Let
me give you a bit of background on myself to put this little tale
into context... I am originally from the Wirral which, because no one
ever knows where it is except if your from the Wirral, is basically
just outside of Liverpool so practically everyone whose from the
Wirral tries to blag and say they're from Liverpool when they're
blatantly not because their wheelie bin is green and not the snazzy
purple that Liverpool get to have. Anyway, so I'm from the Wirral and
desperately wanted to go to London for university, it literally felt
like my lives goal to get to go to university in London. I was
absolutely desperate so much so that when every decent university
said a very polite 'no thank you' to me and then promptly closed
their doors I decided that I was so desperate to get down there that
I would go to any London university that would take me no matter how
bad it was. And do that I did.
I
ended up accepting a place at London Metropolitan. Now I don't want
to sound all big headed here, I can assure you that my head can fit
through doors and all that jazz, but I felt from the minute I arrived
at that god forsaken place that it just wasn't for me. I almost
felt like I could do better (I realise that this isn’t doing all
that much good for my promising I don’t think I'm the best thing
since toast but I promise I really don’t have a ginormous head.)
Anyway, I decided to stick with it and just get my head down and do a
bit of studying because after all is that not what university is all
about? Just realised I haven’t even told you what my degree was
meant to be! I was studying 'Fashion Marketing and Retail Management'
and I don't know about you but I felt like that sounded kinda fancy!
It was only when you put the “at London Met” after it that
strangers you met in clubs would say “oh” in a rather pitying
tone. It should have been then that I realised that London
Metropolitan was most definitely not the place for me. Lesson number
one; don’t settle for a blatantly rubbish university just because
its in a good city and you couldn't get in anywhere else because you
wrote the most boring personal statement known to man.
So,
I don’t know about you and maybe it was just me being a very naïve,
young child at the ripe old age of eighteen but when I decided to
study fashion I naturally assumed that I would indeed be studying
fashion and the business behind it. Instead I found myself in
lectures that could have been from a maths degree with spreadsheets
galore and whole afternoons dedicated to learning how to use
Microsoft excel. Another module I suffered through was known as
operations management in which we learnt the seven types of waste,
don’t ask me to recite them now I'm pretty sure by that point I was
heavily into a game of tiny tower on my phone or some other equally
as important pursuit. The only decent modules I did on that course
were the fashion system and retail environment. Note they both have
the name of the degree in the name of the module, no where do I
remember agreeing to do a quantitative analysis and operations
management degree. Lesson number two; research your degree and its
modules extensively before signing on the dotted line, trust me that
extra half an hour reading the module outline will save you a year of
wondering why you ever took a course that wants you to know the seven
types of waste.
Also,
I just want to dispel a myth here, an urban legend if you will, like
the loch ness monster or big foot. Before you go to university
everyone will be trying to reassure you about the whole making
friends thing saying that everyone is in the same boat and people
will come up to you and just start talking. Lies. Absolute lies. It
seems that at least on my course, at my university, everyone was told
that exact same lie and so precisely no one went over to people to
start a conversation. In fact before our first lecture we all just
stood there awkwardly like a bunch of very awkward lemons in absolute
dead silence. No joke, you could of heard a pin drop in that dingy
little corridor that we had to wait in while the class before us
finished. Awful. Absolutely awful. It wasn’t until we were put into
partner work that the cloud of silence was lifted and awkward get to
know you icebreaker like conversation ensued, incidentally I don’t
remember a single one of the fun facts I was told about the people in
my class but at least it broke the silence. Lesson number three; just
be a man and talk to someone, it can't be as painful as having to
wait for a half an hour for your lecture in dead silence because the
class ahead of you are late leaving, trust me.
On
the subject of choosing universities I would definitely advise to go
for one that isn’t, I kid you not, last on the league tables. Now
I'm not a university snob by any means, I'm a firm believer in that
if you work hard then you can achieve your full potential anywhere.
Well, that was until I experienced London Met. Just put it this way,
no university that people are actually proud to go to has to
advertise the fact that they’re 'proud to be London Met' on every
available wall space. You would not walk into Cambridge and see
'proud to be Cambridge' plastered all over the walls now would you?
In case you didn’t know the answer is no because everyone and their
pet hamster knows that if you go to Cambridge then your proud to be
there! Lesson number four; don’t choose a university that has to
try and kid you into a false sense of morale and proudness, if your
proud your proud, if your London Metropolitan, you're not.
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