Lifestyle

will you benefit more from higher education or university?

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.

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