Access to Higher Education Course - Possible or not?
lost_one1990
Posts: 248 Forum Member
✭
Hey everyone 
I will try to keep this short as I have a habit of writing a bit too much sometimes when clearing my thoughts!
I am currently 23 years old, working in a supermarket contracted for 23 and a half hours a week flexible, often doing 30 hours+.
Working in a supermarket was never the career I had intended or hoped to do, when I was growing up I had dreams of being a teacher, doing something worthwhile and having a job I enjoyed.
I left high school with good GCSE's: Maths B, English Lit A, English Lang C, Science Double C, ICT Double C, Music B, Art B, German B, History B
I went on to sixth form college straight after studying music, ICT, English Language and Psychology. I had always been bullied through school, found it difficult to fit in and didn't really have any friends, or anyone I could talk to. I suffered a lot with anxiety and lack of self confidence. I thought this was something which would get better when I moved on to college and I would make friends and enjoy everything. Unfortunately this was not the case, and along with the fact that I had to travel on the bus for 2 hours each day (this was before I learnt how to drive), I gave up and ended up giving up college after a few months.
I spent a year working part time, (only a few hours per week) at my sister in laws shop. The following year I decided I would try again, went back to college and exactly the same thing happened, I made the terrible decision of giving up.
After that I took driving lessons, passed when I was 18, got a job at a supermarket 10 miles away from me and got a car on hire purchase. I am currently a cash office/bakery supervisor and whilst the job isn't too bad, I still am only contracted for 23 hours, with little chance of progression.
I have suffered from bad migraines since I was a child, getting them on average 4 times a year, but when I say migraines, these put me completely out of action for a few days. Constant vomiting, unable to stand up/unbalance, severe pain in my eyes and head and yeah I think a lot of employers don't understand this which is fair enough.
I have strongly considered going back into education, I've read about access courses which are designed to get you into university to study your chosen course, these are full time and last a year.
The nearest college which offers this is around 45 minutes away.
I would absolutely LOVE to have a second chance in life to follow my dreams and not feel so down all the time. I have heaps of issues going on in my head (being gay and not out, never having been in a relationship, never having had friends, never being normal, being overweight, lack of confidence and motivation in life etc), It just feels like I really need to make some drastic changes before I crumble and just give up on life completely, the thoughts I've been having are not good at all.
My only issue with doing this is the feasibility of it all. I currently have a lot of bills going out including my car finance which is £137 a month, BT which is £48 a month, car insurance £47 a month, Orange £40 a month, as well as normal things such as car tax, MOT, I buy quite a lot of the food for the house to help my mum out and stuff too. I've got into a bad habbit of taking out wonga loans to cover some of these bills each month until I get paid and yeah things are spiraling out of control I guess. I currently owe wonga £400 next week out of my £650 wages!
It's like a vicious circle really, I need my job to pay for things, but I really want to do something new in my heart because I'm fed up of not having any future prospects and just want to do something worthwhile.
I really don't know what to do right now, I have always been rubbish at making decisions, constantly getting things wrong and I'm just scared I will do this again.
Thanks guys
Martin
I will try to keep this short as I have a habit of writing a bit too much sometimes when clearing my thoughts!
I am currently 23 years old, working in a supermarket contracted for 23 and a half hours a week flexible, often doing 30 hours+.
Working in a supermarket was never the career I had intended or hoped to do, when I was growing up I had dreams of being a teacher, doing something worthwhile and having a job I enjoyed.
I left high school with good GCSE's: Maths B, English Lit A, English Lang C, Science Double C, ICT Double C, Music B, Art B, German B, History B
I went on to sixth form college straight after studying music, ICT, English Language and Psychology. I had always been bullied through school, found it difficult to fit in and didn't really have any friends, or anyone I could talk to. I suffered a lot with anxiety and lack of self confidence. I thought this was something which would get better when I moved on to college and I would make friends and enjoy everything. Unfortunately this was not the case, and along with the fact that I had to travel on the bus for 2 hours each day (this was before I learnt how to drive), I gave up and ended up giving up college after a few months.
I spent a year working part time, (only a few hours per week) at my sister in laws shop. The following year I decided I would try again, went back to college and exactly the same thing happened, I made the terrible decision of giving up.
After that I took driving lessons, passed when I was 18, got a job at a supermarket 10 miles away from me and got a car on hire purchase. I am currently a cash office/bakery supervisor and whilst the job isn't too bad, I still am only contracted for 23 hours, with little chance of progression.
I have suffered from bad migraines since I was a child, getting them on average 4 times a year, but when I say migraines, these put me completely out of action for a few days. Constant vomiting, unable to stand up/unbalance, severe pain in my eyes and head and yeah I think a lot of employers don't understand this which is fair enough.
I have strongly considered going back into education, I've read about access courses which are designed to get you into university to study your chosen course, these are full time and last a year.
The nearest college which offers this is around 45 minutes away.
I would absolutely LOVE to have a second chance in life to follow my dreams and not feel so down all the time. I have heaps of issues going on in my head (being gay and not out, never having been in a relationship, never having had friends, never being normal, being overweight, lack of confidence and motivation in life etc), It just feels like I really need to make some drastic changes before I crumble and just give up on life completely, the thoughts I've been having are not good at all.
