Aimhigher Surrey

You are likely to be at university for 3 or 4 years – sometimes longer depending on your choice of course.
You will have to learn to manage your money – and this can be hard, as you might not have a lot.
You will probably have to work part-time to help with your expenses. You could be living away from familiar surroundings – although you can often study more locally as well.
You could be living away from familiar surroundings – although you can often study more locally as well.
You will need to learn to do your own washing and cooking.
You will need to study and learn to motivate yourself to do that study.
Sometimes you might be up all night writing an essay.
Sometimes you might be up all night enjoying the company of friends and having a great social life.
You will gain some good qualifications.
You will have better job prospects.
You will be more confident in your abilities.
Be aware that full-time courses will vary considerably in terms of the number of hours ‘contact time’ – that is time you have to be in lectures, seminars, workshops or laboratory time. Some courses will only average 10-15 hours a week ‘contact time’ and others will expect considerably more.
Some courses have a lot of coursework and some courses have more exams - you need to think which works best for you.

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What can I study at university?

There are many different courses and combinations of subjects to study at university – currently there are over 80,000 different courses to choose from – not an easy decision especially when you may not have heard of half of them.

Courses range from Aerodynamics, Animal Behaviour, Brewing and Licensing, Built Environment, Computer Games Design, Ergonomics, Golf, Jazz Studies, Ocean Science, Perfumery, Puppetry, Robotics, Sign Language, Victorian Studies, Waste Management to the more traditional subjects like English Literature, History, Law, Engineering, Psychology, Nursing, Medicine, Maths and Sports Science.

Try to choose a course that links into your interests and abilities. Find out as much as you can about the course and try to talk with students on the course – this is often possible at an Open Day where you will meet university students.

Some subject areas will want you to have studied the subject at A Level or equivalent but many higher level courses do not require you to have studied the subject before. You need to check the individual course entry requirements. see Note 1

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INFORMATION

RESEARCH YOUR SUBJECT

Note 1

If you have a specific career that you are interested in, look at job adverts to see what employers are looking for.
Contact employers and ask them what qualifications they look for in a new employee. If you are lucky, they may give you an outline of what they want – type of degree, work experience, professional qualifications, etc. Some employers need you to have ‘job-specific’ Degrees [Accountancy, Nursing] but many will just want you to have a good degree.
Use the internet, your College Library, Connexions and university Prospectuses to find out what’s on offer.

REMEMBER

The UCAS site www.ucas.com is extremely useful and has links to other useful sites.