Wall of Mouths

Cheers Karl. I was really set on the course, and to be honest, I did enjoy it, but some of the legislation I had to take in was absolutely mind numbing!

I’m now looking into:

Education with Sports Science / Media Studies / English / Politics
Sports Journalism
Journalism
Paramedic Practice (although this is unlikely as you need a full driving licence).
Politics
Counselling and Psychotherapy

It’s a massive list of interest, which doesn’t include Media Studies and the possible combinations of major / minors, and the biggest problem for me is that time’s running out for me to decide on a course!

If you still want to join the police full time I’d think about youth / social work or the Psychology angle. My nephew wants to join the police and when they heard he was doing youth work they were literally creaming themselves!!

Its not the be all and end all, you’ll something that really sparks your interest!

colin im in the exact same position, however in my case its all my fault. pissed around a hellve lot. missed 1 of my 4 exams, only handed in 2 assignments both late. im waiting for my dissertation to see what my options are, but i wouldnt change much for the world. had a good year, settled in a new place, made some very good mates and had a year of personal growth in which i’ve discovered alot about the world and myself. Are you planning on staying where you are or going to uni elsewhere?

Gimme’s right, a lot of modules will be transferable between courses so your first thing should be talking to student support or wherever and seeing if you fancy anything that will credit you with the modules you’ve already passed - you will have stacked up a few points and it would be a shame to waste them!

It’s tough going to college when you’re 17/18. I failed my first year (and subsequently, last year) too. It’s really the wrong time to be doing a college course when you’re away from home for the first time, letting loose and enjoying yourself. I bummed around on the dole and doing shitty jobs for a couple of years afterwards. I ended up doing a degree course part time in the evenings after work a few years later when I felt ready for it. It took about 5 years but I eventually got there.

I’m not sure how helpful to you that is, but I guess don’t worry about it too much is kinda what I’m saying!

I must have been a right geek - enjoyed myself massively - but didn’t fail anything…mind still ended up doing shitty jobs lol

I too have been there. Did Drama at 18, hated it and left with a mountain of debt. Went back to do English at age 20 and loved it. You’ll find something you enjoy doing (have you tried the Stamford test on the UCAS website?) but my advice would be not to just do a degree for the sake of doing one. It costs a bloody fortune. The police also like people with a lot of community experience so I’d look into becoming a special officer or a volunteer youth worker etc first. Decide that’s what you definitely want to do. You can always be a mature student, too.
Don’t think that time is running out. You could look at working this year and applying next year? Get some experience together and more of a sense of what you want.
I’m talking like I know you and I appreciate I don’t but I’ve been there and wish to god someone had told me that it was ok to fail at something, take a breather, get experience, ‘discover’ yourself (what you like, don’t like doing for example) and then go back and try another approach.
Jeez, if we all got it right the first time the world would be a pretty dull place.
Good luck with whatever you do…let us know how you get on…

I went straight to uni to study geology - found it really dull and strung it out for 3 years before finally failing - my advice would be that if you’re so undecided about what degree to do, maybe it’s best not to do one at all - take a few years off, travel, see the world, do some fruit picking in Australia or a ski season in the Alps. Once you’ve “unleashed the beast” as it was so elequently put, work out what you ACTUALLY want to do, then study towards that, that way you’re not paying off huge debts for something you’re not interestede in. If I had to choose a course now it would be nothing like what I actually chose.

Good luck to you both.

@Mr Bomb - exactly. I didn’t go to uni until I was 24, by which time I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And no, it wasn’t making original medieval artefacts :p

CS wrote:

The problem with things such as Special Constables is that the police have made massive cuts, which means they cannot afford to have police trainers train the Specials from scratch… the amount of sessions required, uniform, and various other expenses are not justifiable to some forces in England & Wales, as it simply costs too much. As it stands, Northern Ireland do not have Special Constables or PCSOs.

I’ve decided on Combined Hons. Education with Sport and Counselling & Psychotherapy. I will drop C&P after year 1.

Have a meeting with uni in a fortnight to discuss and confirm my options

your uni seem more organised than mine, all i got told was to come back on the 27th september to enrol if i wish to resit my first year, that was it, no talks or anything.

this year im going to make a big effort, if it doesnt work out then uni isnt for me.

I wish my dad would realise failing the first year isnt as big of a deal as he seems to think it is, out of all my uni friends i literally know about 4 or 5 people that passed their first year.

Hey buddy,

It’s seriously not the end of the world. I started university in the fall of ‘09 at the University of Ottawa (Canada), and totally didn’t take my first year seriously. I came from graduating with honours in High School to not going to class, EVER, and failing 5 classes in total. I even took summer classes and failed 2 of em, which brought the amount of failed classes to 5. I unexpectingly got kicked out of my program for 12 months. All this to say, I understand what you went through because I wasn’t emotionally ready for uni. I didn’t go through some of the stuff you went through, but yeah.

I’m glad you found something else that you like, I’m taking 2 classes a semester and reapplying for my program in may so hopefully things will work out for me to.

I think we’re all allowed to screw up once in a while, the thing is some of us screw up in a much bigger way haha.

All the best of luck!

Max