Hi, I'm an American student who is looking to study in England for a semester/year, and I was wondering if any of the posters here could shed some light on these two different schools. I'd be most interested in the education and the atmosphere of the places (urban/rural, good/bad nightlife, elitist/artsy/etc.), but of course I want to know about running as well. Thanks a ton.
well, Nottingham is the murder capital of the UK while Exeter is a fairly pretty historic city surrounded by lovely countryside and had a large student population.
Both very good universities - although Nottingham is a better ranked/rated institution with a more global reputation. The city is less pretty, but there is masses more to do - Exeter is rather in the middle of nowhere, well, the lovely Devon countryside.
is it really the murder capital?...have friends there..never mentioned that tidbit..
to be fair there are other sources out there which dispute these figures
bump
Exeter is a good size city. There's quite a lot going on. Its on a main line train to London and Bristol if you want to see what goes on there.
It has an active athletics club:
http://www.au.ex.ac.uk/~athletics-club/
whose website is currently reconstructing.
There are two athletic clubs in the city: Exeter Harriers and South West Road Runners. Exeter Harriers are in a good track and field league. The city has an 8 lane track. There's cross country leagues at local and national level. There's plenty of road races within easy reach.
Nottingham does apparently have the highest gun crime in the UK, but just know to stay out of St Ann's and the Meadows when you run at night and you'll never see or hear anything.
Univ of Nottingham a good reputation. There is a popular 13 bar crawl on the campus. I don't know much else about the Uni, but...
Nottingham is popular for stag and hen parties and has a reputation for a very good night life. I think it still has the most bars per square mile in UK. Decent venues for gigs at Rock City, Rescue Rooms and the Arena.
Has history with old lace market, and it was this area where the Luddites started out. And of course there's Robin Hood.
For sports....
Wollaton Park, opposite the University campus hosts the Inter-counties x-country every winter. The Nottingham Marathon is still rated as second biggest in England, runs through the Nottinghasmm Uni campus I think and is a well-organized event (though obviously still tiny in comparison to London).
Nottingham Forest soccer team are two-time former European Champions, but are currently going through their lowest patch in the last 50 years. Still well-supported though.
Notts County are the oldest football professional soccer team in the world, but have been going through a real big slump ever since they formed in 1862.
Trent Bridge Cricket Ground sells out for England matches every summer.
The National Watersports centre is based in Nottingham, though I believe its going to lose its status once the 2012 development gets built in London.
Locals will call you 'duck'. Nottingham is known for having 4 girls to one guy.
Nottingham Uni AC is a pretty decent running club. We have a quite a few decent guys and a core of elite runners who do most of their sessions together. We currently have a good group of guys, including 4 sub 15min 5K runners and some sub 3:50 1500m runners.
It is a big and very friendly club and i'm sure you would enjoy your time there. If you want any more info you can email me on
I was in Nottingham for 6 years (1997 to 2003) and ran for the uni and the local club. Ignore all the stats on crime - it is, as someone else said, skewed by St Anns and the Meadows, but even the Meadows isn't too bad (I never went to St Anns). I never felt unsafe walking about the city. If you are from a decent sized city in the US you will laugh at how low the gun crime figures are in comparison.
Nottingham is a great city - 2 universities so plenty of students, nightlife has developed massively in last 5-10 years with lots of new bars/clubs. Sadly not actually 4 girls to every bloke (I was told this was true 100 years ago when women from the surrounding countryside would come to work in the lace factories).
The uni is on a campus about 2 to 3 miles outside the city centre - nicely landscaped etc. Excellent academic reputation and a good mix of people (both Exeter and Nottm have quite a few rugby playing private school (in the UK sense of the word) Oxbridge rejects, but there are not too many in Nottm). There are 12 halls of residence each with their own bar, adding in the student union bar (there used to be 2 separate ones) gives the "Campus 14" bar crawl.
The uni athletics club (www.nottsuniathletics.org) is among the most successful in the UK and is, as Chris says above, big and friendly catering for all abilities. The uni does not offer scholarships in the same was as e.g. Loughborough, St Mary's or UWIC, but always seems to attract good athletes. Nottm is also about 30 mins drive from Loughborough - we have had the odd elite athlete (eg Andy Graffin, Olympic semi-finalist 1500m in 2000) who studied in Nottm and trained at Loughborough, but there isn't really a need to.
The local club (Notts AC -
) is consistently in the top 10 in the country for men's distance running (4th in the National Cross Country last year, 7th in the National 12 stage road relays, 2nd in the National 6 stage road relays in 2005) and is in the British League on the track (despite having had a couple of relegations due to a shortage of field eventers). The track is a short bus ride from the campus, and some of the training in fact takes place at the university in the winter as the roads there have less traffic.
When I was there most of the serious runners at the uni trained with Notts AC, but I think that now the uni have their own group. Very few unis in the UK have their own coach (which I understand is the norm in the US) so I think they coach themselves, with some input from the personal coaches of the various athletes, but I may be wrong on this. The middle distance coach at Notts AC (Trev Muxlow) is excellent - athletes he has previously coached include Richard Hill and Chris Warburton. Under him I went from a 2:02 800 (aged 18) to 1:55 for 800m, 3:59 for 1500 and 9:29 for 3000m steeplechase.
I can't speak for Exeter, but hopefully that gives you some Nottingham info!
was just thinking of you and Andy when I saw this thread Tim!
Best of luck at the weekend, not sure if I'm going to be there (probs heading back to uni that day, not running as have achilles problem but if I can I'll go watch), but best of luck!
Bryn - Cheers, but I'm 90% sure I'm not actually running myself to be honest as have a foot problem which I am hoping doesn't develop into anything serious.
Not mentioned yet, I don't think is the fact that Nottingham has a pretty decent sized park right next to the university campus. You can get a decent run round the perimeter and the hill is good for sessions. Can also get out along the river for your long runs and out towards the national water sports centre.