Open Days

Hi everyone, hope you are all well and have had a good week!

This weeks post is going to be all about university open days, the benefits, my experience of open days, tips about where you can find out about selecting a university and all that fun stuff!

Going to as many open days as possible is going to give you the absolute best variety of universities to choose from, I think it is absolutely vital that you visit your potential university before putting it as one of your choices and heading off in September. There would be nothing worse than turning up to a uni that you're going to be living at for 3 to 4 years and finding it's nothing like the pictures because everything is different and pictures can lie, or even realising that it's not everything you wanted in a university you just chose it because you were rushing and didn't visit any open days. There are no negatives to going to several open days, only positives. You need to see your potential university for a number of reasons:

• You have to live there for 3 years
• You are paying a lot of money to attend university 
• It needs to suit all of your needs e.g. close to home/far from home
• It could look completely different to the pictures
• Just because your friends like it doesn't mean you will, do not take someone else's opinion
• You need to work out the halls you want to move into as there are different options. 
• Is there any part time work you could sign up for
• Does it have all the facilities you require for both leisure and studies e.g. a gym for leisure and enough computers for studying 
• Are the lecturers people you could see yourself getting along with
• Does the course offer everything you want it to 

The list is endless really, but there's a few vital things that you need to consider. 

My experience of looking round universities is quite minimal. I was very unsure of what I wanted the one thing I knew was that I wasn't ready to be miles and miles away from home I wanted to be close enough that I could commute for my second year if I wanted but I needed to be far enough away to experience freshers properly and living in halls of residence. I picked Bedfordshire and another university however I didn't actually look around the other one I picked which was why I was so happy when I found out I had got into Bedford. I was so unsure of the other university as I had seen Bedford and it fitted every one of my needs and I didn't want to go to an unknown university and have regretted my decision. I think this is why I believe open days are absolutely necessary I should have visited the other university to make sure it was right to put down as one of my options but I didn't which was a mistake because I'd have been so nervous if I hadn't gotten into Bedfordshire.

Tips on where you can find out more about university selection and open are available on UCAS or even the universities websites themselves. My advice would be to scour these websites and find the ones that seems like they would suit you the best, then apply for some open days and get a real feel for the universities, your choices could change dramatically when you actually visit the universities themselves. 

Just please do not apply for anything before seeing and looking round it. Make sure everything suits you before making any drastic decisions. 

The University of Bedfordshire offers open days throughout the year and this is what they include on the day: 

An open day includes the following activities

• Welcome talk and introduction to the University of Bedfordshire
• Course session with academics from the course you're interested in
• Tours of our campus facilities and student accommodation
• Talks on topics including: student finance, application and personal statements and student life
• Opportunities to speak to academics, support services and current students

Thanks for reading, I hope this was helpful. 

Until next time, 

M

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. 

Placements

Ok, so one of the major things I am going to be doing in second year which is different to my first is that I am going to be going on placements. I am not sure on how many or where, or many of the details actually, all I know is that I am definitely going to be doing one... which is exciting!

I can give you all an insight into why placements are so important and how to get yourself one as I have already done two placements before starting university.

I did both of them at my Primary school which is a small village school and I am glad I chose that school because I feel as though I have eased my way into learning the ways of schools without overwhelming myself by going to a huge school.
So, to get my placement I actually rang up and made an appointment to see the head who then was extremely helpful and scheduled my experience around my timetable, as I was at sixth form at the time. So, we worked out that I would do every Monday until I needed to knuckle down and revise for my A-Level exams.

It is SO important to get some experience behind yourselves not only in teaching but if you;re studying nursing, any kind of degree really, employers love experience and voluntary is a good sign that you're passionate and willing to work hard to get where you want to be.

I would say these are the best tips(that I can come up with anyway) on how to get yourself a placement;

1. Write a letter to the school to initiate your interest in doing some work experience there
2. Ring the school and ask to schedule an appointment with the head, or whoever deals with helpers coming in
3. Research the school before you go into meet who ever they have said you should meet so that you give yourself an advantage and get some background knowledge on the school and its history and goals/aims
4. Dress appropriately 
5. Be able to start immediately and make yourself as available as possible(but do not put placement before your studies!)
6. Make sure you know the name of the person you are meeting with
7. Look interested and on the ball, as if you know what to expect
8. Encourage your interviewer about why you are looking for such work experience and ensure they are aware of how much you want the position

They may seem like commonsense to some people but others may not have a clue how to dress/behave when being interviewed for a potential job. I do hope these tips help some of you and perhaps even encourage you to go out there and look for some placements for yourselves. It does feel good to already have some experience behind myself. 

How to deal with being away from home..

I've got something a little bit different this week so I hope you like it. I figured that you didn't all just want work related posts and it will probably be interesting to do a more personal post every now and then because let's face it uni is not all about the studying, all be it a lot of it is, but everyone knows what freshers get up to don't they!

This is going to be a post quite close to my heart as I am not shy about the fact that I have struggled moving away from home and I'm not even that far away!

I think that the fact that I am close enough to get home if I really needed to is perhaps not the best move for me as I am always thinking I could just be at home instead of here living in halls. Perhaps if I had moved further away so that I can't just come home whenever I please would have been a better option as I'd of had to just deal with it and accept that I can't.

I knew I had always been a home girl at heart but I didn't realise just how much until I moved away from all of my home comforts and more importantly my family.

However, I do have some tips for you all about avoiding home sickness and just in general how to forget about the bad and focus on the good things whilst you're at university because there is nothing worse than being away from home and unhappy, probably my worst combination ever!!!

I found this picture online and thought it fitted this post down to a T. If things are getting to much, just start a new page.

1. Surround yourself with people who you actually like and are real friends, you can tell a fake friend a mile off. 
2. If you're unhappy, change what is making you so. I am in the process of moving flats because I am so unhappy with all but one of my current flat mates so I'm removing myself from the negative situation and will never have to even acknowledge my old flat mates ever again.Some people are just plain nasty, and unfortunately there's no changing people like that.
3. Let yourself go. Go out and just have a good time, you'll meet people trust me you won't be sitting alone in the corner. 
4. Budget yourself. Ok this may seem like a weird one, but if you run out of money and can't afford to go out and have a good time you'll probably regret not budgeting because no one wants to miss out do they!!

I think most people probably suffer a little when moving to university as it's such a huge change but once you're settled and you've had a wicked freshers fortnight you'll be back to normal in no time. 

Remember, just ENJOY IT while is lasts because it's going to go quickly I know it.