USW’s Cardiff campus in the city centre is home to its creative industries courses — which benefit from industry-standard equipment for advertising, television and film set design, and fashion — as well as dance studios, rehearsal spaces and photographic studios. Cardiff is also the base for Startup Stiwdio, an incubation space. Operations moved from the Caerleon campus outside Newport to the Newport City Campus in 2011, where courses include cybersecurity, education, and psychology. 

USW’s first aerospace engineering students begin their courses in the 2022-23 term, as do those on new degrees in biomedical sciences; operating department practice; music producing; and an accelerated professional policing course. The new perfformio, theatre a’r cyfryngau degree (performance, theatre and the media) is taught entirely in Welsh.

An improved performance in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, compared with the 2014 exercise, has triggered a nine-place rise for USW in our research quality ranking. Sport and exercise sciences; social work and social policy; music, drama, dance, performing arts, film and screen studies; and allied health subjects produced some of the university’s best results. As with many universities in Wales, USW has not entered the Teaching Excellence Framework.

A Personal Academic Coaching scheme provides students with support through a series of conversations with a dedicated coach regarding their overall academic and professional progress. Such provision may improve completion rates at USW, which are among the bottom third nationally at present, with the latest figures showing that more students are projected to drop out of their course than the benchmark rate based on the academic and social mix.

The university offers eight degree apprenticeship programmes in Wales: including cybersecurity; data science; and mechanical, manufacturing, electrical and electronic engineering. A police constable degree apprenticeship operates in England.

The proportion of mature students aged over-21 is approaching four in ten and 95.9 per cent of USW undergraduates went to nonselective state secondary schools, evidence of USW’s effective outreach activities. It ranks 33= overall for social inclusion. Degrees in music producing, applied engineering, biomedical science and sport and exercise science welcomed their first students this term. Applications declined for the seventh consecutive year in 2020, as have the number of students starting courses — though less sharply. Maintaining entry standards, South Wales still turns down about three in ten applications.

Partnerships with the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), Football Association of Wales Trust and BBC Wales as well as close relationships with police forces across England and Wales, the Celtic Manor Resort and Health Education Improvement Wales are among tie-ins that boost experience and opportunities for USW students. In other initiatives, cybersecurity students engage in live projects with real companies while courses within USW’s School of Engineering benefit from industrial advisory boards, which inform course development and provide opportunities for work experience and future employment. 

However, for graduate prospects USW falls outside the top 100 this year, to rank 108=. Only two thirds of students are employed in high-skilled work or further study 15 months on from their degree, the latest Graduate Outcomes survey found.

USW succeeds in recruiting the ninth highest proportion of students from deprived areas in England and Wales, and more than four in ten are aged over 21 when they enrol on their degree. Contextual offers were introduced for 2022 entry, which should help widen participation further still. Financial supports include a diagnostic assessment bursary — which may provide free internal dyslexia screening to some students.

Welsh-medium scholarships are available to students who study at least 40 credits of an eligible degree in Welsh. A £500 progression bursary rewards those who top-up an USW-accredited HND or foundation degree to one of its full-time honours courses.

First-years are guaranteed a room in halls of residence, which are located at each of the university’s campuses. Surrounded by coast and countryside all USW sites are near, or in, the buzzing student city of Cardiff, one of the UK’s best places for undergraduate life. 

The purpose-built USW Sport Park has a 3G pitch and 270-seat stand used by student teams as well as Pontypridd FC. The Sport Park includes specialist equipment for sports degree studies and a centre for strength and conditioning with 12 lifting platforms and a full-size 3G indoor football pitch, the only one in Wales and one of five in the UK. Laboratories at the Glyntaff campus provide a scientific background for sports degrees.

Surrounded by coast and countryside, all USW sites are either within striking distance of – or in – Cardiff, renowned as one of the UK’s leading student city.  First-years are guaranteed a room in halls of residence based as closely as possible on the preferences they provide in their housing application.