Decisions, Decisions...It's too difficult!

I had a think about what I should write a blog post about this week and I decided a post about how I made my early decisions about university and what spurred me on to make the choices I did. I hope this post interests you all and gives you an idea of the reasons I chose the University of Bedfordshire.

One of the hardest decisions before I even knew if I had got into uni was what universities to put down as my firm and insurance choices.I picked both the University of Bedfordshire and another university just as close to where I live as Bedford is(about 40 minutes). I made this decision because at the time I did not feel ready to leave home, I am still unsure on whether this was the right choice for me but it's the one I chose so I've got to live with it. I'm still unsure because I don't know whether living here and paying as much money as I am to live here is actually more beneficial for me than if I were living at home..to be honest I would probably be much better off if I was still living at home. However, I'm not and I am very glad I decided to take the plunge and move away from home because now I've learnt that it's not for me for the full three years and it has helped me realise that I would actually thoroughly prefer to live at home for the remainder of my studies. I am not slating moving away from home at all, I just think that I've 'got the t-shirt' and in my opinion it's not worth missing home as much as I do. I am so glad I've had the experience though and I wouldn't change my decision of moving here, I would just change the people I was put with in the first place.

If I were choosing a university again I wouldn't change the University of Bedfordshire as a uni as it is fantastic and I love studying here. I might perhaps consider changing the location to somewhere a bit more lively, so a city uni, however this would be such a tossing and turning decision because I don't know if I would be ready to move to a big city on my own. I think my home sickness would kick in and I could feel worse than I did just 40 minutes down the road..
Thinking about it, I have definitely made the right decision for me in allowing myself to live the university lifestyle for a year, finding out it's not entirely for me and having the option to move back home and still carry on my studies. I think if you're like me and are not sure about staying close to home or moving away you should consider universities that will allow you the opportunity to start off living there for your first year and then if it's right for you carry on living wherever that may be or if not, move home and commute to university whenever you have lectures or seminars.At the end of the day most universities cut contact time even further as you progress through your course so you may not even have to travel to uni everyday which would be a bonus for anyone who decides to live at home.

Think carefully and for yourself. Don't pick a university just because someone else is, do what's right for you.

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.

Check list!

So, seeing as I have just started my second semester at university and I know a thing or two about being a fresher I thought I would give you all a post about things freshers should and should not take to university with them... I thought this would be an interesting post for anyone starting university next year to take on board!

I basically took the entire contents of my house, I may as well of took the kitchen sink I took that much!
So, here is a list of things I took that were not needed:

1. Hundreds of different types of kitchen knives..I only used one sometimes two at most!
2. A shower rack, there's nowhere to fit one of those in student accommodation! 
3. A bedside lamp...I didn't even have a beside table so don't take one of those unless you have one.
4. A clothing rail..it did not fit in my room.
5. Too many clothes..There was absolutely no room in my wardrobe and my clothing storage became a huge mess! 
6. Kitchen utensils I didn't even know how to use.
7. Too much food, you need to know how much storage you've got before you go ahead and buy all this freezer stuff that then can't be stored.
8. Random stationary bits that you're never going to use..E.g glue, or sellotape(I never used these).
9. Too many cushions, I took far too many and they didn't all fit on my bed which was annoying! 
10. Cash, you'll just spend it all during freshers and be skint for the rest of the year haha! 

Now I'm going to give you a more realistic list containing things that I could not have lived without during my time at university:

1. A washing basket...invest if you don't have one!
2. Coat hangers.... do not bring all of your clothes and forget hangers that would be so annoying especially because no one at university has the time to iron! 
3. An iron is sometimes needed though so don't forget that one.
4. Cleaning products, kitchen, bathroom, clothes all of it! Trust me you'll need it. 
5. Photos the put up in your room or memorabilia to make it feel more like your own.
6. Extra storage if it will fit, uni rooms are generally tiny!
7. Suitable clothes, don't take summer clothes because you're usually at home for the whole of summer and it's not usually warm in winter let's face it.

You would think all of these things in both of my lists are common sense, but I just decided I needed everything and made moving in and out ten times harder and more stressful for myself, so if I were doing it all over again I would definitely give a lo more thought to what I would be taking with my to university and now ending up like this picture.....

That is what you call serious hoarding!!! Don't end up like this haha!

Okay, perhaps that's a bit extreme but you get the drift!

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.

New Year!

So as you can all tell by the title of this post it is officially 2014 and I am looking forward to this year for a number of reasons:

1. A fresh start in my new flat at uni. I don't know if I've already mentioned to you all that I have moved flats due to nastiness in my old one and I am so excited to live with nice people after having to live with a flat full of girls who talk nothing but horrible things about each other. Plus I'm moving to the complete opposite side to where my old flat was so I will hopefully not have to bump into those girls again, or not very often anyway! 

   

   This image shows where I used to live and where I live now, couldn't be further away from the bad flat which is so good!
2. I have a lot of exciting things planned in terms of summer holidays etc.I know the summer is far away but at least it's 2014 now so my holiday doesn't 'seem' as far as it did when it was still 2013. Oh how the mind works haha!  

   

   Hopefully somewhere like this...Probably not though, student problems!

   3.  I am looking forward to being exam free after April, and I am also really excited for post exam celebrations back home with my friends!
   4.  I am excited to see what October brings in terms of starting my second year and getting a bit more stuck into teaching with placements and being able to choose subjects for myself rather than having them chosen for you, which is what happened in my first year. Second year sounds exciting although I can't quite believe how quick first year is going! I need more time to revise for my exams ahhhhh!

Until next week!