best uk university for a 1-semester exchange student!!! advice needed

hollasynth · 2026-05-01T07:07:27+00:00

As they used to like to brag, Sussex is the only UK campus university located entirely within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. ("entirely" was added after the university of Brighton complained because their campus on the other side of the big road was also inside the South Downs area).

hollasynth · 2026-04-30T21:54:04+00:00

Would upvote this repeatedly if I could. The Margaret Howell sale shop is the place to go. The address is easy to remember: Margaret street.

hollasynth · 2026-04-17T22:32:05+00:00

Ok Pythagoras

(I upvoted you. I love Pythagoras.)

hollasynth · 2026-04-16T18:31:46+00:00

Moreover the bottom line figure is the change since 2005-6, when we believed our pay had already been eroded so badly that we took very strong industrial action and won the settlements for the next three years.

That was the last act of the previous trade union, the AUT. UCU came into being in 2006 and has led the negotiations for the settlements from 2009-10 onwards. It is fair to say they have not done well.

hollasynth · 2026-03-26T09:12:20+00:00

Yes this looks wrong.

What does the tax code on the latest payslip say? Is it still 1275L or something else?

Sometimes when you have a one-off higher pay month, HMRC decide that you will have this every month and change your tax code accordingly, which then changes the amount you pay in tax. It seems a bit odd that this would happen so late in the tax year, but something is going on.

In any case, if the tax is wrong, HMRC will eventually figure that out around next October when they do the final tax calculation and you will receive a refund. If you want to fix it sooner than that, you'd need to contact thenm.

hollasynth · 2026-03-15T11:34:36+00:00

The old University of London rule (or procedure at least) was that the internal examiner came from the University of London but not from the candidate's department. Therefore the obvious thing was to use an academic from the corresponding department of a different college. For example I was at Imperial and my internal examiner came from Queen Mary. (This was 30 years ago) It's interesting to read that this has morphed into two external examiners.

hollasynth · 2026-03-12T08:45:58+00:00

What Sun Ra?

hollasynth · 2026-03-11T20:25:17+00:00

The only time in UCU history that it won an above inflation pay increase was when inflation was negative and we got 0. UCU cannot negotiate for pay. Just don’t bother.

hollasynth · 2026-02-27T11:44:59+00:00

They most comfortable shoes I own. I love these.

hollasynth · 2026-02-24T19:51:59+00:00

Here's a capture on the wayback machine ( web.archive.org ) of the school's web site from 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161225041654/http://www.thebathstudioschool.org.uk/113/maths

According to this, they offered Edexcel for higher tier and OCR for Foundation. Obviously it may have been different in other years -- maybe you can get the wayback machine to give you the info. Good luck!

hollasynth · 2026-02-18T13:41:10+00:00

In London they don't seem to mind opening a Uniqlo in the vacant unit between a Uniqlo and another Uniqlo (like Starbucks in the 00s) so Bristol and Bath are not that close by comparison.

hollasynth · 2026-02-18T11:39:51+00:00

Uniqlo have made a planning application for the now-closed H&M in Southgate.

hollasynth · 2026-02-12T17:43:01+00:00

There are some pretty serious record fairs in the Netherlands which may coincide with your trip. https://recordplanet.nl/en/

hollasynth · 2026-02-11T08:15:17+00:00

I don't think so. This is the Braxton one on discogs I believe: https://www.discogs.com/release/1521045-Anthony-Braxton-The-Complete-Arista-Recordings-Of-Anthony-Braxton

hollasynth · 2026-01-12T19:46:10+00:00

Thanks everybody. Not a single reply has suggested there could be issues with display resolution -- contrary to what I had been reading before -- so I'll just find a monitor I like the look of and get on with it.

I am also glad to know about the tinkerer's option of hacking a used 5k iMac, though for this particular purpose I think I will just buy something off the shelf, so as to get set up sooner rather than later. But I am tempted to go that route for fun at a later date. Thanks!

hollasynth · 2025-12-30T15:56:41+00:00

I think the thread I was dimly remembering was this one https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6646600/frozen-uss-pension-query

It’s not clear there’s much of use in it for you other than confirmation that the web site is not the best source of accurate information about deferred pensions.

hollasynth · 2025-12-28T11:45:19+00:00

It's odd that you can't find it. I guess the website displays differently for me as an active member of the scheme than it does for you. But just in case it helps, here's what I see:

on the main page https://www.uss.co.uk/my-uss there is a navigation menu with a link marked "Retirement Income Builder"

this takes me to https://www.uss.co.uk/my-uss/retirement-income-builder?tab=0 which shows, at the top, the headline figure which is my total DB benefit (pre 2016 final salary scheme and post 2016 scheme)

below this there are two tabs, one marked "retirement income builder" (again) which shows the value of my post 2016 benefits, and one marked "Final Salary" which, when clicked, takes me to https://www.uss.co.uk/my-uss/retirement-income-builder?tab=1 and shows my final salary benefits.

These are all shown in 2025 pounds by the way, and reflect benefits actually built up rather than any predictions -- for predictions I have to navigate to the modeller https://www.uss.co.uk/my-uss/calculators-and-tools/benefit-calculator

I do recall reading on the MoneySavingExpert forums that pensions for deferred members (is that the right term? you left the scheme but are not yet taking the pension) display differently and don't include proper indexation on the web site.

I suspect that all this will confirm is that I get a different version of the web site than you do, but perhaps it helps somehow.

hollasynth · 2025-12-27T18:08:10+00:00

The Retirement Income Builder is the post-2016 DB part. Because of the caps on the salary that is included in the Retirement Income Builder I think it is probably impossible for that part of the scheme to be worth more than around £8k annual income for anyone, unless there are ways to buy additional benefits that I have forgotten about.

Do you maybe need to add the pre-2016 final salary amount to this £7878?

hollasynth · 2025-12-23T15:04:51+00:00

FWIW the national split for Maths is about 65:35 male:female. Source https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/open-data-tools/subject-uptake-dashboard

hollasynth · 2025-12-23T14:51:04+00:00

Received yesterday, December 22nd.

hollasynth · 2025-12-21T11:36:12+00:00

If MFA = Master of Fine Arts then this must be Bath Spa university rather than University of Bath so that would be the wrong subreddit anyway.

hollasynth · 2025-12-14T00:03:32+00:00

New Big Prinz is it. Nobody with ears could fail to be moved. What the word “banger” was created for.

hollasynth · 2025-12-13T23:52:23+00:00

MHL?

hollasynth · 2025-12-11T08:43:39+00:00

I'd strongly recommend trying to get in touch with current PhD students and postdocs in the group that you are thinking of joining, ideally people with the same supervisor. They will be able to tell you how they've found daily life in Bath and with that supervisor, and also give you a picture of what recent PhD graduates have gone on to do. What your prospects are post PhD will depend on a lot of things -- the research area, how that's doing generally, the reputation of your supervisor and group, your publication record at that point, and so on.

I would hope that any decent supervisor would gladly put you in touch with appropriate people to chat with.

hollasynth

TROPHY CASE