I'm good at this.

This is what I want to do at uni.

The media degree is broad enough that you can major in marketing or something to find your niche or find what you're really good at.

– [Rob] You guys part ofclubs and stuff like that? Like good opportunities? – [Cat] We're both part of three clubs.

(both girls laugh) – There's so many, so many.

– Yeah there's like a lot.

There's like faculty, like if you're interested getting more into what you study or there's sports ifyou're really into sports.

– Uni games.

– [Rob] So very solidratings all together, and most importantly, the national average for satisfaction is around 80 percent.

So not withstandingthat, kind of variability from degree to degree-Adelaide is kind of like, doing well in terms ofstudent satisfaction, which is good to know.

A couple of things that youneed to know about getting here.

Firstly, public transportto the North Terrace campus anyway is really good.

You've got the mainlinetrains just down the road, about 800 metres away.

So it's only a ten minutewalk up from there, plenty of buses running up and down North Terrace all the time.

Parking is a little bitof a mongrel here, though.

There's not a huge amount of parking, and it is relatively expensive.

So for those people who aren't accessible on public transport, alittle bit of a headache in terms of getting here.

Adelaide is, you know, avery cycle friendly city.

So getting here by bike- there are actually bikeracks all over the place.

And literally as I speak, right behind me there is one of the bike sheds.

Very secure bike shedfacility for people to park their bikes during the day, right opposite the engineering building.

Which is pretty funky.

I love this place.

It's incredible.

Okay lads, so let's talk about rankings.

Now I'm not a huge fan of rankings because it's such anindividual, personal thing, you know, what you'regoing to be studying, whether an institution is right for you.

And there's a lot of variability in how the rankings are established.

So my advice to you is, always take rankings with a grain of salt.

But the University of Adelaide does rank incredibly well on all of the major university global rankingsthat are out there.

As I said before, numbereight in Australia.

It's part of the Groupof Eight universities, which means it's one of the top research universities in the country.

Does turn out a lot of research, and does have some prettyamazing facilities.

So, on those metrics itranks very, very well.

(happy music).