For students today, the choice of universities has never been greater. Globalisation has meant that those choices are no longer limited to universities within the city you live in, or indeed the country you live in.
At sixteen, my family and I moved from the UK to New Zealand, where I completed my final two years of high school. When it came to university, I found myself facing a decision I hadn’t quite anticipated: stay in New Zealand or return to the UK? I applied to five British universities and accepted an offer to study at Durham University.
Despite having spent my childhood in the UK, I knew little about its university system. I’d never visited a campus, had no real idea what university life would look like, and was making a rather significant decision from the other side of the world.
Now, having graduated, I can look back on that decision with a much better understanding of what studying in the UK actually involves and why UK universities have earned a world-class reputation.
Breadth and Uncompromising Standards
When I first began researching higher education in the UK, the sheer breadth of degrees and universities felt overwhelming. I have now realised that this vast array of choices is precisely one of the strengths of British higher education.
Whether you pursue a Classics degree steeped in history at Durham or immerse yourself in cutting-edge STEM research at UCL in central London, you engage with world-class academic programmes designed to open doors anywhere in the world.
At Durham, student life unfolds across a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with winding cobbled streets and a river that runs through the city. Studying in London, by contrast, plunges you straight into one of the world’s most vibrant financial and cultural capitals.
In short, the UK offers a degree and a university to suit every student.
The Power of the Tutorial System
At the heart of the British academic experience is an emphasis on discussion, debate and independent thought, designed not just to help you memorise information, but to challenge how you think.
In the past, higher education acted as a vault. Universities held the books, the data and the experts; going to university was primarily a retrieval process. You went to acquire information that was otherwise inaccessible.
Today, that model is entirely obsolete. The modern problem is not a scarcity of information, but a drowning abundance of it.
Albert Einstein is often credited with the observation:
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
Today, that distinction feels more relevant than ever.
Knowing is passive; understanding is inherently active. This fundamental distinction explains why the UK’s tradition of tutorials, seminars and small-group teaching remains so powerful.
In small-group settings led by subject specialists, you are expected to present your ideas, defend your arguments against constructive critique and engage with opposing perspectives.
This environment transforms theoretical knowledge into critical thinking, sharp articulacy and real intellectual independence — skills that remain indispensably valuable long after graduation.
The Most Authentic Way to Experience British Culture
If you want to experience British culture, going to a British university is a pretty good place to start. In fact, it’s probably one of the quickest ways to discover some of the country’s best, and most bizarre, traditions.
British universities take their traditions rather seriously. Some have been around for centuries; others are a little more difficult to explain. But almost all seem to involve some form of dressing up, gathering together or doing something slightly ridiculous in the name of university spirit.
In my first week at Durham, I pulled on a black academic gown and made my way into the cathedral for matriculation. There I was, standing beneath the enormous vaulted ceilings of a building that had doubled as Hogwarts, surrounded by hundreds of other first-years.
It was quite an introduction to university life. I hadn’t even attended my first lecture, and already I felt as though I’d walked onto a film set.
And Durham is hardly alone. At dawn on the first of May, St Andrews students run into the North Sea in what’s known as the May Dip. Oxford and Cambridge have their famous rowing traditions, while colleges across the country host formal dinners, Scottish reeling balls and a number of secret societies with rules that nobody seems entirely able to explain.
So, Is Studying in the UK Worth It?
Reflecting on my decision to move across the world and study at Durham, I can confidently say it was a great choice.
I got to study a degree I found fascinating, taught by incredible professors, in a beautiful city with some rather bizarre traditions that created a close-knit student community.
And even if Philosophy, or Durham, isn’t the right choice for you, I’m sure the UK has the right course, in the right place, to offer you an equally memorable experience.
by Charlotte Crump, Account Manager & Tutor at Bonas MacFarlane