Daily Diary: 25th February

I lay in bed this morning debating whether to drag myself out of bed to go to a 9am lecture or get the extra couple of hours sleep I really wanted. I got up. I went to the lecture. It was definitely not worth it!
When pretty much all a lecturer does is to read out what is written on the presentation slides you just think what was the point. I could quite easily sit at home and read a presentation, I don't need them to do that for me.
Then had to go for another blood test this morning. Fourth one in three weeks, starting to get fed up of them.
Made myself a very nice toasted cheese and ham sandwich for lunch, so good I wanted another, before heading out to the next lecture.
After the lecture a couple of my class mates were talking about the various states of falling asleep during a lecture. I could totally relate as very often it's me who feels like that, but for some reason I was quite awake and actually paying attention today. I even made some decent lecture notes for a change!
We then had a lab, which seemed to go on forever but in fact only lasted 3 hours.
Now my feet ache and I really can't be bothered to do any more work. I have to though.

Freshers Week: Accommodation

The accommodation at University that I was allocated wasn't my first choice when I applied but I am very happy with where I am. I am in a flat with 4 other people. We each have our own bedroom and share the bathroom and kitchen areas. Our flat is in Lewes Court in Block 1.

The Front Door

My first impressions of my new home were: my bedroom is bigger than I expected, the sink area in my room is huge with a big mirror, we actually have a bath in the bathroom, there's a lot of storage in both my bedroom and the kitchen. There was only a few very minor things that we had issues with, such as I have a very creaky bed and the drain was blocked in the shower when we moved in.
Before moving in I wasn't sure exactly what the shared bathroom comprised of. In the flat there is a room with a bath, toilet and sink, a separate toilet and separate shower room. They are just basic bathroom facilities although I would've liked a better shower. The main thing that annoys me about the shower now, is that you can't move the shower head at all. I have been quite surprised that sharing the bathroom is so easy, as whenever I go to use it it's always available. The one thing that's not convenient though is not being able to keep personal things in the bathrooms, and so having to take a wash bag and towel etc. with you when using the shower.
We also have the kitchen communal area. There is more storage in the kitchen than I thought we would have, the hardest part is diving the storage up equally between all the flat members. I didn't want to feel like I was taking all the space, but I think we've all claimed our own areas for storage in the kitchen. Whether that be one of the drawers, a cupboard, or one of the shelves in a cupboard. There are two fridge freezers in which we have each taken a shelf and drawer. The two things we don't like in that room are how wobbly/unstable the chairs are and the fact that we can't keep the door open as it's alarmed. Not being able to keep the door open makes it feel like that room is being shut off from the rest of the flat. There's also two sofas in the communal room but we feel like we'd like to make it more homely in there by adding cushions on the sofa and pictures on the walls. That way we'd be more likely to spend more time in there.

(Photos to be added, once my room looks nice!)

I'm Going To University!

Last Thursday I received my A Level results. They weren't the best grades but I was extremely happy as I also found out that I've got into my first choice of University, The University of Sussex. That day I could not stop smiling I was so happy! First thing I did was call all my family to let them know, and my Dad took me out for a meal that evening to celebrate. The following day I saw my Mum and she gave me a present for getting into Uni.

My friends stayed over that night too and we went out for a night in Truro to celebrate. Tried a couple of different drinks that evening. I think we all agreed the drinking aspect of the night was more fun than dancing in the club as the music wasn't as good this time and it was so crowded we were constantly being bumped into. We got the drinks in Wetherspoons first as it's cheaper in there, and we shared cocktail pitchers and shots between us.

Yesterday I received an email from the University of Sussex informing me of the room I have been allocated in the halls of residence. It wasn't my first choice of accommodation but it still looks pretty good. There was also a lot of other information sent with the email, such as I didn't know that our rent covered insurance too. I can move into my room at Uni on the 15th of September and that following week is Freshers Week. There's also a Facebook group for each residence run by the University for people to talk and find out who will be in their flat before we get there or who will be on the same course. I think I've found one person who will be in my flat so far and it's a five person flat.

