Hi! My name is Eilidh and I studied Education, Politics and International Relations at The University of Strathclyde.
I didn’t sail from high school to university like I expected when I was younger. I found it quite difficult at times as I struggled with my mental health and became a carer for my dad. To keep myself going through school I dropped one of my subjects, as I struggled a lot with physics, and it was getting me down.
Because of this I was worried about getting to university, so as a backup I applied for a college course. Doing this made me feel confident that I could continue into higher education no matter what my circumstances turned out to be. Dropping that subject did lead me to being rejected from some universities during the application process. However, I was luckily accepted to Strathclyde and went straight from school. When I look back, spending a year at college might have added a lot to my experience and made me more confident straight away in the different environment colleges and universities offer.
Once getting to university I loved it. Most people feel at the start that it is pretty nerve racking going into big lecture theatres with people you haven’t met before. However, once I was in my seminar groups, I had loads of people to talk to and get lunch with. I never really made best friends with people from university, but I am still very close to my friends from school, so I was happy with just hanging out with my classmates during the day and between classes. Everyone has different experiences at university, but I can guarantee you’ll not end up alone, and I am still in touch with lots of people I met at university a year after graduating - even some of my lecturers too.
One of the things I enjoyed the most about university was the opportunity to choose what I studied all the way throughout my course. When I applied for university the main subject I chose was politics, but universities often allow you to take more than one subject before you decide what to focus on. This allowed me to change the main focus of my studies to education after my second year. I loved it, and being able to focus on a subject I enjoyed meant my grades improved and my investment in the university experience grew. I volunteered to be a class representative and went to events put on by the education department.
Higher education has so much more freedom than you will have experienced at school. But the same, if not more, support is there for you. Lecturers and tutors are more than happy to meet up with you and discuss anything you might not understand in terms of your subject, sometimes they might even buy you a cup of tea! There are also massive student support teams at universities and colleges which will help students with a much broader range of issues, from finance to health.
I hope that an insight into my journey to university shows that you don’t need to have a perfect run at school to get there. Everyone’s university experience will not look the same but there is a place there for anyone who wants to go, if you work hard!