Summer update!

So, I haven't really got much 'degree' related to post about this week, so I thought I would tell you all about how my summer is going... which is very well!

The one great thing about being a student at university is the LONG summer..

So:

• I've been on holiday to Spain which was amazing but a week is soooo not long enough!
• I have managed to bag myself two new jobs and I have been able to leave my old one which is great because I was not enjoying it anymore.
• It's my birthday this month..19th which I suppose is quite a boring birthday but I have loads planned, not thing necessarily to do with my birthday, some obviously, but I just have good plans in general at the moment.
• I may be planning a last minute holiday..maybe if I can afford it...I guess student shouldn't go on holiday twice a year should they...save save save! 
• I'm getting bored sometimes...long summers are good but not so good when everyone else is still at work/school.

One thing I can tell you all about is that I keep getting notifications about resits in the summer which I don't have to worry about but it's quite interesting because I can tell you all what it would be like if you did have to resit and whether you'd feel all alone because it's the summer and maybe the lecturers don't work in the summer....

WELL...
that's definitely not the case. The resit process is extremely good, lecturers have scheduled dates that they will be available throughout the summer so that students can meet with them and have revision classes which I think is really good, the tutors really care about their students and want them to do well so they give up some of their summers to help and guide those who didn't quite meet the requirements to go through to their second years but are so determined still to achieve their degrees.

There are notifications all the time on Breo about what to revise, the exam questions have been put up and it just seems like they are getting all the help they can get which is really reassuring to me and hopefully will be to all of you guys as well.

So, don't panic you wont be alone if you don't quite make it through.

I hope all of your summers are going well..

BYE! 

What's right for me?

After getting my results and knowing that I am going through to my second year of university I have been thinking a lot about my future career. Back when I chose my UCAS choices and got my acceptance letter through for Education Studies at the University of Bedfordshire a year seemed a long time and now... that year is up!

So, I am kind of weighing up my options at the moment and one of those BIG choices is whether to specialise in Primary or Secondary education. This has always been so unclear in my mind for a number of reasons..

1. I work so well with young children from my past experiences at Primary schools, however I have never had work experience at a secondary school so perhaps I should look into gaining myself a bit more experience in secondary education before I make that decision.
2. I like the idea of specialising in one subject and teaching it in many different ways and forms to secondary ages.. I think this would be so interesting especially because I would get to teach my favourite subject and wouldn't have to worry about those I don't like so much. I love the idea of teaching English/media studies which are similar subjects.

I have a while to decide.. well really I don't have to decide until I study my PGCE after my degree however I would like to have an idea of what I am going to be doing in the near future before then. 

DECISIONS DECISIONS DECISIONS!!!

I thought this picture was extremely fitting for this post, so I shall leave you all with this.. until next time!

Through to second year!

Hello there!

So I got some extremely exciting and weightlifting news yesterday....

I PASSED MY FIRST YEAR!!!

I got the results back for my two exams, they were average results , which means I have now passed all four of my modules for my first year of university and I can continue into second year. 

I am so thankful I passed, realistically I think I probably could have done better than I have during my first year, although I'm not disappointed with my results I know if I had been just that bit more focused I would have done better. Not that it matters overall at the end of my degree. First year only counts to get into second year and has no input into the score of my full degree. I think this may have been a factor in why I decided to rush a couple of assignments that were due in for the next day and go out when I had finished. 

I'm not saying I was a party animal or anything...cause I am so not one of those...I just probably could have planned my time better so that I didn't have to decide whether to go out or finish my assignment. 

However, saying all of this, I do think that freshers should allow themselves to have the 'fresher experience', all be it I decided not to go crazy and get drunk every single night but I certainly allowed myself to go out and have a good time when I felt like it. I was never the person that went out even if I didn't feel like I wanted to. University for me was never and is never going to be about the party. My mindset is that I'm there to get my degree and achieve the career that I desire, but there's nothing wrong with a night out every week or two(that is part of being a fresher at the end of the day). 

Evidence of a good fresher night out!

I am now waiting for the conformation of whether I get the choices I picked for next year and fingers crossed I do because passing my first year has given me such a buzz about my second year. I am so ready to knuckle down and get my head stuck into some placements at some schools. 

