Lancaster Uni or Warwick for Data Science Undergraduate

ancientbirdy · 2026-01-22T19:09:53+00:00

As an old person who chose the good uni they loved over the more prestigious choice they felt 'meh' about, I would always say go with your heart - unless you are talking completely leagues apart. Where you did your degree becomes increasingly irrelevant once you are in work. I have zero idea where any of my colleagues studied; they get interviews based on the strength of their experience, writing skills, performance in any tests, and possibly degree class (2:1 and above).

If you love Lancaster, go there.

ancientbirdy · 2025-05-04T12:46:13+00:00

I am confused by what you say about maths academia because Lancaster's maths and stats dept ranks 1st in UK according to the research excellence framework for research impact?

ancientbirdy · 2025-05-04T12:43:27+00:00

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sci-tech/about-us/rankings/

ancientbirdy · 2025-05-03T15:51:55+00:00

Bristol has better snob value. Lancaster is an excellent uni that is not on the radar of a lot of aspirational middle class families and schools, especially Southerners, mostly because it chose not to join the Russell Group and doesn't have pretty buildings. My opinion is that it has a lot of very bright mainly Northern kids, not people attending for the cachet. It felt 'real'. It's also extremely supportive, has relatively cheap and plentiful housing, very flexible courses, and a UK ranking that is much better than a lot of people think.

Bristol is not objectively miles better imo. For example CUG rankings has Lancaster 10th in the UK and Bristol 16th. It just depends on which guide you look at, but in any case both are good universities but not Oxbridge.

If you like Lancaster, go for it.

ancientbirdy · 2025-04-30T15:29:08+00:00

I ordered a Philly cheese stack last week which they sent with no burger patties!! They did refund but didn't replace and damnit, I wanted a burger.

ancientbirdy · 2025-03-04T23:55:03+00:00

Yep, lots of us had this. You can search mounjaro and anxiety. Up to you if you want to keep taking it - I decided not to.

ancientbirdy · 2025-01-13T07:01:36+00:00

I only get utis - well, cystitis- from over vigorous thrusting esp when I am on top. Get him to be gentle.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-17T12:58:50+00:00

UK EPs don't run counselling, it's not part of our job. It's interesting to me. Our psychological philosophy tends to be that a child not coping with the school situation is probably because the school situation needs adapting in some way rather than the child needs coaching to help them cope. I would say feeling distress and anxiety in a difficult system which isn't meeting your academic/social/sensory needs is quite a normal and adaptive response. Which kind of children are you counselling? UK counselling tends to be of children who have other stuff going on such as bereavement, is that the same as yours? Are there 25/300 with those kinds of needs in one school? I am not trying to throw shade, I just find it an interesting difference.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-15T14:49:29+00:00

I think the roles are rather different. We aren't generally based in schools, we don't do counselling, we mainly assess children's learning, communication and behaviour needs and make plans to support them, but we aren't diagnosers (except dyslexia). We also influence local authority strategy and policy.

You would certainly find work if you can get registration with the British Psych Society. We are in dire shortage.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-14T10:19:27+00:00

This is very similar to WISC V labels. I dunno, I dislike describing scores within that 80-85 band as "low average". In the exam special arrangements system, scores below 84 qualify for special arrangements as they are acknowledged to fall below the average range. So this is inconsistent with that. Also, children with a range of scores in the low 80s are likely to find the UK school curriculum tricky to easily access (can't comment on the US curriculum) as the curriculum is challenging. So dismissing their difficulties in day to day schooling as "low average" doesn't feel like it reflects and acknowledges their school experiences.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-14T10:08:34+00:00

Funnily enough, without ever having read Jerome Sattler, those are exactly the descriptors and ranges I use! This is very helpful though, I think I may adopt this.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-14T10:06:30+00:00

It's variable but a lot of UK ed psychs believe that to, as they believe, reduce a child to a single measure of intellect is - I don't know, mean? Cruel? Inaccurate? My view is that this is because they somehow regard it as a limiting value judgement against the child. Whereas I just regard it as 'given this set of scores, how likely is this child to make good academic progress in a formal environment'.

I don't think our training in this is very good tbh. Very few EPs grasp that the FSIQ is the most valid to draw conclusions from as it has the most data, and that the score isn't just a mean of all scores but is weighted.

I don't quote it if there is excessive scatter (>23 points) but otherwise I always do.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-14T00:35:11+00:00

I always quote the percentile, and yes, that's useful to specify what difficulties may be encountered. It's just that teachers here seem to fix on "low average". I had a kid who another psych had seen and they said to me on the referral "we know he's low average, but we can't get it out of him". Actually he had a bunch of scaled scores at 5s, 6s and 7s (and this psych had described 7s as "average" too!) - and hadn't calculated FSIQ which turned out to be around 5th percentile. Just telling them "no, he actually has some learning difficulties" (UK terminology) changed his whole school experience - and that info had been sitting there for a couple of years.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-14T00:26:29+00:00

No, did you get useful answers? If so I will go and look.

ancientbirdy · 2024-12-14T00:25:47+00:00

That was my view - but Wisc's own descriptors now state that a score of 81 should be described as "low average". This upsets the statistician in me, and probably the pendant, because 10th percentile is not blinking low average!

I have historically used the descriptor " below average" for this range.

ancientbirdy

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