In British English, how should I properly write a sentence like
What knowledge is required at university?
Basically, I want to ask what knowledge is required for study at a university or in a university, or in university, as appropriate to the sense of being a student at the university.
Answer
Either at university or in a university would sound odd (without being ungrammatical) because the usual context is a specific course, or at least subject. There are plenty of people within university buildings who have neither knowledge nor skills. [Some of them may even be professors ;)]
"This is the knowledge required to pursue a university course in Computer Studies" or "...to study at university level" would be right if your paper qualifications are sufficient but you are worried that you might be thought not to know enough. (I find that idea odd, but this probably isn't the place.)
"This will enable me to meet the requirements for the Computer Science BSc course at Redbrick University" or just "This will allow me to study Computer Science at Redbrick" (which will be taken to mean the same, despite its technical ambiguity) would be right in the more usual situation where you already know enough to understand a degree course, but don't have the relevant pieces of paper.
(synthesized from comments, with particular thanks to Barrie England, as ever)
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