Don’t be taken in by higher education courses and university level degrees, are you going to benefit from them more than going to a university?
I was indecisive and lacked confidence when leaving school, my main interest was journalism and photography, and I had joined the school radio station. This left me in two minds of doing journalism or a broadcast media course. I choose to do a BA in Broadcast media purely because I thought it offered more scope, and it covered these elements.
I made a mistake; I’m not going to shame the place I have been studying. But my mistake was choosing to go to a college to study a university course instead of going straight to a university. My first year was unsatisfying, and the second year had not dramatically improved any.
I had been faced with lazy lecturers taking our money for a two year ride, people not turning up and putting group work on hold, till a few days before the deadline. Getting treated like I was at school and not in higher education, I could go on. The rest of it like video work and editing was unfamiliar and I learnt most of this through using blogs and YouTube. Because it was minimal that we got taught!
I also found myself surrounded by multimedia students who had previously used the adobe software and equipment. (And they were full of good ideas) unlike myself who completed the work from a trial and error tactic, and it showed in my grades unfortunately.
I also found it annoying how the video and design students are more thought of than the journalism students; there are more of them, and they have repeatedly been offered the chance of work experience. Unlike myself I have not had anything meaningful to do. I would have benefited from aiming higher, and following my gut instinct to do the journalism course.
I can honestly say I have met some haunted people, and I kick myself for being naive and staying a third year, this also did not start well, I had the opportunity to leave by fault of a lecturer, “If you quit the course now, you will get a full refund.” Why I stayed I will never know. If it hadn’t have been for the panic of what will I do now, all the courses are closed till next year and the stress of dealing with student finance, and lastly my friends, I would have gone.
The sad thing is we have achieved nothing but debt from being there. And I am expected to get a job from this degree. The course ends soon, I feel like I have lost most of my ambition and enthusiasm through only being taught a small amount beneficial to my hopeful career. My experience has differentiated from my friends. As I choose to stay at home with college being over an hour away, depending on the buses, it would have been less stressful and better if I had moved away.
All in all I don’t want people making the same mistake as me, if you are unhappy with your chosen course or feel like you should be doing something else, make that change.