It’s that time of year where you will be putting you UCAS application together ready for the January UCAS deadline and you might be thinking to yourself – am I ready for this change!?

School is a pretty familiar setting for everyone but when you’re thinking of coming to uni, there’s a quite a lot of differences you may or may not expect. While uni is a massive jump from school, sixth form and college, there’s no reason it can’t be just as comfortable and enjoyable so here’s a few things to expect to keep you stress free in this transitional process!

The main thing I found with studying at university was that self-motivation and independence is pretty key but that doesn’t mean you don’t get all the help and support you need along the way. Actually, looking back even in sixth form you could argue that teachers held our hands maybe a little too much, happily taking many drafts of work before the final submission. I now prefer the uni way of doing things; polishing off a great piece of writing or work and owning it as best I can THEN submitting it to my lecturers. This does require a lot more self-discipline because no one else is going to get your head in a book or force you to attend seminars and certainly not chase you up, so it’s all down to you and when you do it, it’s a fab feeling!

Then there’s the freedom to take an assignment and develop your own insight, argument, opinion, creative thought and ‘turning it into your baby, your speciality’. Before uni, I feel topics are more spoon fed and that you’ll probably have a more broad sense of what you’re learning about. This is most noticeable in final year when you pick up critical skills and are able to become an independent academic and researcher, especially with your dissertation.

Lastly, it’s the learning environment. Not only are you sitting in lectures of what can be around 100-300 people, but you’re in seminars and lectures for all of 14 hours a week. This means your contact time with tutors and lecturers is so much smaller than what you’re used to in school, sixth form and college. This doesn’t mean you have a lot more spare timehowever as you’ll need to work on your assignments the rest of the time. If anything, uni is more of a full time job with many lecturers advising 30-40 hours a week spent on uni work (more so for final year). Many students can still be found on campus when not in seminars whether thats in the SUBU Building or the library. Alternatively, you have the freedom to work on assignments at home too, from the comfort of your own bed which is sometimes very much needed after a night at Cameo.

I hope this helps and good luck with applying, moving and studying with Bournemouth University!