A little more about the course..

Education Studies is a great all round teaching course and for people like me, who know they want to go into teaching but don't know whether they want to teach young children or older children, it opens up brilliant opportunities to figure out and decide what career it is you want to go into.
Personally, I always thought I wanted to teach young children, of the reception/year one age, however, after being on Education Studies for the past seven months I have changed my mind and now want to go into year 6 or year 7 teaching as I feel this would be more suited to me.

Some people will be wondering if we get to go on placements, and then answer is YES, but not in your first year. Which I was quite disappointed about but I am excited to go into my second year this September knowing I get the chance to go into settings and get a real feel for what it is exactly that I want to do.

Education Studies in your first year is a broad range of subjects, with early years, understanding education, social constructions of childhood and inclusion through professional practice as your four subjects. However, these are not carried on throughout the three years of the course, for your second year you get to choose two of your own subjects and you have two core subjects, so as you can see this is where you begin to shape your own career in teaching and education.

I am so happy I chose to do education studies as I was still so unsure of what I wanted to do as a career, I didn't even know if teaching was the way to go but I've always loved teaching and thought "why not!".

Can't decide on a course?

For those of you wondering what the course actually entails, I am going to describe as best as I can the main points:
1. Understanding Education and Schooling is a subject that covers a wide range of education as a whole. The first assignment I did was to make a timeline about someone who went to school between a certain period of time, which was so interesting and allowed me to learn more about education in that particular period of time.
2. Social Constructions of Childhood covers mainly the history of education. This is also a very interesting subject as it teaches us about where education comes from and how it has evolved over time.

These first two subjects are the only two subjects we have exams for in our first year.

3. The Young Child in Education is a as it sounds really, it is only focused on early years education which is not exactly suited to me but allowed me to make a decision about where I wanted to focus my teaching career in.
4. Inclusion Through Professional Practice is the most difficult to get your head around at first. It looks at all different educational policies and also focuses on disability studies at points. I really enjoy this subject as a whole and the assessments are really suited to me. We had to do a poster presentation and an annotated bibliography to accompany this, and I have just handed in my critical essay for this module(which is not as suited to me as the presentation).

Good luck in whatever you decide!

So there's a quick insight into Education Studies as a whole. I know from experience, that looking at all for the education and teaching courses is a bit daunting and can confuse people(it did me!). I hope this blog post gives you a good idea into the course and helps you to make a decision about your university career!

Vibe Monday's!

So, I went out this Monday with a group of friends and as usual it ended up with me buying a takeaway...total waste of money but it always seems to happen!
As for student night's out here in Bedford, they are quite good! I've tried a Saturday night here before and it was nowhere near as busy as when all of us student's out on either a Monday or a Wednesday!

The morning after wasn't exactly the best...I have to admit I gave myself quite a headache this week haha! It's all good fun though..
I managed to drag myself out of bed for my lectures and seminars on Tuesday which is always ten times more difficult after I have been out the night before considering I have an extremely busy day on a Tuesday.

Moving on.. I think I have mastered how to make a curry now, I never used to make them before I came to university and now I am such a pro! I am getting quite sick of having them EVERY night though so now I'm living off of easter eggs...




I found out today that I have four weeks left until Easter which has made me really excited because that means I have five term weeks until I move home forever!
I can't remember if I've mentioned before that I am commuting to university next year instead of living here as it's not far from home and I will save a lot of money that way.
I also miss home a lot....that is my main reason! I'm glad I have had the 'uni experience' by living here for one year but I am so glad I have the option to move home now!

Megan.

February already?!

Hello everyone!

I can't believe it is February already, I need to get my head down and do these last assignments and preferably NOT leave them to the last minute this time! I think I am on track now and if I put my mind to it I should definitely be able to knuckle down and do these assignments in good time.
I only have two (yes.TWO!) assignments left which are due in just before we leave for Easter.
I am more focused on my exams which are in May of this year...I am getting quite stressed!
Exams aren't my favourite thing to do I have to say, I am not good under exam conditions :(

I was thinking in this post I could tell you all how I have dealt with exams in the past and what I'm going to try to do for my exams later on in the year:

