My university experience
My university experience is a little different to most as I never lived on campus or with other students, but I still think this might be helpful to some of you, especially if you've just started university or if you're getting ready to go next year. I just want to start off by saying that everyone will have different accounts of university, but I think that most of us will agree that it isn't a free ride, it's not easy, and it's not all about drinking like the media makes it out to be - it's hard work, but my opinion is that it's worth it.
I studied Psychology with Clinical Psychology which basically meant that I spent 80% of my time with everyone else and about 20% doing clinical psychology modules. Those classes were my favourite as I was lucky enough to have fantastic lecturers who were really passionate about their work. My course was made up of lectures, seminars, and group work; my lectures were made up of around 200 people and mostly involved a lecturer stood at the front talking for 1-3 hours with a powerpoint presentation, seminars were smaller groups of around 20 people and usually involved discussions about journal articles to support lectures, and group work was generally related to research.
My first year is a bit of a blur now. I was excited to be there and to finally be doing this thing called a degree, but it was also quite overwhelming. In one of my first statistics lectures I remember looking around and thinking that I was so out of my depth; I eventually realised that everyone else felt just as overwhelmed as I did at times, but to start with I did feel a bit alone. I was also alone a lot of the time in a literal sense as people formed friendship groups really quickly in the first year and as I didn't live on campus it was harder to get to know people on the course. I didn't mind too much because a lot of socialising revolved around nights out to start with and I've never really been into it, plus it gave me the chance to become a lot more independent and comfortable to do things by myself. Lots of people worry that commuting will make it harder for them to make friends at university, and in some ways it's true, but it depends on different things. If you aren't the kind of person who can just walk up to people and start talking, or if you'd like to be a part of nights out, then I'd suggest staying on campus to start with. However, there's no guarantee that you're going to get along with people in your flat. Almost everyone will tell you to stay on campus and say that it's a fundamental part of the student experience, but the truth is that there are pros and cons to living there and living away, so you need to go with what you're most comfortable with.
Interesting story. In first year statistics was my worst, most hated module, but by second year it turned into one of my best. I still don't understand quite how it happened and I think it's mostly down to the help of one of my friends, but it just goes to show that persistence and a bit of belief in yourself can go a long way. In second year I also signed up to do something called the Lincoln Award, which was designed to help improve employability skills. Part of it included volunteering and so I signed up to be a statistics mentor for first year students (I had an amazing research skills lecturer who advertised the post by saying that teaching others can help you to develop your own understanding of the subject more, which turned out to be true). I'd also developed a bit of confidence since being a fresher and felt more comfortable talking to people, so I ended up making a few friends, and generally got to know more people on the course. You get a lot of opportunities to meet people at university so you should never be worried about not making friends, even if it doesn't happen straight away. I think second year was my busiest in terms of contact hours - I only had about 6 hours of lectures to start with which jumped up to about 10 or 12 in second year, which still wasn't a lot, but I was also doing more work outside of that. Second year was also the first time that we'd conducted our own research from start to finish as a group, and I was really lucky to be placed with some really smart, switched-on people. At school I used to hate group work as you'd always end up having to do most of the work yourself, but at university more people tended to care and I actually really enjoyed my time with our research group.
I'm not sure what happened in third year but I just didn't enjoy it as much. My grades plateaued and it seemed like no matter how much effort I put into a paper I would always get the same mark. I've started to consider it in a different way since because at least it showed that I could be consistent, and in third year I wouldn't call that a bad thing, but at the time it did shake my confidence a little bit. In my final year I had less contact hours than ever because one of our modules was our dissertation, which was entirely done in our own time. Now that was an experience and a half! By this point I was more than happy to work independently and I knew exactly what I had to do (I made a folder just for my dissertation full of lists of things that I had to do, background research, ideas, that sort of thing) but the actual writing process was a nightmare. I've had issues in getting essays started before but this was something else! The pressure of wanting to get it just right caused writers block which took a good couple of months to ease off, and by then I was panicking about running out of time, so I was in an almost constant state of stress for a long time. I think our year group collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the submission day came around and we could just forget about it for a little while. It did seem worth it at the end though when it was printed and bound.
