Life before University
I'd definitely say that I got lost in the educational system and didn't get many great grades for my GCSE's and was only good at a limited handful of subjects.
I was diagnosed with dyscalculia (for those who don't know, it's dyslexia, but only with numbers and patterns), and so, because of this I didn't get a Maths GCSE and only obtained a BTEC in Science. The one subject that I felt I was actually good at was English, so I decided to take this along with psychology and sociology for my A Levels.
Obviously there's a big jump from GCSE to A Level, but seeing myself go from A*'s to D's in my most beloved subject (English) was super disheartening. Due to this, I began to lack confidence in my abilities, and which, combined with the lack of support from my English teacher, led me to feel insecure over what what I wanted to study at uni. I knew I’d have felt embarrassed confessing to my teacher I was going to dedicate years of my life to study the subject I graded so poorly in.
Therefore, I settled on doing Law, which ended up being a very random and desperate choice. I couldn’t bear the thought of my friends and everyone in my school year at uni living the dream and me stuck at home because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, the thought of being 'left behind' terrified me!
Starting a Law Degree ...
From the moment I arrived at my accommodation, I realised that I way too young and inexperienced to be there! Although I’ve always been a sensible child, I felt out of place compared to those I was living with, who drank and smoked often, it just wasn’t me.
I didn’t get along particularly well with my flatmates, which just made the experience more lonely for me. It felt as though I was just sat around waiting for something to happen. I felt purposeless with no friends, no social life and a lack of identity. I really wasn’t enjoying studying law and by this point my summer exams were fast approaching.
It was then when I decided to make the leap to change courses! I’d actually had a few friends who did English which definitely pushed me towards making the change.
Deciding to Switch Courses!
This was the best decision I’ve ever made! I could use the experiences I’d made during my first year, but with a completely fresh start and new outlook!
It was quite an easy process to change courses (despite the emotional side!). I emailed the head of my course and asked to meet with him and he signed a form for me to discharge me from the course and brought that form to the head of recruitment for the School of the Arts. I had a meeting with him and discussed why I wanted to change to English Literature and he checked over my grades and very happily signed the form and sent it over for processing. Although my university wasn't the most communicative and I didn't received this in writing until much later on in the summer (I had initially put my form in to change in April!). I remember being very worked up working at my summer job as I hadn't heard anything since then and only had a verbal confirmation that I was on the course. Nevertheless, I received my brand new timetable for my new course at the start of September and it was all guns blazing from there!
It's good to know that there is plenty of support from the university and other students when deciding to change courses and you are certainly not alone!
I decided to find shared private accommodation with a friend at the time and we lived with a random flatmate, who was allocated to us. My reasoning for this was that I believed I'd had outgrown the university provided accommodation as only first years could live there and I stupidly believed I didn't feel like a first year anymore. This was one of the biggest mistakes of mine as I felt a bit more left out and isolated from the first years I was starting a course with and made it slightly harder to meet before events! So, this is something I definitely wouldn't recommend. Despite this, I still managed to make it work and went through the extra effort of making sure I was around their accommodation before nights out!
One of my biggest regrets from first year is that I didn’t get involved with the people on my course, so when I started this English, I made it my mission to speak to as many people as possible and join in on my course’s society events! I ended up making so many new friends who are some of my best friends now!
I knew what it was like to be lonely, so I made sure to speak to as many people as possible.
I knew what it was like to skip lectures because I didn’t understand a topic, or was too afraid to go by myself, so I forced myself to go to each lecture for my new course and ASK whenever I was struggling.
What I noticed about re-starting uni was that people of all kinds of ages with completely different experiences were sat taking the exact same lecture notes! I have seen 18-year olds sit and discuss their work with 50-year-olds, and 20-year olds sat with 22-year olds! Age really is but a number once you leave school, it matters less and less. Everyone goes through their own journey and you’d be surprised at how little the small age difference is noticed within my group of friends!
It is cliché, but everything happens for a reason and I don’t regret that year at all! I met one of my most dearest and loving friends through bonding over the fact that she now lived in the flat I had lived in during my law year!
It’s made me realise that age and experience doesn’t matter, and people are often ready for uni at different points in their lives, and I would MUCH rather graduate with my best friends who I probably wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t changed courses, than strangers just because they were born within the same twelve months as me!
If you’re going through a similar thing, do not be afraid to ask for help or support and remember … do not compare your chapter one to someone’s chapter fifty! You are in a race with no one but yourself.
Lots of love,
Josie