New Start

People commonly view a new year as a new start, but this year that has never been truer for me. At the start of 2015 I began a new university in a part of the country I have never been before, and this is quite daunting for someone like me, who rarely likes leaving the house and who finds new experiences more terrifying than an exciting chance to embrace the unknown. I have, however, tried to see this as an opportunity to challenge myself and I don't seem to be too bad at adapting to my new way of life (so far!).

I attended a university in 2013-2014, studying psychology as an undergraduate. While feeling disheartened with the subject relatively early on, I refused to acknowledge myself as a "quitter" and persevered my studies right up in to the first week of the second year. The breaking point was my in my first lecture into the second year, where the lecturer attempted to teach aspects of neurology by using medical terminology and not explaining anything that he meant. Half of the students in the lecture hall had stopped listening after 20 minutes, the other half were talking to each other to see if anyone understood what this man was saying. One student at the back solidly smoked an e-cigarette throughout.

So obviously, things were not right for me there, not only subject-wise, but I also felt that if a university was not going to provide help for so many students, it wasn't worth the ridiculously high fees that I was paying. After a short break, I applied to the University of Buckingham and here I am now, sitting in my room in the university halls on a snowy day in January, writing this post (care to immerse yourself in where I live? I'm most excited about the mini fridge). Needless to say, I am now studying English Literature, with a module on reporting.

Transitioning was difficult, and not just emotionally. With it came having to send a series of emails sent to the first university asking to leave, having to communicate to lecturers the reasons why. These were left unanswered for two weeks before I decided to ring the university to see what was going on. Even after all of this, it was another couple of months before the university had verified that I had officially left, and with this verification came the knowledge that they could not sort out my student loan situation and that I would have to do that myself (this is still being sorted out to this day!).

Aside from the difficulties of my getting here, I feel that I am finally at a university that is suited to me and am studying a subject that holds my interest. The small lecture and tutorial groups mean that if people don't understand something, it is easier to approach the lecturer on the subject and because everyone can have a voice and be seen, there are certainly no instances of the kid at the back of the class with the e-cigarette.

I found this site particularly useful when changing university, as it broke down each stage of what I needed to do. This was helpful because I had witnessed countless people drop out of my first university who did not have a plan for how to get in to another university, so I had no point of reference for how to do it. It just leaves me wondering just how many other people are in the situation I was in; struggling to make sense of it all.