Graduation was a really lovely way to finish things off, celebrate everyone's achievements, and say goodbye. I'm not sure what I was expecting to get out of university and in some ways it fell short - a lot of people say that those years are the best of their lives and I didn't really see it that way - but in others I can really see how I've changed and grown because of it. University was definitely worthwhile for me!
I studied Psychology with Clinical Psychology which basically meant that I spent 80% of my time with everyone else and about 20% doing clinical psychology modules. Those classes were my favourite as I was lucky enough to have fantastic lecturers who were really passionate about their work. My course was made up of lectures, seminars, and group work; my lectures were made up of around 200 people and mostly involved a lecturer stood at the front talking for 1-3 hours with a powerpoint presentation, seminars were smaller groups of around 20 people and usually involved discussions about journal articles to support lectures, and group work was generally related to research.
My first year is a bit of a blur now. I was excited to be there and to finally be doing this thing called a degree, but it was also quite overwhelming. In one of my first statistics lectures I remember looking around and thinking that I was so out of my depth; I eventually realised that everyone else felt just as overwhelmed as I did at times, but to start with I did feel a bit alone. I was also alone a lot of the time in a literal sense as people formed friendship groups really quickly in the first year and as I didn't live on campus it was harder to get to know people on the course. I didn't mind too much because a lot of socialising revolved around nights out to start with and I've never really been into it, plus it gave me the chance to become a lot more independent and comfortable to do things by myself. Lots of people worry that commuting will make it harder for them to make friends at university, and in some ways it's true, but it depends on different things. If you aren't the kind of person who can just walk up to people and start talking, or if you'd like to be a part of nights out, then I'd suggest staying on campus to start with. However, there's no guarantee that you're going to get along with people in your flat. Almost everyone will tell you to stay on campus and say that it's a fundamental part of the student experience, but the truth is that there are pros and cons to living there and living away, so you need to go with what you're most comfortable with.
Interesting story. In first year statistics was my worst, most hated module, but by second year it turned into one of my best. I still don't understand quite how it happened and I think it's mostly down to the help of one of my friends, but it just goes to show that persistence and a bit of belief in yourself can go a long way. In second year I also signed up to do something called the Lincoln Award, which was designed to help improve employability skills. Part of it included volunteering and so I signed up to be a statistics mentor for first year students (I had an amazing research skills lecturer who advertised the post by saying that teaching others can help you to develop your own understanding of the subject more, which turned out to be true). I'd also developed a bit of confidence since being a fresher and felt more comfortable talking to people, so I ended up making a few friends, and generally got to know more people on the course. You get a lot of opportunities to meet people at university so you should never be worried about not making friends, even if it doesn't happen straight away. I think second year was my busiest in terms of contact hours - I only had about 6 hours of lectures to start with which jumped up to about 10 or 12 in second year, which still wasn't a lot, but I was also doing more work outside of that. Second year was also the first time that we'd conducted our own research from start to finish as a group, and I was really lucky to be placed with some really smart, switched-on people. At school I used to hate group work as you'd always end up having to do most of the work yourself, but at university more people tended to care and I actually really enjoyed my time with our research group.
I'm not sure what happened in third year but I just didn't enjoy it as much. My grades plateaued and it seemed like no matter how much effort I put into a paper I would always get the same mark. I've started to consider it in a different way since because at least it showed that I could be consistent, and in third year I wouldn't call that a bad thing, but at the time it did shake my confidence a little bit. In my final year I had less contact hours than ever because one of our modules was our dissertation, which was entirely done in our own time. Now that was an experience and a half! By this point I was more than happy to work independently and I knew exactly what I had to do (I made a folder just for my dissertation full of lists of things that I had to do, background research, ideas, that sort of thing) but the actual writing process was a nightmare. I've had issues in getting essays started before but this was something else! The pressure of wanting to get it just right caused writers block which took a good couple of months to ease off, and by then I was panicking about running out of time, so I was in an almost constant state of stress for a long time. I think our year group collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the submission day came around and we could just forget about it for a little while. It did seem worth it at the end though when it was printed and bound.
Graduation was a really lovely way to finish things off, celebrate everyone's achievements, and say goodbye. I'm not sure what I was expecting to get out of university and in some ways it fell short - a lot of people say that those years are the best of their lives and I didn't really see it that way - but in others I can really see how I've changed and grown because of it. University was definitely worthwhile for me!
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