We have invested £41 million into a campus extension at City South, filled with state-of-the-art facilities for our Sports, Education and Life Sciences courses. This is a great addition to the already existing £30 million Seacole building, which includes specialist facilities for many of our Nursing and Health Sciences courses such as, Mock Hospital Wards, Simulation Manikins, Virtual Reality (VR) teaching spaces, and more!
To give you a sense of everything our campus has to offer, here’s seven reasons why we love our campus...
1. Nutrition kitchen classroom
On level three of our campus extension, you’ll find a stunning nutrition kitchen classroom complete with six cooking areas and a staff cooking area for demonstrations. The room boasts floor to ceiling windows that look out onto the beautiful leafy scenery that surrounds us in Edgbaston.
There's plenty of space for you to work alone or within a group to enhance your practical and theoretical cooking and nutrition skills. This space is most often used by sports, food and nutrition and education students – but can really stretch to any course where necessary!
2. Life Sciences Zeiss laboratory
Also on level three is our very exciting Life Sciences Laboratory. What makes it so exciting? Well, besides the fact that it is an extremely large space filled with fascinating equipment, it is also the very first Life Sciences Laboratory in the UK to have a Zeiss interactive digitally-connected microscope system.
Essentially this means that you’re able to see what is visible under your microscope, using the iPads provided and take high-definition photographs and videos of the samples on the microscope, as well as accurate measurements of microorganism or human cells. This technology also means that you can openly discuss with your classmates and lecturer about what is under each other’s microscopes, which makes the sessions more fluid and interactive.
You can also use this software to save HD photos and incorporate them into lab reports or research projects – there really are no limits for this technology and we are proud to be able to use it within our teaching.
3. Sports Hall
Located on level one, the Sports Hall is a great place to learn if you’re a sport or education student, but can also be used in your spare time no matter what course you’re on. BCU Sport offers classes for students that make use of this innovative space, so that everyone can benefit from it. So if you fancy a bit of volleyball, basketball or badminton (to name a few), you know where to go!
The Sports Hall also has changing rooms with showers and lockers, so if you think you’re going to get a little bit sweaty you are welcome to make use of these facilities too.
4. The Social Kitchen
Located in our original £30 million building, The Social Kitchen is our brand new Students' Union (SU) bar, which also happens to be a really cool pizza restaurant!
With tons of choice you can choose from a range of pizzas, wedges, wings, jacket potatoes, quesadillas, garlic bread and more. So whether you want a quick snack or a meal to keep you going, The Social Kitchen has it all. And if you like the look of the menu, this place also offers an additional 50p off every item you order for all students!
5. Grass bank and Wi-Fi garden
As much as we love our new indoor spaces, our new outdoor spaces have got just as much to offer, especially on a summer's day! At the back of our new campus is a carefully constructed grass bank that is raised from the main pathway, and a place that you can go to relax, eat lunch, play sport or catch some rays. This area also has tables and benches for everyone to use - and you might even see poppies bloom here in the spring.
In addition, our new Wi-Fi garden has Wi-Fi signal outside, which, couple with the beautiful green setting, makes it the perfect outdoor classroom location for you to enjoy.
6. Primary Innovation Lab
Our Primary Innovation Lab is home to £24,000 worth of LEGO. It’s a fabulous resource for our Education students offering them an innovative and creative way to approach a range subjects across the curriculum – from Computing to English, Maths to Art. The Lab responds to research that children and young people learn best from practical experience and allows our students to experience innovative teaching and learning to help train young people of the future through creativity. We’re even expecting local school children to use the facilities.
7. Amazing amenities
Our new campus extension comes with additional social seating areas - ideal for hanging out, studying or meetings. We have over 20 tables and seats of all sizes, just on the ground floor alone and a further 20 on all levels! There’s also plenty of water fountains dotted around the seating areas to ensure you stay hydrated and able to concentrate.
We have some great amenities located right here on campus so you don’t have to worry about going elsewhere. These include an ATM cashpoint, Starbucks and Costa (who offer classic favourites at student rates), vending machines, microwaves and a campus shop – where you’ll find everything from BCU hoodies, to stationery, meal deals and snacks!
Visit us at our next Open Day
So now that you know a little bit more about our brand new facilities, why not come and see them for yourself at our next Open Day? If you're interested in studying a degree in health, education or life sciences come along and meet our tutors, students and see where you could be studying.
