Top 6 Myths About University

“You HAVE to go out during Fresher’s Week! Everyone will think you’re weird if you don’t!”

You really don’t have to go out during Fresher’s Week. Your housemates might find you a little strange if you hide up in your room the entire week and never speak to them, but I’ve never met anyone who isn’t cool with you not going out or not drinking. (See my post here on not drinking during Fresher’s Week).

You’ll be living off of beans on toast.

No.

I’ve tried living off of various tomato sauce covered things on toast. It takes about two days to get bored of that. And you’ll get bored of it to.

Most people are able to afford something a little more extravagant than that. Even my flat mate who goes out every week can afford curly chips and pizza.

And on that note…

You’ll be living in your overdraft.

Ok, I know a lot of people who are in their overdraft at the moment. I’m edging ever closer to it. But if you budget properly, you can make it to the end of the semester, just about…

“You HAVE to join a society!”

Much like having to go out on Fresher’s Week, this isn’t true. You’ll hear me talk a lot about how amazing extra-curricular is, and I loved it the past however many years, but this year I haven’t been doing much society-wise (so far). If you don’t have time, you don’t have time. Though it is amazing for making friends and will “enhance your CV”, it’s not a necessity.

You’ll be living in squalor.

Ok, I’m a student, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge this, and if my mum came round, she’d probably be disgusted at the state of my room, but it really isn’t that bad. Definitely not as bad as people would like to make you think.

I live in halls, where we have a cleaner that comes a couple of times a week but, between the seven of us, we manage to keep the place relatively clean.

That said, sometimes the night after an amazing night out can look… not that great.

Lecturers are really unhelpful.

I’ve no idea where this one comes from, but a lot of people told me it before I started university and this is not true in the slightest.

My tutor last year, bless him, had to deal with a fair bit from me, from sarcastic emails about meetings rearranged into the past, to emails whilst sent sobbing at midnight. He was really helpful, even writing my referee statement for applying to another university.

This year, I’ve spoken to my lecturers outside of lectures multiple times, even stopping them in the street to grab a question that has absolutely nothing to do with the course. Maybe I’ve just gotten lucky, but lecturers being unhelpful is definitely a myth.

 

 

Feature image created by flickr user John Walker used under Creative Commons

Beer Pong image created by English language Wikipedia user Rethcir used under Creative Commons

Fresher’s Fair image created by flickr user stuarts used under Creative Commons

Going Home Again

I wrote last week about how I’m in a completely different place now to what I was this time last year. And that means my feelings about going home have changed to.

Dread is probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but it’s pretty close.

It doesn’t feel like long since I was last at home. It’s been eleven weeks, twelve by the time I go next week, but it’s gone so fast that I don’t really believe this term has happened at all.

It took me a while this term to get into a routine and now, for the first time in years, I feel completely in control of everything in my life. Going home means surrendering a lot of that control, falling into my family’s routine.

There are some good things about the coming month of so that I’ll be at home, though!

Most of my exams are in the next week, with the exception of my politics exam. Compared to the five I had to revise for last year, that nothing. I might actually get to relax a little this Christmas instead of stress over ancient biology or whatever else I was stressing about last year.

One thing I do feel the same about as I did last year is how uncertain I am about the next few weeks. Hopefully it should be fun, and a lot less stressful than last year. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Review of the year so far

Week eleven starts on Monday. It’s very almost the end of my first semester of my first year (the second time around), so I thought I’d do a little bit of a review and a comparison to this time last year.

So far, the year has gone amazingly. This year has so far been better than I could have imagined, and I think that’s for a variety of reasons.

It’s really been a couple of months of unlearning in a way. Journalism is different from anything I’ve studied before. For the past three years I’ve been focused almost entirely on the sciences, and even GCSEs, which seem a million years ago now, weren’t really enough to prepare me for this. My old way of learning has been made completely redundant and whilst that’s a little scary, I’m glad.

All through secondary school and college, and last year at university, I had to work constantly to get the grades I achieved. My little brother, who sat his GCSEs last year, was able to get away with minimal studying outside of class, whereas I had to be working all the time, so much that I didn’t really get much of a Christmas break during my A-Levels and when my youngest brother was a baby and his crying woke me up in the night, my brain would immediately be trying to work out a made up maths equation. It wasn’t a healthy way of living, or studying.

For the first time that I can remember, I don’t have to be constantly working in order to do well. I’m not saying that I show up to lectures and that’s it. I do work outside of class, but nothing more than the required reading and any set work, really. I can relax and hang out with my friends without panicking that I should be doing something else. It’s a little strange, after so long of constantly working, but I like it.

Comparing this year to last year isn’t really fair. I was unhappy with my course, over-worked, and incredibly stressed. This year, I’m getting the help I need to cope with learning differences I didn’t even know I had last year, and I feel completely at home with my course. This year is an entire world away from last year.

