University of Suffolk: What it's really like
Find out more about University of Suffolk
Want to study at a modern university with exciting facilities? Suffolk could be the place for you!
Suffolk at a glance:
| Founded | 2007 |
| Location | Ipswich, Suffolk |
| Undergraduate course length | Three years, unless your programme offers a placement year (in that case, four years). We offer some part-time programmes, which range from four to nine years. |
| Faculties |
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| Students | 3,500 |
| Great for | Students who want the full university experience within a friendly, close-knit community. We pride ourselves on getting to know our students as a name, not a number. |
| Not for | Students who want the big city university lifestyle. Whilst we have bars, clubs, music venues, and a shopping centre all within walking distance, there aren’t any huge nightclubs in Ipswich. |
Leanne is a regional student recruitment officer at the University of Suffolk. She visits schools and colleges local to where she lives in Bedfordshire, helping students understand their next steps into Higher Education. She tells us what it's like to study there.
What’s the University of Suffolk like?
At the University of Suffolk, we pride ourselves on our close-knit community, our nurturing and inclusive learning environment, and our focus on employability.
Despite offering a wide range of courses, our healthcare courses are always very popular. In particular, we’ve been inundated with applicants for our new degree in dental therapy and dental hygiene.
Our computing courses also get a lot of interest, partly due to the DigiTech Centre, a research and engineering facility that we developed with BT.
And if you’re into your music, you might be excited to find out that Suffolk is home to the annual music and arts festival, Latitude.
What's it like for students to live in the local area?
We’re based on the waterfront, with the relaxed and chilled vibe you’d expect from a coastal location.
We’re a campus-based university, which means that everything you need for your studying and daily life is close together and easy to find. Everything else you’ll need is within walking distance: the train station, the shopping centre, even our student accommodation… so no excuses for being late to lectures!
Felixstowe beach is only a ten-minute drive away, or you can jump on a 15-minute train. You’ll often find our students at the beach, or sitting by the beautiful waterfront, reading, studying, or simply enjoying a catch up with friends.
London is only an hour’s train journey away and, with it being a direct route, it's perfect for when you want to mix it up and venture out to the bustling capital. You can also get a direct train to destinations like Norwich, Cambridge, Colchester, and Chelmsford. At Suffolk, we want you to get closer to your chosen career and focus on your studies, but to also zoom out and explore what’s on offer in our surrounding areas.
What accommodation options are available?
On campus, you’ll live with a minimum of three other students and a maximum of six. Our Athena Hall gives each student an en suite bathroom and a shared communal area. Our halls are non-catered, but we do have lots of cafes and restaurants nearby where our students can enjoy discounts.
Sometimes, students decide they’d prefer to live in the local area, in flat shares or house shares. In this instance, we can recommend off-site accommodation – just check out our website for ideas.
What facilities does Suffolk have that make it stand out?
We’re the proud owners of a £15m state-of-the-art Health and Wellbeing Building. Our paramedic students have access to a simulation suite with realistic working conditions. And there are two state-of-the-art hospital wards, including a midwifery birthing unit. It even has a pregnant simulation mannequin who can ‘give birth’ to a baby mannequin!
Plus, there’s a sport and exercise facility, working radiography imaging suite, and counselling and physiotherapy clinic rooms.
We also have the DigiTech Centre, where our computing students can access a secure Cyber range, an enterprise-grade Juniper networking sandpit, and an AI Compute server. The DigiTech Centre has world-class specialist laboratories and will make Suffolk a recognised destination for industry-focused ICT and Digital Creative study programmes.
And new this year, we have our all-weather 3G football pitches and two grass pitches. In partnership with the youth charity Inspire, our aim is to increase access to high quality sports pitches, and improve participation for both our students and the wider community.
We’re also on the countdown to opening our new university gym!
What is the top reason a student should apply?
The University of Suffolk has our students at heart, whether they're from near or far. We’ve been ranked 5th in England and Wales for Social Inclusion, in the Good University Guide 2024.
And for our international students, we aim to create a home away from home. You can access webinars, one to ones, and get-to-know meets before you even arrive. Once you’re here, we run monthly International Cafe events, summer trips, an annual international festival, and a Christmas party. The Chaplaincy even offers a range of free, hot lunches specifically for our international student community!
At the University of Suffolk, we take on smaller class sizes, so that your lecturers can get to know you as a name and not a number; and our students can experience the social side of uni, without it being too overwhelming. But if you’re looking for the biggest nightclubs, or a lecture theatre where you can get lost in the back row, then we might not be for you.
Whilst we offer excellent healthcare courses, we don’t offer medicine degrees. Similarly, we offer a fantastic dental therapy and hygiene course, but not dentistry. These are things we like to be transparent about from the get-go.
We’re a very career-focused university, and try to embed employability skills throughout our courses. This means industry placements, more coursework and less exams where possible, and lots of practical focus. If you’re someone who knows what they want, and are ready to achieve it, then we could be the perfect university for you!
How does the institution meet the needs of students with different accessibility requirements?
Equality of opportunity and access is part of our ethos. We offer students an individual induction at the start of their course, personalised to their needs.
If you do decide to take us up on this offer, then we recommend you contact our Student Life team as early as possible in your application process, on studentlife@UOS.ac.uk.
As well as having a subject-specific tutor for your whole degree, at the University of Suffolk, we also provide each student with a personal academic coach, or PAC. PACs offer holistic academic support, which helps you join the dots on your progress across both your modules and your wider engagement. So that could look like: helping you identify your strengths, weaknesses, and progress points; creating personal goals and targets; supporting you with career aspirations; or even being your referee for a future job.
Do you offer any work placements or study abroad options for students?
Our degrees in business management, computing, criminology, games development, and sociology all offer a placement year, some of which can be taken abroad. For example, if you’re a student on our wildlife, ecology and conservation course, you’ll get the opportunity to study at a nature reserve in South Africa!
Do you offer any unusual or unexpected courses?
One unusual degree we’re really excited to be introducing is our esports degree. It will give students an immersive journey into the fascinating realm of gaming, focusing on the art and science behind esport success.
Want to explore more UK universities? Remember, Unifrog’s Shortlisting tool can help you put together a list of great potential courses.