My only issue with doing this is the feasibility of it all. I currently have a lot of bills going out including my car finance which is £137 a month, BT which is £48 a month, car insurance £47 a month, Orange £40 a month, as well as normal things such as car tax, MOT, I buy quite a lot of the food for the house to help my mum out and stuff too. I've got into a bad habbit of taking out wonga loans to cover some of these bills each month until I get paid and yeah things are spiraling out of control I guess. I currently owe wonga £400 next week out of my £650 wages!
It's like a vicious circle really, I need my job to pay for things, but I really want to do something new in my heart because I'm fed up of not having any future prospects and just want to do something worthwhile.
I really don't know what to do right now, I have always been rubbish at making decisions, constantly getting things wrong and I'm just scared I will do this again.
Thanks guys
Martin
0
Comments
They are (or at last the ones offered at my college were) quite career specific, do you know what area you would be looking to go in to?
Also, since its a full-time course where would your income come from while you were studying?
It would be awesome if there was a course aimed at teaching/education.
Yeah this is my problem, money seems to ruin everything in life haha
I think you need to cut back on your outgoings, which will help you borrow less, which means you'll have more left over the month after, and so on. BT should be able to drop their package a bit for you, and perhaps your mum would be able to help with cutting back on the food bill - discuss cheaper foodstuffs with her, that type of thing. Seriously look at your outgoings (do you buy lunch at work? Could you take a sandwich instead? etc) to see where you can cut back.
For funding for a course as an adult learner, have a look here:
https://www.gov.uk/grant-bursary-adult-learners
You can now get student loans for Level 3 study (which is what Access is) once you hit 24, in the same way as you can for University (which is level 4 and above). It would not mean an even bigger debt after your degree because they write off the Access loan if you complete a degree.
Plus, if you live with your parents/guardians their household income is taken into account before the loans kick in so the short answer is go get some advice, the college you mentioned should be able to help. Meantime these are useful links (to add to what has been posted)
https://www.gov.uk/advanced-learning-loans/eligibility
https://www.gov.uk/browse/education/student-finance
And you can study part time as well as full time now and get the same package.
Back then I was on 13 hours a week and even though I carried on working in the supermarket, I went on to university and graduated. However I didn't get a job in my degree area and after 4 years it's become practically worthless. I too have recently been looking at doing a level 3 course in biology so I can start a new career hopefully getting into lab work in a hospital. I too am trapped financially, I have rent and bills to pay and can't afford to go back and study whilst maintaining my financial obligations to go back to college.
The only thing I can suggest to you is reducing outgoings and wait until finance and phone contract are paid up to save you £150 a month. The only other thing would be to try and get a job somewhere else while you study that's weekend/evening work only and fixed hours. I know working in a supermarket as a supervisor they expect you to be fully flex which is crap when they are open quite late. I know a lot of people have dropped back down to general staff member whilst they go to college/university. I know the supermarket I work at is quite accomodating to these circumstances. It might mean moving to another department though but it would at least enable you to go and get the qualifications you need and start a career you want to do.
This meant she could work as well, but the evening course was more intensive work wise. This was a few years ago but hopefully if you look around you might find an evening course.
Wow that's really awesome!
I think the main thing I need to look into is how much it would cost, and the student loans (if any) that are available for 23 year olds!
I would have travelling costs etc as the nearest college which offers an access course is around 18 miles away.
The course I've found on their site is just called 'Access to Higher Education', however has the following:
"Possible Education progression routes: BSc in Psychology BSc in Physiotherapy BA in English Further training in Nursing, Social Work or Teaching"
So it looks like it would be well suited for teaching
It's great that you've gone back and that you're doing so well!
There is, I did it last year, best thing I've ever done education wise (so far!) off to uni soon
It's a real shame you didn't decide to do this a year+ ago. It was around £800 then, I believe it's in the thousands now.
To be classed as a mature student you have to be 21 not 25.
On our access course it was actually "out of education for two years", there were many 20 year olds in it.
I too did an access course to go back to University. It was a one year course, but there were two year part time courses available. The one year course was pretty intensive, and didn't leave a lot of time for anything else, although I still worked as much as I could without it affecting my studies.
I was lucky enough to be able to move back with my parents for the year I did the course. You're only 23, is there no chance you could bite the bullet and move back home for a year on the understanding it would only be for the year to save some money etc? Quite a few people on my course did this.
As for the course on the whole? It was definitely worth it as it allowed me to go on to do what I wanted to do, and I even received an offer from a pretty prestigious university too (Kings College London) so the access courses definitely hold weight.
My college was also around 40 minutes away, and I traveled every day. The class itself was awesome, it was full of a wide range of age groups and people with varying levels of academia whom I ended up being really good friends with. With your GCSES Im sure you could excel at it. I would look into the course you want to study at University very carefully though, and where you want to study. My course was a science course, and had a lot of hopeful nurses who were not prepared to travel due to families. Because the course was so competitive and a lot of them only applied to 1/2 Universities, there were quite a few people with no offers by the time their results came around, even though they did well in their exams and coursework.
EDIT: Just to add, definitely talk to your desired University's admissions staff. I had to go through a few courses before I could select a suitable one with the relevant material for the course I wanted to study. Also, my access course was free due to it being full-time education. The part time courses were not free as far as I know.