The Truth About Uni | Why I Chose Everything

This begins the first post of “The Truth About Uni” Collab that I spoke about a couple weeks ago in my 20 Before 20 Update!  As it was the first post we thought we’d all start with a simple one: Why we chose our Uni’s and courses and why…

So I study a joint honours degree in English and Philosophy at the University of Bristol.  Ironically, when submitting my UCAS application it was the only one of the 5 Uni’s I applied to that I hadn’t actually visited in advance… (try to visit Unis in advance, open days do actually help I promise)  

When choosing what Uni’s to apply to it’s safe to say I did a fair amount of research (I’m that girl that goes over the top with spreadsheets and rating systems and comparisons) but honestly the moment I stepped into Bristol none of the research really mattered.  I’d been told in countless presentations and talks that you’ll just know what Uni you belong in when you visit the campus, and truth be told I rolled my eyes every time… But I have to swallow my pride and admit that it’s true.  The feeling I got when I went to Bristol’s applicant day mirrored no other feeling I got from any of the other Unis I visited.  It got to the point that when I went to visit the other Unis that had accepted me, me and my dad had the same response; “It’s lovely, but it’s not Bristol.”

As for my course?  Honestly it was incredibly random… I will hold my hands up and confess that I have no idea what I want to do with my future to this day (I might actually do a post on this soon).  School’s tend to give the illusion that you need to know what career path you’re going to take before you go to Uni… And yeah, this is true to some extent; if you want to be a doctor or go into the sciences you’re probably going to need a medical/science related degree.  However, I feel like what schools need to stress more is that most degrees are incredibly flexible.  Nowadays companies like variety… I’ve spoken to top tier law firms who say they take roughly 50% law graduates and 50% non-law graduates (providing they’ve done the year conversion course, obviously), so honestly choosing a degree subject does not mean that you’ve set a concrete path for your future.

I actually applied to UCAS (if you’re not British, that’s the service we have to apply to all Universities through in the UK) and got my offers for a different degree… Up until late August I was planning to do French and Philosophy at Uni.  However, on results day, when everything was confirmed and I was set to go to Uni, I realised that I didn’t want to do French… I love the language so much and I still keep it up on the side, but truth be told I hated the A level and more years of seriously studying it did not sound like my cup of tea.  Luckily, the clearing system is pretty amazing and after an insanely stressful couple of hours, I was able to switch to an English and Philosophy degree.

After going through a stage of swearing I was never going to do English Literature again (If you want the full story on that you can find it here) It seems really weird that it ended up being part of my degree… However, it dawned on me that the only way I was going to enjoy the next 3 years was by being passionate about what I was studying, and as much as I try to deny it, writing is my passion, so English made sense.

I feel like this has been quite a bit of rambling… Apologies for that… But I guess what I’m trying to say it that at the end of the day, Uni is the first time you’ve had such a massive choice in what you study.  Do your research, weigh all your options, but at the end of the day go with what you feel is best for you.

Do you go to Uni/have been to Uni/are thinking of going?  Tell me your stories in the comments! and check out the stories about why Becky, Kate, Tori, Sophie, Saffron, Anna and Jen chose their Unis and courses!

Lots of love,

Jas xx

 

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