A Despicable Course at Uni Is Not Your Doom
by Nathan Colom - 26th May 2020
Choosing the right university and course to study is not an easy task. Deciding whether to pursue what you’re good at and should study or what you actually want to study, is an endless dilemma. Add to it all the family and peer pressure and it can give you a lot of stress.
It happens all the time. Students enrol on courses they end up despising and end up regretting. Sometimes it’s hard to admit it; you don’t want to disappoint your family, you don’t want to lose a year of study or you simply don’t like being wrong. Whatever the case, it’s time to face it. Not as a mistake in life, rather as an opportunity to learn more about yourself.
FIRST YEAR OF UNI
Realising throughout the first year of study that the course isn’t right for you might be scary, but is nothing to be afraid of. As soon as you admit it, you’ll see that there are plenty of options available to you. You can talk to university advisors and tutors about it or you can consult the internet for more information.
If it’s a matter of a particular module, you might want to explore the options of switching to other courses with similar modules, so you can keep the progress made from year one. On the other hand, if the course you’re studying isn’t interesting at all, you may want to swap to a completely different one. Often it’s still possible to do so in the first year, otherwise you have to prepare yourself from starting over. Same goes for changing the institution or even the country of study.
Now goes the interesting part! If you have already realised what you want to study instead of the course you did, go for it. However, if you’re still fresh in the pursuit of finding the right course, it’s time to press pause. Take a break, a week, a month, a gap year or maybe just five minutes and think about yourself, your skills, hobbies and genuine interests. Writing them down helps to look at yourself in an objective manner, as a uni consultant would. Be rational in identifying pros and cons about courses you like and when you narrow it down to satisfying choices, pick the one your heart leads you to!
SECOND AND THIRD YEAR
Sometimes it takes longer to finally acknowledge your thoughts and doubts. The fact that you have made it this far, means you are a hard-worker once you put your mind to it. Whether you want to change course or start a completely new one, all is possible, however, you may have some limitations in terms of money. If money is not a problem, speak to your loved ones and they’ll probably tell you to go for it, if it will make you happy.
If money is a problem, staying on your course until the end is not necessarily the worst idea. In fact, more than half of all graduate jobs do not require a specific degree subject, rather they just want the guarantee that you spent precious time and worked hard to get it. Those are the qualities graduates get associated with and various companies will want to hire you because of them. On a brighter note, postgraduate studies offer a great number of courses that don’t always require a direct connection to the graduate ones. You can find your dream course and apply for it. After all, a good recommendation letter and a powerful personal statement can make miracles!