Talk:University of Southampton
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Dear Tzartzam,
FYI - the Sutton Trust is a highly biased source for comparing universities. It's stated focus is on education and not academic research. Incidentally, this is also the inherent bias in most journalistic treatment of the issue. Southampton is a research university!
Also re the RAE comment you removed, RAE may not publish a top ten, but it is a relatively simple exercise to get the institutional rankings by counting up the number of 5*s, 5s, etc. that each institution received in the published RAE tables. Do so and you will see that Southampton is top ten any way you care to slice it - and has been for many years!
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Who is writing this article?- Southampton students I imagine as it seriously overstates Southampton's research and prestige. Also deleted the comment about the RAE as the RAE did not publish a top ten. Can we edit from a NPOV, as with all due respect Southampton is not really a top university and is never anywhere near the top ten in any British league table. Based on league tables the top universities are Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Imperial, UCL, Warwick, York, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham, St Andrews and Durham- this list was published by the Sutton Trust an independent analysis of Britian's top universities based on league tables.
Needs to have a NPOV. And should sound less like the text from a prospectus. Should include:
- What the university does -- main subjects, areas of research, famous achievements
- Who's been there -- famous people who went there
User:Tzartzam 2 Oct 2002
Just been reading this article, and its rather embarrasing the POV in this, and I even graduated from Soton Uni. The info could be much better presented esp the first openning paragraph Philbentley 03:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Moved POV material, needs rewriting/correcting:
...the UK's nearest equivalent to an Ivy League, and is currently ranked 5th for overall research quality. Southampton's research performance is bettered only by the University of London, Oxford, Cambridge and Warwick. Southampton's teaching quality is regarded as one of the best in the country and arguably the best of the Red Brick universities. The university has a strong technical and technological pedigree and has long been regarded as one of Britain's best science universities and the best at engineering. Southampton's economics and business qualifications are in high demand internationally, particularly at post-graduate level, because of the university's acknowledged supremacy in econometrics and quantitative methods.
In terms of atmosphere, Southampton's focus is on research and acquiring knowledge rather than social positioning. To draw a parallel with US universities, if Harvard is America's Oxford, then MIT is America's Southampton. Southampton's student population grew a lot in the 1990s to become one of the UK's largest universities and also one of the most in demand. It occupies a spacious campus on the south English coast.
User:Imran 14 Nov 2002
- "if Harvard is America's Oxford, then MIT is America's Southampton", I couldn't have put it better myself. Perhaps we should include that in the article Paskari 16:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The above text was then edited three times in December 2002, ending up as follows:
- The Sunday Times ranks the University of Southampton 5th for among the Russell Group of specialist research universities for research quality, bettered only by the University of London, Oxford, Cambridge and Warwick. Southampton's teaching quality is regarded as one of the best in the country and arguably the best of the Red Brick universities. The university has a strong technical and technological pedigree and has long been regarded as one of Britain's best science universities and the best at engineering, with the only HEFC 5* rated Engineering faculty in the country. Southampton's post-graduate economics and business qualifications are in high demand internationally, largely because of the university's reputation in econometrics and quantitative methods.
- The University of Southampton has close links with America's MIT. Southampton's student population grew a lot in the 1990s to become one of the UK's largest universities and also one of the most in demand. It occupies a spacious campus on the south English coast.
Part of the above material has subsequently been incorporated into the article. Which still needs a lot of work, incidentally, and I suppose I should be doing that work myself, to be honest. Maybe later... -- Oliver P. 00:11 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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- I think that most of the above is wide of the mark. The top ten universities are markedly different for science, engineering and arts. Most people would rank Oxford and Cambridge as the top two UK universities for classics and in the top five for virtually arts subjects. Nobody would rank Oxford in the top ten for engineering and they would struggle to get into the top twenty. Cambridge is much stronger in engineering and there is certainly top rank science at Oxford but pretty everyone would rank Manchester in the top five for science as well. I don't think anyone would rank Warwick there and London University is a totally different animal, UCL and Imperial are effectively separate universities. Southampton has always had a first rank engineering department and a middling to mediocre arts and law side. It has a medical school which in itself is significant.
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- So it really depends on the subject area. Southampton is in the top five for engineering. Tim Berners-Lee would not be a part time prof at a mediocre university. The electronics and aeronautics departments are world class. It is not an understatement to use the term 'leading'. In the Engineering field Southampton outranks Oxford. The studies cites are all average measures of the university courses. I don't think that makes any sense. Southampton is a world class engineering university. Oxford is world class in classics. Both are mediocre in the other's specialty. When determining leading one looks to the areas of excellence where the institution leads. There is no institution that is world class in every field. --217.204.89.130 00:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] Clubs & socs as external links
I don't think clubs and socs should be listed as external links in this article. To include some and not others looks like advertising/spam (I notice that they're usually added one at a time by different individuals, which raises my suspicions) and there are too many to list all of them here. If we are to have a list of all the clubs and socs, it should be a separate list from the main article, and (presumably) each society should also have its own article, if it's notable enough. I'm sure they're all linked to from the student union's site, so surely just the one link there would suffice. Waggers 14:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Babel Template
I have added this little template for your user profiles. Template:User SOTON. Jenzo 13:10 GMT, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Endowment
Most other universities indicate their endowment, I e-mailed the university but they refuse to tell me how much their endowment is, does anyone know? Paskari 16:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] University ratings
(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities.)
There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#University ratings. Timrollpickering 23:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
