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It’s approaching two years since I left university, and apart from my student overdraft and a ton of debt, I don’t really feel like I gained a lot from going to uni. First things first, I didn’t even want to go to university, at the time of applying to go to university at college, I didn’t want to do it. I’ve never been particularly academic, my anxiety has often ruined my chances of doing well in most things. Exams are my worst nightmare, group work is like hell on earth and don’t even get me started on presentations. In college, I did a course in Media which I did love, the analysing of the films, adverts and writing about them in great depth but the creation side of film didn’t appeal to me. I don’t have confidence in myself to be able to create any content alone, and as stated above, group work isn’t something I enjoy. So when it came to the creation side, I was scared to share my ideas, therefore, was just pushed to the side. I managed to come out of college with distinction, distinction and merit. Which I was beyond made up with, but when it came to deciding what to do after college my head started to pound. The idea of getting myself a full-time job straight out of college scared me, but as did university. Being stuck into film creation for a further 3 years wasn’t something I wanted to do. But everyone else was going to university and I was confused.
The truth was, I loved writing and wanted to progress further with that, but I didn’t know where to start. I decided to approach my tutors for some advice. Who advised me to go on to do a foundation degree which was held at the college before progressing on to the university campus. This was like taking a breath of fresh air, I got to stay at the college, with the lecturers I had gotten to know and my tutor even told me I could come away from the production side of things. A few weeks into the course, I realised I had made a mistake. My heart wasn’t in the course and wanted to leave. I told my tutor I had made this decision, and he said he knows I’ll be great on the course if I just carry on, I was still hesitant. He pointed out to me, that all of the universities are in full swing now and I would need to wait until the following year to apply, which again scared the life out of me. I decided to push through and keep going with the course. As I had done my first year, it was time for the second year. I had no idea that you could change course after your first year as you get 4 years of finance through SFE. But once, I’d spoken to someone who advised me of this, it was 3 weeks into the course, which counted as using the finance and qualify for the rest, I’d have to fund my own first year. Unfortunately, my Sainsburys wage wouldn’t cut the thousands needed upfront. As I didn’t want to waste any more money, I decided to see it out.
As I had done a foundation year, I still had to do the additional year at university, to make this a full degree, which I decided to go for. Sadly, it made me resent my college even more and wishing if I was going to do the degree that I had just done it all from the university to start with. As the facilities were better and I feel like I would have been able to grow my confidence more. Almost 2 years later, the only reason I like my degree is that it looks good on my CV and I gained a little bit of further knowledge into cameras and how to write a script which we learnt early on in the course.
I wish I could say throughout it all, at least I made some good friends but I can’t even really say that. With moving around so much, I missed out on making friends as people had already made friends in their freshers year. However, I do live to tell the tale, and want to let all of you guys know who are applying for uni, or are considering university you don’t have to apply. You can take a year out, or wait for years to come or not even go to university at all. Plus if your course doesn’t seem compatible with you, it’s ok to drop out and not have a plan B. Sometimes life throws us curveballs and we just have to ride them and hope for the best. I would love to know in the comments if you regret going to university and whether you have a job based around what your degree.