This time last year I was panicking about all the revision I was going to have to do over the Christmas break (which I didn’t end up doing after I decided to drop my course). Most of my exams this year are before the winter break, in week 12. So that’s less revision time and, really, I should be panicking. But I’m not. I feel completely relaxed about my media law and my news writing exams, and a little nervous about my philosophy exam. My politics exam is after the winter break, and I’ll be doing lots of revision for that, but not as much as I was expecting to do over the winter break last year.

This year I’ll get to enjoy my winter break, like I’m enjoying my course.

Cooking

After half a year of living off of tinned tomatoes on toast and jacket potato, I decided to venture into the world of cooking this year. I have a lot of time now that I seem to have figured out my routine and I can use that to stock up on meals. And I’ve found I quite enjoy cooking.

I think I like cooking for a number of reasons. I tend to do it on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, when there’s not really anybody else in the kitchen. It’s quite calming to slowly and carefully go through a recipe.

I worked towards a career in science for most of my school life and I’m so used to having a strict method to follow: this much of this substance, this much of that substance, this step follows that step and so on. This year has been a real break from all of that. There’s not really much method when it comes to journalism. Not in the same way there is science, anyway.

Cooking takes me back to what I know. Carefully measuring out all the ingredients, checking and double checking the recipe, following it as closely as I can. I feel in control when I’m cooking. It’s calming.

It’s also taking me away from work. Sometimes it’s difficult to pull myself away from work. There’s a need to always be doing something productive. Cooking is taking a break from that. I don’t feel guilty spending an hour or so cooking because I make enough meals for a week and it is something productive, but it’s something different too.

A Relook At Lectures

Are lectures worth it?

Last year I discussed whether it was important to go to university lectures. In hindsight, skipping lectures probably wasn’t as good an idea as it seemed at the time, but I still believe I did what was right for me in the circumstances. This year, I’m determined to go to each one of my lectures, no matter how pointless (and some already do seem pointless) they are.

Why?

Well, the first reason is because, no matter how pointless the lecture is, there’s going to be a moment when I’m going to wish I was there. This year I’m in a much smaller class than I was last year. Say if, in a lecture I did not attend last year, I were to come across a question whilst reading through the lecture notes at home, I would probably be able to show up to the next lecture and ask the lecturer without them noticing that this was the first time they’d seen me in three months. I wouldn’t be able to achieve that this year.

Another reason though is money.

In England, university tuition fees are, for most courses (and all the ones I’ve ever seen), £9000 a year. That money is usually loaned to the student to pay the fees and the repayment method means that it should not be seen as a barrier to those wanting to go on to higher education. But it’s still a lot of money that I, in theory, am spending.

I worked out the other week whilst my lecturer was trying to find his lecture notes just how much I was paying per lecture. Assuming the £9000 is spent equally between semesters, and that each module gets the same amount of money, that’s £93.75 a lecture or seminar. Of course, part of that nine grand is spent on things besides lectures and seminars, but, at the moment, that’s the main product which I receive. I pay, or I will be paying, nearly £95 for someone to spend an hour or two (or three, in some cases) giving me their specialist knowledge and showing me how to use it.

Or I could be paying the £95 to just sit at home going through a textbook (which I had to buy separately).

At the moment, it doesn’t make much sense to not go to my lectures. Maybe, as the work load goes up, it will become necessary to prioritise private study over a lecture, but I don’t see that happening with the large amount of free time I have. So the plan to go to all my lectures should be achievable.

Settling Back In

One week down, many, many more to go!

I finished my first week as a journalism student at the University of Winchester.

I wasn’t sure what to expect coming here. Though I’ve been at university before and university life itself has been nothing surprising, the course couldn’t be much further away from last year’s course, geophysical sciences. That much I knew when I looked at my time table and found I had a quarter of the number of contact hours that I had last year. I thought I would have a lot of writing to do, which is true, and I thought I’d have a lot more reading to do, which is also true. Some things, I had no idea that I was going to be faced with them.

The main one was seminars. I never had a seminar last year. I didn’t really know what to expect from them. I had my first seminar this week: politics. (I studied politics at AS and, thinking I was going to be a sciences student, binned all my notes. Big mistake.) Judging by the seminar I had this week, it’s mostly about discussions and developing ideas from the lecture. All very well and good. In a few weeks’ time I’ll have a seminar in the History and Context of Journalism, which is, so far, philosophy. That I’m a little more worried about, because the way they explained the sessions was different to what I’d experienced in politics. Hopefully it’ll be alright.

