My (rather chaotic) journey to Higher Education – Casey’s Story

Hey everyone, Casey here! I thought I would share with you all my journey of how I got to higher education. Everyone’s journey is very different, so hopefully sharing my experience can put a few people at ease!

When I finished my GCSE’s, I went on to do A-Levels at a sixth form college in a different town from where I lived. I really enjoyed studying somewhere completely new. It meant I only knew one or two people at my college, but I quickly made new friends!

I had always loved Maths and Physics in school as I really enjoyed working with numbers. So, I decided to study Maths, Physics, Electronics, and Computing. A few weeks into my studies, I decided to drop Maths as I didn’t enjoy it like I had at GCSE. Instead, I replaced that subject with Graphic Design – which I later discovered would have been the best decision I made throughout my entire education! Graphic Design very quickly became my favourite subject and I spent all my free periods in the graphics studio doing work.

My exams in my first year didn’t go so well as I was struggling with running out of time. As a result of this, I failed Physics. I had to drop that for the second year. I decided to speak to my college about my issues with running out of time and that it was probably because I am a slow reader and often jumble up my words when I’m stressed. My tutor was very supportive and found out that I was actually entitled to extra time! Moral of the story here is that if you need some extra help, definitely ask for it!

I had always planned to go to university, despite my grades not being ideal – no one in my family had ever been to university before, so I was really excited to be the first person to go! At the start of my second year at college, I began writing my personal statement and decided what it was that I wanted to study. I loved Graphic Design, but I also really enjoyed the sciency subjects I was still studying. I eventually found a course that nicely combined the creative side of me with the Maths and Science side of me, and that course was Architecture! From this point onwards, I went to loads of open days and applied to unis all over the country – I was starting to get really excited about my future education now!

However, my mock exams rolled around, and I didn’t do very well again. This was when I started to realise exams really weren’t for me. I found this really disheartening and started to give up a little bit. I hadn’t expected my A-Levels to be so difficult and perhaps looking back, I just hadn’t chosen the correct subjects for me.

To top all of this off, I started receiving rejections from the universities I had applied to, because my grades just weren’t up to their standards.

About a week before the UCAS deadline, I decided to change my mind on what course I wanted to do. I wasn’t good at the exam side of things so something as academic as Architecture maybe wasn’t going to be right for me. I had a bit of a rethink about what I enjoyed and what I was good at – and that was Graphic Design! So, from this point forward I decided to look at different universities who offered graphics courses.

And that’s how I found the university that I graduated from. I saw that they had an open day coming up soon so, on an impulse, I decided to go. I looked at their graphic design facilities and really liked them. I also liked the fact that the class sizes for my year were around 20 students which sounded perfect to me. Whilst looking around the university, I discovered that they offered an Illustration course as well – I had no idea you could get a degree in Illustration alone! I fell in love with that course that day and so decided I wanted to do a Joint Honours degree, where 50% of my course would be Illustration, and 50% would be Graphic Design.

I spoke to the course leaders on the open day and mentioned that my personal statement was for the wrong course and explained my kind of hectic journey so far. I think that, if anything, this made me stand out more, as a week later I was back at the uni for an interview! This all happened over the Easter holidays and was a bit of a whirlwind for me. At my interview, the lecturers seemed to like the portfolio I prepared, as a few weeks later they gave me a conditional offer! However, I was still hesitant to get my hopes up because I didn’t think I would meet the grades required for the conditions of my offer.

Results day eventually came around and it wasn’t great news.

I had failed electronics in my second year, so only actually ended up with 2 A levels – one of them was an E grade.

At this point, I was terrified to log into my UCAS account as I thought it could only be bad news. However, when I did eventually log in I couldn’t believe what I saw! My offer had been changed from conditional to unconditional and I got into my first choice university!

What I learnt from this rather chaotic journey is don’t panic! I had my fair share of hiccups throughout my journey to higher education, but at the end of it, I got to study my dream course at the perfect university for me! Also, don’t give up. I know I definitely wanted to at many points during my 2 years at college, but if I had then I wouldn’t be where I am today.

And I’m thrilled to be where I am now!

Casey x