Should I Switch Uni’s and Course for Better Potential Prospects? Guidance needed!

Hi, I’m currently a first year student studying BSc Finance at the Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School in London. This is going to be a bit of a long read so apologies but I really do require some guidance and soon from people who understand the field better than me.

I chose to study at Bayes due to achieving 3 A’s at A Level and from the research I had done at that time it seemed to be a reputed semi target and better than the other offers I had for Econ & Finance at Southampton and Banking & Finance at Leeds. However it was only after accepting the offer and looking at it further that I started seeing differing opinions as to how good it actually is. Some opinions included the fact that the course seems to go into clearing albeit only accepting ABB and above, claims that the international students on the course seems to skew employment data with UK students being unemployed, the fact that the institution changed its name from Cass to Bayes and that the Postgrad course is the reputed course and not the Undergrad one due to it being linked to City University of London which is mediocre. I sort of disregarded these because they were just opinions and I’d already firmed the offer and my chances of going to a better, more stable university (in all honesty RG/Bath/Lboro etc) for an Economics or Finance related course through clearing were zero. 

So I’ve been at Bayes(Cass) for a year and have just finished my first year with a 2:1 average. The course in itself is actually quite good in my opinion and seems to teach similar material as my mates doing Econ related degrees at RGs with us sharing similar Maths and Econ modules. However I have found no success for Spring Week applications and I fully realise this could be due to my own failings rather than the uni name hindering banks. Also to be honest socially it’s pretty woeful with the Student Union at City UoL being mind bogglingly dreadful which has been quite disappointing as part of uni is about the whole social scene. More importantly the related Finance societies aren’t really particularly great especially when compared to what I’ve seen from other targets and semi targets which doesn’t fill me with lots of hope for the future. That being said I absolutely know that the degree is way more important than anything else but I’m starting to feel that the Bayes(Cass) degree doesn’t hold as much worth as I thought it did and especially isn’t worth it when considering how poor the social experience has been there and the whole trade off between those things. Because of these things I reapplied on UCAS to unis for Sept 2023 entry just as a potential thing to explore later.

So now I actually have an unconditional offer from the University of Bath for their BSc International Development & Economics course which is frankly my true interest over Finance. That being said, my end goal is to break into IB and I’m willing to sort of slog through the next 2 years of my degree if I know for sure that the degree is actually valuable and respected by banks in London. Furthermore I am also interested in pursuing a Masters and am worried that Bayes(Cass) isn’t really that well known especially compared to Bath for example, which may make it harder for me to pursue further studies at top tier universities. I would like to note that if I accept the Bath offer I will have to restart at Year 1 and obviously that would kinda mean I’ve wasted a year. However if this means I end up not wasting another 2 years and lots of money at Bayes and end up with better chances at Bath I’d be crazy not to take the offer. 

So I have a few questions to ask and if people could help me with these it would be immensely appreciated. 

1. Is Bayes(Cass) actually respected and a semi target at the Undergrad level in the banking sector in London?
2. Is Bayes better than Bath for breaking into IB? 
3. Will a BSc in International Development & Econ actually be taken seriously when applying for Springs and Summer Roles?

And the most important question: Am I better off completing my degree at Bayes or restarting at Bath, purely from the perspective of wanting to work in IB?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and any help would be massively helpful to me.