We’ve recently teamed up with a number of other student-focused websites to bring you CampusTricks.com - the top 10 websites that you’ll need if you’re a student!

Alongside ourselves, the other websites involved are:

• Studentgems.com - Use your skills to earn money
• TheStudentRoom.co.uk - The UK’s largest student community
• Beyondbakedbeans.com - Cheap, easy recipes and tips
• Taxdoctor.co.uk - Turn overpaid tax into cash
• Liveout.co.uk - Find your perfect student house
• Groupspaces.com - Manage your club or society
• Wealthystudent.co.uk - Ultimate online student money bible
• Studentbeans.com - 2-for-1 cinema tickets, meal deals & more

To find out more, visit CampusTricks.com.

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Last week Oliver and I were invited to attend the Southern regional final of the O2 X Awards. The Awards are designed to “recognise success and vision within the world of small business.” We entered the competition back in August, and were delighted to find out that we’d been chosen as a finalist for the southern region out of hundreds of entrants.

The regional final took place at a posh hotel in Knightsbridge, with complimentary beer, wine and canapees - always goes down well with the RateMyPlacement team! We had around 15 minutes with the judges - a representative from O2 and the editor of Shortlist magazine. Our short time with them seemed go well, so fingers crossed. We should find out in the next couple of weeks if we’ve made it through to the national final and are in with a chance of winning the £10,000 top prize!

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Once again, the RateMyPlacement team is feeling ever so generous and has decided to give away yet more vouchers for HMV.co.uk!

That’s right, we’ve got another £1,000 worth of HMV vouchers to give away to students submitting a review of their placement or internship on RateMyPlacement.

That will take the total that we’ve given away to an amazing £3,500 to students throughout the UK. All you need to do to earn yourself up to £10 in HMV vouchers is to submit a review of your placement or internship with additional comments.

But hurry - once they’re gone, they really are gone! So submit your review today to earn yourself some vouchers!

 Click here to find out more, or here to submit your review today.

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A 10 minute drive across the city brought us to Newcastle University. We had another really positive meeting with the Careers department and hopefully we can work closely alongside another traditionally research focused uni to assist them raise the awareness of work experience.

After our quiet couple of beers in Leeds we were fully ready for a big night out on the Toon! We stayed with one of Ollie’s sisters friends who’s at uni in Newcastle and she was keen to show two strapping older men the delights of Newcastle! She took us to some quality bars, some impressively smelly and dingy student bars and we ended up in the Blu Bambu nightclub til the early hours… A really good night!

The RateMyPlacement rating for Newcastle University:

- Weather = 7 / 10 – Warmly overcast
- Grounds = 9 / 10 – Some lovely old architecture, but some building works prevented the full 10 / 10
- Beer = 10 / 10 – Top notch, good prices and a great night out!
- Bird watching = 8 / 10 – Newcastle definitely did not disappoint, and lived up to it’s reputation for some top bird watching!
- The “pot-noodle test” = 3 / 10 – we forgot to check but the pub next door had a lovely bit of gammon

- Newcastle University Grand Total = 37 / 50

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After Durham we ploughed on further north into the land of the toon and we were greeted by the new state-of-the-art city campus east buildings. Really impressive facilities with free parking right next door, cheers.

Northumbria has a really good focus on the year-long placements and we’ve previously already met a couple of people from the University through the network of placement officers PlaceNet. Both of them were on holiday so we popped in to see more of the team and had another great meeting.

- Weather = 8 / 10 – It was again sunny during the meeting, and cloudy once we had finished!
- Grounds = 10 / 10 – Awesome new space age buildings, really good facilities!
- Beer = 10 / 10 – Read the Newcastle Uni review to find out why!
- Bird watching = 7 / 10 – Not too bad considering we’re out of term time…
- The “pot-noodle test” = 6 / 10 – no pot noodles in the business school but some good cakes in the cafe

- Northumbria University Grand Total = 41 / 50

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After an early start in Leeds and a couple of wrong turns (we were relying on one of Ollie’s hand drawn maps!) we came to our first meeting, and it was not exactly as we expected. We thought we were presenting in front of 10 members of the careers service and spent the majority of yesterday evening putting together a presentation… fortunately for all involved we were only greeted by one member of staff!

Durham are heavily internship focused but like many of the research intensive uni’s have a growing focus on employability and work placements. Hopefully we can assist them achieve this for their students, as well as driving more internship reviews to the site.

The RateMyPlacement rating of Durham Uni is as follows:

- Weather = 7 / 10 – Perfect while we were sitting inside for our meeting, as soon as we went out, the sun went in. Cheers.
- Grounds = 10 / 10 – Our first experience of Durham and we were very impressed, great cathedral, some cobbled streets and a river, what more could you want?
- Beer = 8 / 10 – Couldn’t find the SU but the Varsity always does a job.
- Bird watching = 3 / 10 – Maybe it was because we are out of term time - there were a lot of grey hairs around!
- The “pot-noodle test” = 6 / 10 – Couldn’t find anywhere that sold them, but Greggs did a great meal deal for £2.99.

The Durham Uni Grand Total = 32 / 50

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We ruddy love Leeds we do! Visit number 5 to the city since we launched RateMyPlacement. This time we were in Leeds to see the work experience co-ordinator in the careers service, and what a quality careers service it is. Big leather couches, the Olympics on the flat screen TVs; we could have probably stayed there all day!

While we in Leeds we also managed to have a couple of drinks in Headingley, which was pretty busy, even out of season. Unfortunately our timing could have been better, we were a day early to see England vs SA in the one dayer. Next time we will check the fixtures before we book our visit.

The University of Leeds ratings:

- Weather = 5 / 10 – That fine rain, the sort that soaks you through…
- Grounds = 8 / 10 – Leeds is great!
- Beer = 6 / 10 – Pretty pricy for a student focused area and on a Tuesday night during the summer! Newcastle prices were far for forgiving!
- Bird watching = 8 / 10 – I think all the students have begun to flock back
- The “pot-noodle test” = 10 / 10 – The price hasn’t changed, its still 2 for £1.20.

- The Leeds Uni Grand Total = 39 / 50

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Another week, another tour. The only problem was this time we didn’t have the sat nav, instead all we had Ollie’s geography degree and my less than adequate map reading skills.

Much to our suprise we managed to arrive early to every meeting and everything went as swimmingly as Michael Phelps’ month in China! Here’s the vital stats.

Universities met with: 4

Number of meetings: 5

Nights out on the Toon: 1

Total miles: 602.3

Total time in car: 12 hours 26 minutes

Wrong turnings: 7

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