The reality of university & university life

Sometimes it's good to be a little bit controversial right? Ever since you join secondary school teachers get it into your head that you NEED to go to university. I never really saw myself as going to university myself, with an older sister who had really high ambitions and couldn't wait to get to university the whole aspect never really appealed to me. The closer I then got to finishing sixth form the more university was mentioned and I thought why not look into it? I knew I wanted to do fashion but more the business side of fashion and not designing and I began to look at courses and universities. I decided to look at universities within a couple of hours from home so it'd be easy to get back and I looked at Nottingham, Manchester, Huddersfield and Birmingham. It's very hard picking a course but I saw myself living in a city and one day decided on living in Birmingham. (Photos from Freshers week)
Before you know it I was moving out of my house and into my new flat and I didn't have the easiest of times. I ended up in my LAST choice of halls of residence and I took it before I went to Africa as I just didn't want to be roomless for university. I ended up in a halls MILES away from my university and it's a long journey for when I'm in university and dealt with a lot of problems after that. Over these next 3 months I dealt with an awful lot a first year university student shouldn't do and it was a very hard time of my life. I didn't know what to do and I ended up going home a lot at the weekends. I started off in University and I was in quite a lot and after a couple of weeks it became less and less and EVEN less. I liked the fact I was living away from home but I had SO much free time I didn't know what to do with myself. I decided to go out a lot at night as it past time but I was still very unhappy. In my first time I sprained my ankle and I was on crutches for weeks so I had to go home and I still managed to get a good grade in my work. I realised then I was spending 4 and 5 hours in uni each week and my loan was not stretching to by anything I needed or to LIVE off. I was paying £9,000 in university fees to not afford to live properly? I then began applying for part time jobs and after moving flats and having major surgery at christmas I eventually got a job! (yay!) Since then my views on university life have changed even more. Was it really worth paying all this money to spend 4 hours in uni? I wasn't as impressed with my lectures and I felt like I wasn't learning anything new. The time I spent at uni became few and far between too some weeks I'm only in for 2 hours, sometimes 15 minutes and it takes me an hour to get to university! I spend most of my time working to afford to live at university but that takes away the fun of university life. I'm never in university at the same time which makes my time management not great. Over these past few months I've learnt a lot about myself and i'm now know I'm fine coping on my own. I just think a LOT of people are mislead into university life when they don't necessarily want to go. I've ended up spraining my ankle, having major surgery, moving flats, living miles away from campus in a halls where barely anyone is on my course. It makes it very difficult as I live with people which don't go to the same university as me. University has been a life changing experience so far but I'm not sure whether I'll be sticking to it... But if there's anything I can do to help you and your experience here's my tips...
- As soon as you've decided on which uni you want to go to APPLY for accomodation as quick as you can or you'll end up somewhere you don't want to be.
- Go for a uni with halls ON campus. It will be so much easier! I've visited friends which live on campus and they're saving a lot more money than I am as they don't need to get buses and taxis all the time!
- Look for local supermarkets nearby when looking at halls. (I don't live near a supermarket so do all my shopping online)
- Really assess whether university is right for you. It's not right for everyone and see whether you can get to your chosen career/career pathway without a degree (it's worth it to not be in debt!)
- go for the university which wants the highest grades. That will then be the best quality of uni and you'll come out with a great degree and you'll be surrounded by people which WANT to learn and they know about the subject they're studying
- Go for a university with easy access to things. It's nice to be in an area with a good variety of night life/bars/restaurants & clubs!
- Be near a shopping centre (gotta get the essentials right?!)
- Don't live too far away from home if you're close to your family but far enough so you get you're own freedom and can live away!
- GET a part time job. I don't know how i'd survive without one. It's helped me so much so far and having experience aswell in your required field as a job will help your cv too!
These are just my personal views on university and I know everyone's experience is completely different. My views are based on doing an arts degree and I know if you were doing a different degree your view would be different. I think it's really worth seeing your options about not going to university as the amount of graduates searching for jobs just shows that a degree means as much as it used to. Especially for working within the fashion industry!
Do you have a university degree? Do you have a fashion degree? What do you think?

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