The first couple of weeks has been about getting into a routine. Between starting something new and the abundance of motorsport I’m following now, everything’s been a bit of a mess. I’ve been trying to get myself more organised but the large amount of free time I have means, surprisingly, I’ve not gotten much done. Maybe that’s a lie. I’ve done everything I set out to do in the week, bar keep up with my word targets in my fiction writing, but everything seems to have been all over the place. The lack of routine is worrying me a little, but I should be able to get back on top of that once I get used to what’s going on.

First meetings from the societies I joined happened this week. On Wednesday I went to the university radio’s members meeting, where I applied to do a radio show with a guy I met there who liked my hat and watched Formula E (half of university is about making friends, after all). It was a busy meeting and the schedule will be full, so I’ll find out if we got a slot next Thursday.

On Thursday, I went to creative writing. Again, I didn’t know what to expect. At school, creative writing was about sharing work and creating work. At college and university last year, it was about learning different styles of fiction and poetry. As there’s a creative writing course at this university, they leave the lectures I was used to from college and university out and go back to the kind of creative writing societies I was used to from school. I enjoyed it. Next week I’ll actually have to bring some!

But as far as university life goes, I’ve settled in quite well, I think. Cooking for myself, cleaning for myself. I’ve missed it a lot.

So far so good at university. Hopefully I can improve on this already great start in the next coming weeks.

New Year: Fresh Start

I’m back!

First off, apologises for disappearing over the summer. It has been a very busy summer for me, and even university preparation had to wait until only a couple of weeks before I moved in. But I’m back now. And I’m back at university, which actually means I’ll be able to talk about my current experiences.

You may remember, but I dropped out of university last February, ready to start my new course in September. Well, it’s September, and this evening I will be celebrating my first week at Winchester University (probably with an early night, as I have lectures on Monday). I’m very excited to be back at university. I’m already trying to get myself into a routine, with three planners and journals and weekly diaries. I’m determined to do things properly this year.

So how has fresher’s week been? Fresher’s week for me has been a quiet week of exploring the city and working out where things are. I made the mistake of running out of money last year when my student loan took a few weeks to come through, and I’m better prepared for that this year, with lots of food and money so I don’t end up starving (again). A lot of the week was spent making my work place as motivating as possible, which includes lots of pictures and books. At the moment, I’m quite happy with it, and hopefully I won’t be sick of it come November!

Lectures start tomorrow. I’m quite relieved to have a nice and easy time table, which will leave me with lots of free time (for work!). Last year, there was absolutely no free time. I was required to get up at four in the morning to have any free time at all. That lead to me being incredibly stressed and was probably one of the reasons why I ended up dropping out. Some people can deal with the amount of hours I had to study last year, but I couldn’t. I think I’ll be happier this year. Or I hope I will be happier this year.

 

What to Expect from Student Finance

If you’re going to university in September, then you should have already applied for Student Finance and most likely know what you’re entitled to over the next few years. But what exactly should you expect?

(This applies to English student finance and, of course, could be different in other countries)

When you get paid:

Your loan comes in three parts. The first part will be paid within the first few weeks of starting university. Nothing gets paid until your enrolment on your course, when the university confirms to student finance that you are at university. It can take a couple of weeks, but the first instalment of the loan and grant comes through then.

The second instalment comes at the beginning of January, the beginning of the second term at university, so long as your still on your course, of course, and the third instalment comes at the beginning of April.

Loan vs grant:

Your maintenance loan and your maintenance grant come through at the same time. The amount of grant and loan depend on how much your house hold earns and, really, the only difference between the two is that the maintenance loan will be added to the overall loan you will have to pay back (someday, providing you earn over a certain amount), but the maintenance grant will never have to be paid back (unless you drop out of your course, but that’s another matter).

How do I pay the university?

You don’t.

Well, if you’re getting student finance to pay your tuition fees, you don’t. If you’re not, then you need to seek out advice from you university.

If student finance is paying your tuition fees, the money does not go into your bank. Not for a second. Student finance pay it straight to your university. You don’t need to worry about it at all.

Is it enough to live on?

This depends on how much you receive, and whether you will get any grants or bursaries from your university. For me, if was plenty enough to live on but a flat mate of mine didn’t even get enough to cover his accommodation (and we were in the cheapest halls of residence the university offered).

Things I didn’t expect when I moved into halls

There were definitely some things I didn’t expect when I moved into university halls. I had been to visit one of the many halls of residence Southampton university offered (but not the one I ended up placed in), but there were still some things that were unexpected.

(Of course, this is in no way speaking for all halls in all the world. This may be very specific to Montefiore House, or it may be more typical across the country, but it is all I can go on).

The walls were so thin: Maybe I should have expected this, but the walls were pretty thin. Thin enough so that I could hear a not overly loud conversation in the hallway as if it was happening in my room.

