I have seen several supervisors at the University of Birmingham whose work I am interested in, and was wondering if anyon here has any experience of either the uni or the city, either as an undergrad, postgrad, or something else.

Before last weekend, I'd never been there. I went for an overnight stay there, to watch my beloved PNE, and was pretty impressed. In fact, it's provisionally joined my favourite other places in terms of city niceness and proximity to home - Manchester and Sheffield.

Still, I was only there for one night, so more info would be much appreciated, whether for or against Brum.

I like the University of Birmingham. Nice campus, nice conference hotels, very modern organisational culture.

Every university has its own atmosphere. Birmingham seems to be a nice place, although I've only been there a couple of months in 2004

I'm doing my Ph.D. at Aston, Birmingham. BEfore coming here I had visions of an ugly, industrial city, which were pleasantly dispelled after a couple of weeks. OK, so it's not exactly a metropolis, but the cultural life is OK, I feel great at my uni, and the city has a few yet undiscovered gems.

I remember the area between the Rag Market and the Custard Factory as being somewhat grim, but yeah I agree, some gems. And a very strange looking Selfridges...

My boyfriend went there so I visited him a lot. he loved it, the uni campus is really nice and the city has pretty recently been regenerated so has loads of nice bars, restaurants and shops. Also has more canals than venice!

I did my BSc at Birmingham, and adored every second. Fantastic place and everyone's really really friendly.

Well, looks like it's moving to the top of the pile. The only drawback is that the guy I would like to do the PhD with hasn't definitely got funding for next year, and even if he does, I might not get the place...

Ha the area you mention is Digbeth, one of the best places to go out in Brum! The Custard Factory is where everything happens! I still come up from London to go out there.

As for applying - you gotta be in it to win it!

True, true. I applied for two last year, and got offered both, so hopefully I can carry on the same this time around.

What department would you be in? I know the Uni really well as I was a student ambassador there. Woo-hoo! Got to take all manner of important people round!

Pharmacology, within the school of medicine.

What did you do, Bobby?

Ah ok cool. I did Psychology at Birmingham. Spent many an hour in the Medical Library (you know what Medics are like, they think that they have the right to have the Psych. journals in their library. Not cool)

Hey, I did my B.Sc at the University of Birmingham (school of medicine), and continue to live here until I start my Ph.D in January. I will be really sorry to leave (but I'll only be 50mins away by train in Leicester).
The med school has had alot of money thrown into it recently, a new half-wing was opened just as I was leaving, certainly is up-and-coming!
Who are you hoping to study with Matthew? N. Barnes??

Yeah Huntie. How did you know that? I know the Pharmacology Dept isn't huge, but there's still about 7 or 8 staff there...