Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a former polytechnic university located in Sheffield, England. Having been more recently reformed into a university, it is considered to be more orientated towards 'practical' qualifications than the other university in the city, Sheffield University, which is often thought of as the more traditional, academic kind of university. SHU has many links with local and international businesses, and many courses offer a placement year, where students undertake a real paid job in their chosen industry, with the aim of gaining knowledge and hopefully a secure job once they have graduated.

It is currently home to 28,249 students, with 20,993 (74%) being undergraduate, 6,708 (24%) being postgraduate taught and 548 (2%) postgraduate research. The university has a roughly equal gender split, with male students being 52% and female being 48%. The university also currently employs 3,266 staff members.

SHU offers 790 courses, with the most popular being BA(Hons) Business Studies at the time of writing, and received nearly 31,000 applications to undergraduate courses last year ('02-'03). In addition to offering many courses, SHU caters for many different types of higher learning qualification, including: HNC/HND, BA, BSc, MSci and BEng, diploma/certificate, masters degrees, doctorates, distance learning and research degrees.

SHU is made up of three campuses, located within a couple of miles of each other. These are:

  • City Campus (Arundel Gate, Sheffield city centre)
  • Psalter Lane Campus (Psalter Lane, Ecclesall area)
  • Collegiate Crescent (Hunter's Bar, Ecclesall area)
Additionally, the university is broken down into ten schools, with their centres located at one of the three campuses. These schools are:

Business and Finance
Computing and Management Sciences
Cultural Studies
Education
Engineering
Environment and Development
Health and Social Care
Science and Mathematics
Social Science and Law
Sport and Leisure Management

City campus deals mainly with business and computing courses, while Psalter Lane holds mainly arts and cultural based courses and Collegiate caters for the health and sport orientated courses. City campus has its own Blackwells bookshop, offering discount book prices to students, as well as four deli/cafe style eating places located on various floors. Collegiate Crescent offers its own gymnasium with reduced entry fees for students. The three campuses (as well as SHU halls of residence) are connected to the university's own network and all sites are fully fitted with I.T equipment allowing work to be done both from home and university.

SHU, like many universities, has its own union of students, located in the Nelson Mandela Building (NMB) attached to City Campus in Sheffield city centre. This offers students a place to socialise within university, providing a bar, pool tables and function rooms, which are used for the regular club nights throughout the week, such as Stardust, Sheff1 and Re-Volt. A night is also held every wednesday at Sheffield's Kingdom nightclub especially for SHU students. The union is also home to the numerous SHU societies, ranging from athletics to Japenese anime.


Further reading:

SHU main site - http://www.shu.ac.uk

City Campus map - http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/marketing/visit/cityplan.html

Psalter Lane map - http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/marketing/visit/psalterplan.html

Collegiate Crescent map - http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/marketing/visit/collplan.html