1. Do things that chill me out when coming up to exam period, like listen to music or whatever floats your boat.
2. Don't over complicate things, I try not to listen to what my friends have revised on the day of the exam because if I haven't revised the same things I would seriously panic and therefore do worse in my exam because I'm so stressed.
3. Set myself a revision timetable, so 'on Monday 1 hour on Physics' or something similar, this gives me a plan and I can see what I'm supposed to do on each day, it also helps me to give each topic the same amount of revision time because otherwise I would get all confused and forget what I have revised enough of and what I actually need to revise.
4. Early nights! These are key when taking exams, there is absolutely no use in staying up all night revising because you'll be extra tired in the exam and if worst comes to worst fall asleep and sleep through the exam!
5. Eat breakfast. There is absolutely nothing worse than having to sit a 2/3 hour exam and your stomach rumbles half way through and then all you can think about it food. It takes your mind away from the exam and then you're left off topic and hungry!
6. 
   

I have been going home a lot recently for birthdays etc, and this is making me so excited for April when I get to go home for three weeks!!

Megan!

Assignments, assignments...oh and a presentation!

Hi Everyone, I hope you have all had a fantastic week!

I suppose I should start off by explaining the title of this blog...if you haven't already guessed I have been extremely busy these past couple of weeks and I am proud to say that I have FINISHED my two assignments that I have been working on.

The first one is a group presentation that we were assigned and this has been quite interesting to work on because I have been working with other people rather than sitting alone writing an essay which has been great! It is all set to be presented in our seminar time slot this Thursday so the nerves are definitely building up now. Fingers crossed everything goes to plan! My group and I are meeting tomorrow to make any last minute adjustments and make sure that everything works properly and our presentation isn't going to fail on the day. That would just be a disaster!

Feeling good! 

Secondly, I have been writing an essay discussing gender in education an how educational inequality persists. This has been quite interesting too actually because I have found a lot of knowledge from the reading around this topic and I have enjoyed writing the essay itself which is always a bonus!

Excited for the weekend!

I am very excited this week as I am going away for the weekend, which will be so nice as I have the weight of assignments off of my shoulders.

Another exciting thing that I have to tell you is that I filmed a short video last week for you all to watch, of me answering questions about my life at university and why I chose to do it. So I look forward to seeing that and I hope you all do too!

Have a great week!

Megan.

Books are SO expensive!!!

So, as most first years do I decided to buy every single book I was told I 'needed' before I started university, which was a mistake!

Take it from me, you definitely DO NOT need every single book you are advised to get. My biggest piece of advice is to wait until you get to university and see for yourself what books you need and also don't listen to everyone else because every person is different and one book may work for your friend but will be useless for you. Take your time and research the books that are really worth purchasing.

Also, one of my mistakes was buying books that are also available as eBooks for FREE. So I bought books for £30/£40 which I could've got for free.Yep, quite annoying.
Another thing is that if you end up going to the University of Bedfordshire, the library is the biggest library I've ever seen with every kind of book you could ask for, you don't really need to buy any books if you don't want because the library is such a huge source of information.

One good thing for me was that I got given a £300 gift card when I started my course for John Smith's bookshops which is used by a lot of universities and that meant I didn't spend hundreds of pounds of my own money, however some people aren't lucky enough to be given such a luxury and £300 is a lot of money to be spending on books that you can get access to for free!

I'm not saying don't buy any books they're all useless because they're certainly not useless, some are extremely useful and I wouldn't have passed any of my assignments if I hadn't opened up a book but I know students don't have hundreds to spend on books when they need money for food. So definitely wait until you get there and see what you have available to you in terms of vouchers, money off, libraries, online resources etc. There is so much put on a plate for students that is never used but could be the different of a first class degree to a second.

There are loads of offers for students like NUS cards which allow us money off in so many stores so it's definitely worth a search around for what is available for students and see what you can do to help yourself out.

If you find anything I already haven't then let me know ha!

Semester 2!

Well that's that then, back to uni and I am already well into semester 2!

I've been thrown into the deep end this term and have been preparing for my first two assignments already this week. I have a PowerPoint presentation coming up at the end of January which I am really looking forward to as I love designing things and being creative rather than just writing essays all the time!
So I can tell this term is going to be a whole lot easier than my previous one, and that is definitely due to the fact that I am no long a 'newbie'. I feel so much more comfortable around uni now, I know where everything(well most things) are in terms of my lecture/seminar rooms which is great because I no longer get lost around campus, ha!

