Earlier this month, a group of Clydeview Academy’s S6 pupils went on a trip called the UCAS Discovery Day. But what is UCAS? And what’s a discovery day? In this article I’ll answer those questions and tell you all about our experiences.

To give a brief summary, UCAS stands for the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. All pupils who want to study at a University or College must use UCAS as all of their applications are submitted through it. The UCAS website is very helpful for all fifth and sixth year pupils as it can suggest courses that may be of interest based on which subjects you like most. For many, UCAS is essential when planning your route after school.

The UCAS Discovery Day was held in the SEC Centre in Glasgow and around 50 S6s went on the trip. The event saw over 40 Universities and Colleges from across the United Kingdom have an information stall where their staff could answer any questions and tell you about what life is like at their Uni or College. Each Uni or College also offered their prospectus, which is a book that tells you all about the courses they have on offer, and these were free to take home.

Those who went on the trip all seemed to enjoy it very much and came home each carrying a bag filled with prospectuses from their preferred Universities. Here’s what some of our pupils told me about their day out:

“It was good that there were so many different types of Unis, but it wasn’t only Unis as there were also different colleges as well. It was just good to see the different options as I think a lot of people just think Glasgow, Strathclyde or Edinburgh but they forget there’s loads of other Unis that offer different courses. There were also stands for stuff like the RAF which I thought was good because, obviously, not everyone wants to go to Uni or College.”

– Emma W, 6B

“I found out lots of information about different Unis and what courses I want to do. Aberdeen University and Edinburgh University both really stood out to me. It’s hard to say why, I think it was just their vibe. I saw a lot of people talking to the University of Law which I didn’t know was a thing. I also didn’t know you could study Policing but the University of Law offers that and I thought that was quite cool.”

– Esme J, 6B

“I thought the UCAS Discovery Day was super beneficial. It let us look at options that we never really thought about and all the staff, they were lovely. They had a lot of stations for if you didn’t necessarily know what you wanted to do. They had like a little test you could do on a tablet to fill out what kind of courses you like and stuff like that. I thought that was really cool because some people don’t know what to do after school.”

– Emily P, 6D

“The UCAS trip was very informative I would say. It was really big, there were so many schools there and I really enjoyed it. I spoke to Glasgow, Edinburgh and even to Rural College Scotland as I’m interested in vet medicine and I was really intrigued with all of them. The information booklets were really handy as well. The one I got from Edinburgh Uni had a bunch of things, not just about the different courses, but also about the surrounding area and even a bit about job opportunities.”

– Beny D, 6F

The UCAS Discovery Day has certainly been a very beneficial experience for the S6s who attended the event. I think that after the event, a lot of us have a better idea of what our route after school will look like.

Article by Jack Ramsay, Head Boy