– NTNU the best educational institution

– Of course it is nice to be appreciated. We know that NTNU is a popular place to study, says rector at NTNU, Torbjørn Digernes.

A survey carried out by Sentio for Universitas presents that 41 per cent of the students in Norway think education of highest quality will be found at NTNU in Trondheim. According to the students, the University of Oslo is the second best educational institution, with 20 percent. The survey is based on education quality.

Digernes says he thinks most of NTNU´s popularity among students and attraction is due to the good student milieu in Trondheim.

– Part of the effect is that the newer students got information from friends and acquaintances. People come home from their first semester and praise the city and the student milieu, and influence younger students to apply to NTNU, says Digernes.

He says he does not know how the other educational institutions work, but thinks it is clear that NTNU wins on having made a point out of promoting the student milieu in Trondheim.

– Trondheim good for engineers

Jarle Dale Slørstad, Master´s student in community economics at UiO, has studied at both NTNU and UiO. He studied in Trondheim for almost three years, but does not agree that the quality of the studies is so much higher there. Slørstad thinks that the reason for Trondheim having such a good reputation among the students is the engineer studies NTNU offers.

– People think Trondheim is so great because of the engineer studies, but when it comes to studies in social science and other subjects, the difference is unremarkable, the way I see it, says Slørstad.

Leader of the Student Parliament at UiO, Mari Helén Varøy, agrees with Slørstad. She thinks it is a pity that UiO comes out worse than NTNU in the survey, but she claims the result is due to people thinking of NTNU´s engineer studies.

– I think people have an impression of NTNU being a good school because of the engineer studies. I still think students at UiO are generally happy with the education quality, though, says Varøy.

– Cares about quality

Rector at UiO Ole Petter Ottersen thinks it is natural that NTNU is better than UiO in certain fields, and vice versa. He does think, however, that in the big picture, UiO´s education is of high quality and is attractive on both an national and international level.

Ottersen thinks the 2010 numbers from NUCAS, the Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service, prove UiO´s status. UiO had 33 919 applicants on 5794 study places, and NTNU had 24 438 applicants on 4645 study places. The math is that UiO has 5,8 applicants per study place compared to NTNU´s 5,2.

– We know from previous surveys that students care about quality when they apply. It is a myth that factors like milieu and well-being are the most decisive. The occurring theme is that those who apply to schools in Oslo care about study quality, says Ottersen.

Unattractive education

In 2008 UiO carried out a candidate survey at the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences. The survey showed that even though students after five years at the University of Oslo feel analytically competent, they feel unqualified to negotiate, administrate and coordinate, work effectively under pressure, communicate properly, practice authority or create networks.

Compared to candidates from competing educational institutions, just below half of the UiO candidates feel that their education is attractive on the job market.

Ottersen thinks this means that UiO has some work to do in order to make the students aware of their own competence.

– This result means that UiO should work on both the reputation and the consciousness among students, says Ottersen.

Well positioned among employers

Since less than half of the candidates from UiO think their education is attractive on the job market, it is highly indicated that the employers are actually more happy with the candidates than the candidates themselves.

– The results from an employer survey we carried out in 2006 shows that almost 90 per cent of the employers who have employed candidates from the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences would do so again, says Ottersen.

Also NTNU sees that their students are well positioned on the job market.

– We are especially well positioned among those who employ civil engineers. But it is hard to compare educational institutions like that. I would think that the institutions are well positioned in different fields, says Digernes.