My University Experience!

I have just finished my final year at university and I can't believe its all over, but I have really enjoyed it and thought I would share my experience and a few things that I have learnt that helped me along the way.

I'll start right back at the beginning, the A-Levels I did were, Psychology, Sociology, Law and History as just an AS subject. So while I was thinking about applying to uni I knew that I wanted to do either Psychology, Sociology and Law. Although Law is the subject that I got the highest grade in, there wasn't really much in it and so I chose my university subject based on what I thought I would enjoy the most and based on what sort of work I wanted to go into once I finally finished my degree. In the end I chose a BSc in Psychology with Sociology, with the University of East Anglia and City College Norwich.

The one thing I found while applying for university while I was at college was that I feel people get too hung up on University League Tables, Unless you are going to be a high flyer  in a top Law firm or within your field, I don't think it really matters, just go for a university that you like and in a city you like because although 3 years goes fast you've still got to live there while your attending that university. 

I chose UEA with City College Norwich because I didn't want to move away for uni, I also wanted to attend uni but come out with as little debt as possible, I know for some people this isn't a big factor, and its not a major factor for me, it's just something I decided and my tuition fees were only £6000 a year compared to the average of around £8500-£9000. Norwich is also a lovely city, and a place that I know and am comfortable in with it being my nearest city.


Now for the actual university experience..

I was lucky with my degree that it was only 2 full days a week for first and second year, and then one day for third year, although I only attended for those days, I still had a huge amount of work to do on other days, because my course was consolidated into 2 days it meant that I could work alongside my degree, for first and second year I worked full time along side it, but for third year I only worked part time because the workload was too much to work full time swell. It is true when people say third year really is a step up from first and second year, the modules are a lot harder, and the dissertation, which is fine once you get going, its just the getting going which is the hard part.

Because my degree was with City College Norwich and UEA my campus was in the city centre, which is a lot closer to home for me and parking wasn't really a problem either because there is a car park just down the road.

All people deal with assignments in different ways, some people like to be well organised and do an assignment over a week or so, others like to do it in a day or even the night before a deadline, i'm more of the latter, and other people on my course always said 'oh I don't know how you do that' but for me it's just the way I work, I always got good result marks and so for me it worked. Don't ever let people stress you out with the way you work, if it works for you then it works.

Your dissertation is a big part of final year, but try not to get too hung up for it, pick a subject you are super interested in, because trust me you will get bored otherwise, before you pick your topic, make sure that there is a lot of contemporary research on it, otherwise you will struggle to actually write it! The further tip of a dissertation is just start writing, you can always get rid of it later, but if you spend days trying to figure out how to start it then it is a waste of time, I did this, and it wasted so much of my time which could have been used finding relevant research. Also, a final tip of a dissertation which I found so useful, is to try and split it into mini essays, that way you only have to deal with a little bit at a time and you won't get stressed out about the word count.


Overall, I love my university experience, I don't regret the university I chose, I ended up with a 2:1 BSc in Psychology with Sociology (Hons)!


Is there any tips you have about university, or anything to share about your experience?


H x