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Friday 14 June 2013

My Journey so far

Okay I know I said that I would be talking about my dreaded personal statement, but I decided that was a bit boring! Instead i'll be telling you about how I got to this point and what I had to do along the way. 

So firstly i'll tell you about the access course I studied - I started in september of 2012 at RFDC college in the forest of dean, gloucestershire. I studied biology, chemistry, sociology, psychology & study skills. I have to say it was probably the hardest time of my life to date. I know this seems ridiculous, but I just wasn't prepared for the amount of assignments that would be thrown at me, on top of working all day sundays and half shifts thursdays at a care home, PLUS the university application/preparation etc.  I really don't know how people with kids manage all of that! I really hand it to them. Luckily I stopped working in january so I could focus on college and applying to university. 

I would strongly recommend the access course if you don't have enough UCAS points to apply for university, even if it is really tough and throws you in the deep end, it's probably the only course that comes close to what university will be like and will really help with self-study, and get you used to a heavy work load. Also it's specifically designed for those who want a career in health. 

Here is a good website to search access course near you - http://www.accesstohe.ac.uk/Pages/Default.aspx 

It wasn't long into the access course that the preparation began for university - I first made 100% sure i wanted to study midwifery, then looked into the best universities (try using university league tables

The universities I applied for: 
-1st choice Cardiff 
-2nd choice UWE 
-3rd choice Glamorgan 
-4th choice Swansea 
-5th choice Birmingham city  

Obviously your uni choices should be based on what works best for you, and what course will suit you the best, also take into account the distance and far long it will take you to travel there if your commuting. 

I will warn you the wait kills! - it literally feel like years and endless checking of emails and  UCAS until you get some news. I got myself so panicked when I received an email and to be honest I was expecting good news, so when it was an unsuccessful from birmingham city I was so disappointed! I requested feedback straight away and in return received really generic basic feedback, So this made me feel totally disheartened, but I focused on the fact that it wasn't my top choices! 

Not long after this I received another unsuccessful from swansea! as you can imagine I felt so down at this point because i'd received straight unsuccessful's - at the time I didn't realise how unlikely it is to receive interview invites from all your choices, and now I realise I was so so lucky to have had an offer from my top choice first time applying! 

Finally some good news arrived when I was invited to attend a numeracy assessment at cardiff university (I will write a blogpost on the preparation you should do for numeracy assessments) - I was so so excited and nervous as I knew that I had to get 50% on all sections to even be considered for the interview selection process!! Thank god I passed it (some how??) and two weeks later received an invitation to interview. 
This is where the nerves reallly kicked in - to be honest I was pooing myself. I felt like I had 1 million things to think about. (Keep checking my blog for interview tips and useful resources) Luckily they somehow saw something in my and 2 agonising weeks later I received a UCAS notification that i had received an offer!!! I could not believe it, i felt so lucky and blessed to have been accepted, I still can't believe it now a few months on. 

Now I have finished college with 39 credits at distinctions and 9 credits at merit - i'm over the mood to have achieved this and to know that all the hard work has paid off! - now the REAL hard work begins come september....

So sorry that this post is missing so much information - it's so hard to try to include everything that i've done since september and not bore people! Loads more post are to come don't worry! 

Tomorrow I will post about interviews!! 





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