How messy the kitchen would get: Again, this should probably have been expected. The accommodation came with a cleaner. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays a cleaner would come in to flat to clean the kitchen, hallways, and bathrooms (he was a very nice man, even if he didn’t speak much). And yet, somehow, the kitchen managed to get to such a level that someone had to come into the flat (whilst I was out) and call a meeting to tell everyone how disgusting it was. Things improved from then, but it still wasn’t great.

The noise: I remember talking in September or October about how beautiful halls was. Outside I could hear someone playing jazz music. There were birds singing and, every once in a while, a train would go past. By the end of my stay in halls, that train would drive me insane. Every once in a while turned into every five minutes, the traffic wasn’t bad (there wasn’t much) but we were on the UniLink bus route and the queue could be noisy at times (especially on a Friday and Saturday night, when all the students went out). The fire alarm every Wednesday. The flat mate that insisted on playing music wherever he went… It was a noisy place to be. And that can be a good thing. And that can be a bad thing.

Internet: A lot of universities’ WIFI is “eduroam”. Which can be brilliant in that you can connect to any eduroam network in the world. So, when I went to my interview at my next university, I could connect to their WIFI. And, if my friend from Norway ever wanted to visit me, she could connect to my WIFI. It was also (unsurprisingly) very bad. Again, this was probably something that shouldn’t have surprised me, but did.

The friends: I made some amazing friends when I was at uni. On my course, in my societies, and from my flat. The people I shared a flat with were strangers, but they’re people I was going to have to at least get along with. And I did. And I did not expect to make as many good, reliable friends as I did. So no, it’s not all bad. Definitely not.

Dropping Out Experience

University can be a stressful time. Moving away from home, becoming independent, starting courses you may not have experienced before. For some people, university is right. Others find that either their chosen university, their chosen course, or university life in general isn’t for them, and decide to quit.

I chose to drop out of my course at the end of February, and found very little information on doing so, so here’s my experience.

Firstly, make sure what you’re doing is the right thing. Talk to your tutor about your options, what you plan on doing next year, and if the university can do anything to help. If you find that you’re struggling to settle at university, there may be resources from your student union to help you. If you’re struggling on the course, the department may have routes you can take instead of dropping out. Dropping out is often final, and you don’t want to be changing your mind two weeks later and realising you made the wrong decision. I’d been talking to my tutor about dropping out since the Christmas break, and we’d gone through my options.

Make sure you know what you’re doing next year. If you’re applying for another university, remember to get your application in before the deadline (some point in January). If you’re not, be prepared with job applications or other training opportunities. Research as much as you did when applying to university. You don’t want to be stuck somewhere even worse.

Student Finance

Student finance is a mystical organisation in which even the student advice centre at my university didn’t know much about. Experiences change from case to case.

Most importantly, if you’re applying for a different university or course for September, remember the student finance (in England at least) will only give you a loan for the duration of your course plus one year. For example, I’m starting a three year course in September, so student finance will only give (lend) me four years’ worth of money. This will include my current year (the one I’ve dropped out of). Because I was only in first year when I dropped out, it shouldn’t be much of an issue for me. It will mean I won’t be able to take a resit year if I need to (or I’ll have to fund it myself in some other way), but that’s it. If I was in second year when I dropped out, however, I would still only get the four years of finance, the two years at my first university and then only two years at my second, and I would have to fund the third year myself. You shouldn’t stay on a course you hate just because of money, but it’s worth bearing in mind.

Alright, paying back your student loan. This is what varies from case to case. I quit midway through the second instalment of my loan. Student finance (supposedly) calculated what portion of my loan (and grant) I wouldn’t have spent (working on a day by day bases and assuming I didn’t spend more at one point in a month than another) and then the amount they calculated needed to be paid back immediately. It is possible to set up a payment plan if you don’t have the money to hand, for whatever reason, but I was able to pay mine off all at once. I won’t receive the third instalment of my loan, so that’s nothing to worry about.

The amount of loan that has covered when I was at university (the amount I didn’t have to immediately pay back) will go onto my student debt which I’ll start paying back after I start earning over £21,000 and is nothing to worry about. The grant that helped cover the cost of being at university will not have to be paid back.

If you get a grant from your university, check with the student advice centre there to see if you will have to pay that back. I didn’t, but I’ve no experience at other universities and you have to check.

The process of dropping out varies from university to university, but it always starts with talking to your tutor. It’s recommended you talk to the advice centre (which will really help, even if you don’t think it will). For me, I had to fill in a form, get my tutor to sign it, and then hand it in. That was that.

Check with your accommodation what their stance is. I was given a week after it was registered that I quit to get out of my halls of residence. Check with them if you will get any money back if you pay in advance too. It might help pay back anything you have to immediately pay back to student finance.

I hope this helps anybody thinking of quitting. If you are, remember that this doesn’t make you a failure. It’s simply a change of direction, and is nothing to be ashamed of.