Address: Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB
Phone: 020 7040 5060
Website: www.city.ac.uk or @CityUniLondon
In London, a place rich with academia, City University often gets overlooked. Unlike King’s or LSE it has no grand halls, secret-handshakes or old-boys’ networks. Its facilities are modest and its library short on fusty books. But it has carved out a reputation as a supplier of professionals, cementing its place in the top five for graduate employment.
Located on a pretty park on the edge of the City of London—the ‘Square Mile’ that itself has emerged at the centre of the global economy—the university is overwhelmingly diverse, with many coming from abroad to study at the Cass Business School. It’s that section of the university that churns out workers for the finance industry—students who are so hell-bent on business success that they go to school in suits. The other five schools comprising City are the School of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Health Sciences, School of Mathematics, Computer Science & Engineering, School of Informatics, and The City Law School.
The university’s first incarnation came in 1894 as an industrial college for the working classes. The on-site swimming pool was used when London hosted the 1908 Olympics, although it wasn’t until 1966 that it gained full university status. It has maintained strong links with industry, with alumni including the founding father of budget Euro-travel, easyJet’s Stelios (like Sting and Madonna he chooses to use only one name). Students at City may be lined up for good jobs when they graduate, but it comes at the cost of having to explain what their less well-known university is whenever they mention it.
Annual undergraduate fees are £9,000. International undergraduate fees can be upward of £15,000.
City offers on-campus housing, including a guarantee scheme for first-year undergraduates. The uni hosts some heavyweight lectures. The Students’ Union offers limited clubs and societies with all the usual fare—tennis, chess, Christian Union. CitySport is City’s state-of-the-art sports and fitness centre. ‘Ten’ (10 Northampton Square) is where the kids hang out, the social hub of City.
Cass Business School: 020 7040 8600
Admissions office (undergrad and postgrad): 020 7040 8716
Library: 020 7040 8191
CitySport: 020 7040 5656
Students’ Union: 020 7040 5600