This year has gone so quickly in some ways but in others it has dragged on, it dragged because I had to move flats as my first flat mates were all girls and I am sure you all know how nasty girls can get especially if you don't 'fit' into their crowd, and in others it flew by because after moving flats I had a much better experience living at uni.

It's all a learning curve is all I can say! 

Making choices!

Hi everyone!

Seeing as it's the time of the year that A-Level students are sitting their all-important exams that decide whether you'll be getting into your favourite uni, your second choice or going through clearing (preferably not this option), I thought I would dedicate this blog post to narrowing down my UCAS choices front five to just two...and as you who have already done so know this is extremely difficult for a person like myself who picked several courses at the same university.



I say it's hard to make a decision if you're someone like myself, however, at least I was one hundred percent sure on the university I wanted to go to rather than having to choose between unis, yet, I had to choose between courses. I knew from about the end of year 12 which is the first year of sixth form, that I wanted to take the teaching route for my career, and therefore this meant that I had to apply for universities on UCAS, because let's face it there's a degree for everything nowadays, in fact it's more common to have a degree than to not in this era! So I went to look at some universities close to home because I knew I wanted to be closer rather than miles away from home. I ended up loving the university of Bedfordshire's Bedford campus which is where all teaching courses take place and I also liked the look of Northampton, but not as much as Bedford. So, I went ahead and applied for two courses at the university of Northampton and three at the university of Bedfordshire. When it came to deciding on my final two choices I was STUCK. I had applied for the course 'Education Studies' at both Bedford and Northampton but I had also applied for Early Years and the Young Child in Education at Bedfordshire as well, which weren't the courses I wanted to do. I had to decide on the course or the university and eventually I decided on the course and put Bedfordshire as my first choice and Northampton for my insurance, both for the course I was most interested in: 'Education Studies'.

I am SO glad I decided to pick the course over the university itself because at the end of the day the course is what we are all there for. Even though, I got my first choice I would have been happy studying the same course at a different university as I knew it was the right degree for me and I've definitely made the right decision because I LOVE my course!

Of course you've got to like the university you're going to be studying at otherwise your experience will not be great, you should pick universities and courses to suit you and you alone, it's not anyone else's decision but yours. My main piece of advice would be to go to LOTS of open days even to universities you're not overly keen on; you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and you may well have a completely different view of that university once you have seen it for yourself. Oh, and don't pick a uni just because your friend is, you can stay in touch with that friend and, trust me, you'll meet plenty new ones!

Trust your instinct and go for the course and university that you are completely sold on, good luck in your exams!!

Exam advice!

I've decided to write this post to try and give you all some advice on how to prepare yourself for you exams, and what to expect. I think this is important for you all to know because I went into one of my exams this week thinking I knew everything about the topics that were going to come up and ended up panicking slightly when the question wasn't as straight forward as I'd expected it to be.

First of all, and this is the ONE piece of advice I stress you all to take in if you take in at least one thing from this post, and it's to expect the unexpected. The only problem I found when I opened up that question paper was that the question was so difficult to understand and I struggled to read between the lines as to what it wanted me to answer. Luckily, when I came out of the exam I spoke to some friends and it seems as though we all got the same thing from the question and therefore wrote about similar things, but in all honesty I was not one hundred percent sure when writing it that I had chosen the right theories and topics to discuss. 

So here's my advice and tips for you all:

- read the question, and I know what you're all going to think, everyone tells you this and it's obvious, but trust me I panicked and confused myself even more. Everyone was expecting that a significant name of a theory would be written within the question and it turns out it wasn't and therefore we all worried ourselves. What the question actually wanted from us was to think outside the box a little bit and understand what theory the question was actually talking about. 

- plan your time, this is vital. This particular piece of advice was a godsend to me when I was writing my exam answers. As soon as I opened my exam papers and read over the questions until I understood them completely(or as much as I possibly could), I then wrote down every last piece of information that I knew about the topic in question and then went from there and began to write whichever question I had decided to write first. 

-re-read your answer as you write, most people tel you to read over your answer at the end of your exam, however I think it is a much more beneficial idea to read as you write. I think this solves a lot of babbling and going off of topic which is unfixable when you have five minutes left of your exam. 

So, I hope this post gives you all some confidence in how to prepare and plan yourselves for your exams now and in the future, I will certainly be sticking to these rules from now on.