Benji Fackrell

Loughborough is a top ten university with a huge and varied campus with a safe community! I wanted to study on a campus with a small city conveniently nearby, and Loughborough was the perfect fit for me. Graduate prospects are an essential part of the university experience, and Loughborough’s reputation of having the best graduate prospects for the English Department in the UK was extremely attractive.

I was originally planning to study English at Loughborough, but I was finding it very difficult to narrow down to a specific course to commit to. Liberal Arts was the perfect answer; with modules options being varied from the very beginning and offering a breadth of opportunities.

I would highly recommend it if you’re tired of specialising and narrowing down to a very now skillset in school – Liberal Arts is the perfect way to open your opportunities back up and learn from a range of lecturers across the school of Social Sciences and Humanities, especially after a narrow school curriculum!

Yes, quite a few in the end! It’s absolutely worth going to visit a prospective university (regardless of where you end up going) just to get a feel of the place. Going on tours, lectures and asking questions in-person are incredibly helpful.

For me, visiting on an applicant visit day confirmed that Loughborough would be a great fit for me with both its location, community feel and course structure for my degree.

For me, being a part of the many varied different communities is amazing! The Liberal Arts course has its own small community, but also getting involved with Halls and Intra-Mural  Sports (IMS) as well as Societies such as Videogames & Esports Society (LSUVES) have all kept me active and engaged with opportunities outside of just studying. Going to pub nights, volunteering and playing sport together are all ways to stay connected.

Definitely the variety! Having the opportunity to study everything from languages to history in a single semester always keeps you on your toes. After my first year, I’m building more of a ‘pathway’ with more English modules than International Relations, Politics & History (IRPH) whilst keeping up with languages.

The value of building your own degree cannot be understated, and I would highly recommend it if during school you’ve hated specialising down to a small pool of subjects.

For something practical, make sure to spend the time to look at each of your modules *in detail* before committing to it. The last thing you want to do is choosing a module where you get an incredible amount of options without looking at them and understanding what you’re doing.

The facilities are brilliant! Even as someone who doesn’t play AU sports, the ability to meet up and play casually for free in football and basketball courts is fantastic. The library is an amazing facility too.

Yes! I’m involved with Action and more heavily with Societies! I’m on committee for LSUVES as Esports Media and am looking to get involved with Tabletop Games Soc (TGS) and Landscape & Gardening Soc.

Liberal Arts opens many doors but I’m ideally looking at something like editing, PR or publishing. Working in videogames or esports would be a dream for me, but I’m well aware of how ultra-competitive this industry could be! There’s nothing concrete yet!