Getting a place through Clearing is great, but have you thought about attending one of our Clearing Open Days? Be it before you’ve confirmed your place or afterwards, it’s still important to come and view the university you’ve chosen. Clearing may have been a bit of a rush for you, and most people are in the same boat. If I could give one piece of advice it would be to attend a Clearing Open Day – if for nothing else, it makes it a little bit less of a shock on the day you move in.

For me, coming to a Clearing specific Open Day really helped settle some of the niggling nerves I had about the whole process. You will get the chance to take a tour of the university and the halls, as well as speak to our accommodation team. Our askBU team will also be about if you have any questions about additional funding from the university.

The most important part is, you’ll get to speak to some of your lecturers and get a real feel for life in Bournemouth and at the university. Many of the student ambassadors for these days are also students that came through Clearing, meaning you can chat to someone who had a first-hand experience about it and may be able to give a few helpful tips.

On my Clearing Open Day visit, I started off with registering and getting an information pack (the map certainly helped!) before heading off for a talk about university life done by a current BU student. The next step for me was taking a tour around the campus which gave me plenty of time to ask our guide questions and learn a few more things about the uni. After that I was free to go and speak to my future lecturers, which included a tour of my school’s facilities, before finishing off by going to explore the rest of Bournemouth.

Although my heart was set on BU when I arrived, the day made me feel so much more prepared, and a lot less nervous having seen plenty of other people in a similar situation. Leaning a bit more about how a typical day at BU works was the biggest thing for me, as a lot of unis run their scheduling in different ways – as well as finding out more about what our Students’ Union (SUBU) does and how I could get involved from day one.

By Alex Curwen-Reed

You can find out more about Clearing on our website.