Student Websites

I thought I'd look at a few student websites, as well as some student areas in other newspapers, in order to get an idea of how they function and operate, in visual terms as well as content-wise. Hopefully this will give me a fairly good idea of what works and what doesn't, as well as potential ways of creating a student forum that is a cut above the others.

The first two images show The Independent's current student area, which is pretty straight down the middle, not a lot to set it apart from other student webpages/the rest of the website, which personally I feel is a little uninspiring, but I suppose it works at least.

The Guardian's student area has a slightly more visually pleasing layout to it, a bit more space and structure, which I quite like. There still appears to be a lack of inclusiveness to it though (on first impressions), in terms of student commentary.

A few other student sites, not related to newspapers. I'm quite liking thestudentroom.com, it has quite an interactive feel which could translate quite well to the forum we are proposing.