After having a long break over Christmas I was slightly worried that I wouldn't be able to get myself motivated into university life again because I've been so used to home comforts but, it's really not been that bad, so I am a very happy student!

I think a huge part of my happier self is down to moving flats. I'm no longer surrounded by horrible people and I just feel so much more at ease and very happy which is how I thought I was always going to feel after I had settled after the first few weeks of moving in. I guess I got bad luck, someones gotta have it I guess!
Everything's worked in my favor now anyway which is always a bonus!

It's coming to the stage now that everyone is choosing their living accommodation for next year, and I've been thinking long and hard about this decision and have come the the conclusion that I am going to commute from home for my next 2 or 3 years at university, not because I'm not enjoying myself but because I will save a lot of money! Now the decision is to do so by car or train...

I think if I choose train I'll get frustrated with having to time it right with the uni bus and it will also waste a lot of time rather than being able to just roll out of bed and go which to be honest sounds a lot nicer and easier to me.

My little car!

Megan.

CHRISTMAS!

Hello Everyone!


I guess I should start this post with saying a big Merry Christmas to you all!

Moving on...I am currently doing my Christmas reading for my upcoming modules in January along with buying and wrapping a lot of Christmas presents..haven't done too bad on a student budget I have to say!

One of the things I have learnt this semester is that keeping up to date on my reading set by my tutors each week is such a great way to ensure that when it comes to writing my assignments I am not stuck for things to write..which was the main problem I had when writing my first ever university assignment...it was difficult at times! Although, saying that I have had my first essay grade back which was actually for this particular assignment and I got a C+, which I was quite happy with. Alongside my A- for my presentation grade I have had a great start to my university career.

I am looking forward to getting back into my studies in January and I have high hopes for a good end to my first year at university. Aiming high!

Hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

See you in 2014!

End of Semester 1!

Hi Guys,

So as you can tell by the title of this blog post, I have reached the end of my first ever semester at university and I can tell you it has been a great start! I have finished all four of my first assignments which I have to say, is such a great feeling!

It's definitely been a big change moving to university and I may have struggled at the start, but I am so thankful for my place here and my course is brilliant! It is safe to say that I have made a good decision here, and I am looking forward to next semester and even the assignments...as strange as it sounds it is such a good feeling handing an assignment in and after getting my grades back I am extremely happy with myself!
One thing I have learned is that I CANNOT leave my assignments till the last minute anymore and I ALWAYS have to plan my time, because trust me, I tried and it was so stressful I would never want to do it again. I am so thankful for all of the 'how to' guides I have been given because I am not the most organised person in the world I have to admit, they are lifesavers!

The essay's are not that scary once you get hold of the hang of things, they are actually really fun to write because you get to have your own opinion more so than at school..(or is that just me?)!

Well, I guess I will leave it here for this week. Hope you all gathered my excitement in finishing my assignments in this post and enjoyed reading!

My First Blog Post

Hello everyone!

I'm Megan and I am a first year at the University of Bedfordshire. I'm nearing the end of my first ever semester at university and I have to say it's been a bit of a roller coaster ride! From being a complete newbie in the first two weeks of freshers to really getting to know the university as a whole and my course. 

Assignment 1 in progess

I chose to study Education Studies at The University of Bedfordshire for two main reasons:
1. I want to become a teacher, I'm not sure what I want to specialise in yet but I'll hopefully come to that over the three years.
2.  It's quite close to home and I am definitely a home girl!

So, it has no doubt about it been a rocky start at university, after freshers ended it felt as though I was bombarded with work which made me panic slightly, however I have already handed in two out of my four first assignments and I am feeling very proud of myself! I can't say starting university has been easy because it hasn't, it was a huge change to my life but I just got on with it really and I am so glad I chose The University of Bedfordshire. 

I've always known that I wanted to study a degree involving education for the obvious reason that I have always wanted to become a teacher. I wasn't entirely sure whether to choose Primary Education as a whole but after lots of deliberating I decided on Education Studies...obviously! I do not regret my choice at all because I am definitely beginning to discover the options that will be available to me when I graduate and they are extremely exciting. 


Even though I had a rocky start, I definitely think that university is the right decision for me and I am excited about learning new things on my course in the next semester. So, hopefully lot's of interesting posts to follow!