Exams/Revision

It's exam time again at college, but these are the last before Uni, which is the reason why there's been so few posts over the last couple of weeks, as I've been busying trying to revise and not get distracted by anything! I've got 8 exams this time round as I'm retaking 3. It's a lot of exams and a lot to learn for them. It's only been the last year or so that I've realised that I actually have to put some work in and revise in order to get a good grade. And also before that, I didn't really know how to revise so I would sit staring at textbooks and hope that that would help! Now I have my own "method" of revising which seems to be working, although my revision does differ for each of the subjects.

For Maths I revise simply by doing past papers, and I think this is the best way to revise maths at any level. Just keep practicing the questions, asking for help when you get stuck. For all my other subjects I have my own "method" of revising. I use exercise books (similar to the ones used in schools, A5 size, but they were very hard to get hold of) and make my own notes, using the specification (so I know what I need to know), and comparing between my notes taken in class, revision guides and textbooks. I find this way works as I'm not just copying out my notes but thinking about what I'm writing down by comparing and thinking about what's the best information to write down. E.g. if I need to be able to label a diagram of the heart I would look at and compare my notes and the textbook to find the best diagram and I would copy that out into my revision notes.

I do find that the hardest part of revision is actually getting started and being motivated to do it. Because I like to use all my notes and textbooks and spread out using a whole table it's not really possible to to this at college. The only problem with being at home is that there are so many distractions, and it's amazing all the things you will do when what you should really be doing is revision! Usually once I have got started I get quite stuck into it and the time flies. That's one reason why I don't like the idea of a revision timetable. I wouldn't want to get into the flow of revising for a particular subject and then have to stop to change and start something else at a certain time, as then I would have the getting started problem all over again. I find it more useful to spend most of a day revising one subject and switch to a different one the next day.

Everyone has different methods which work for them when revising, as we all learn in different ways. Although it is important that when your revising you are actually thinking about what your doing, so simply reading through a revision guide is most likely not going to work! So keep trying until you find a method which works for you. Good luck to anyone taking exams at the moment.

A sign???

This is me thinking too deeply! Read the label on the back of the T-shirt I just brought...

'Falmer' - also the name of the village where the University I'm thinking of going to is. At the bottom is written 'fulfill your dreams' ... A sign???

University Decisions

It's come to the time when I need to make my decision as to where I would most want to go to University. I've applied for 5 courses at 4 different Universities and luckily I have received conditional offers for all 5 of these. I have applied for 3 Biomedical Science courses and Healthcare Science at Nottingham and Plymouth also.

I have been to visit all of them except The University of Nottingham. I think I have ruled this one out though. I applied there because the course looked OK and I thought it wouldn't be too bad living there as I have some family that live close by. But after thinking about it, I really don't want to live there!
Plymouth had always been pretty high on my list as I know the place fairly well, it's very close, the course looks good and I know a couple of people who have been there and enjoyed it. But I did want to keep my options open, compare them all and not just go for Plymouth because it was the easy option. So I went to visit The University of Southampton and The University of Sussex, at least so I had something to compare Plymouth University to. I am very glad I was able to do this because it has definatley affected my decisions. They are both much further away so it would be harder to come back to visit often but I don't think I would be doing that much anyway, wherever I was, as I wouldn't want to be missing out on anything at Uni. I want to go to somewhere where I am going to enjoy my time at best at; somewhere where there are good lecturers (because a good/bad teacher can completely change how much you enjoy studying a subject), somewhere where there are lots of things going on, and somewhere that's in a nice location where I would enjoy living.
After comparing them all I think I can quite easily see myself living and studying at the University of Sussex best. Although, I am thinking about whether the Healthcare Science or Biomedical Science course would be best for what I want to do after I have completed the degree. I think the course content of both is very similar but the main difference is that the Healthcare Science course is designed for those that want to be working as a Healthcare Scientist in the NHS and so the course includes a lot of work experience and practical skills. If this is what I wanted to do I was wondering if it would also be possible to do this after completing the Biomedical Science course. I have emailed The University of Sussex to find out more about this. I suppose either way, what I'm thinking of doing for my decision is to have the University of Sussex (Biomedical Science) as my firm (first) choice and Plymouth University (Healthcare Science) as my insurance choice. I have about two weeks to send my decision to UCAS, but the sooner the better.

University Visit

At the end of last week I went to visit 2 of the Universities I'd had offers from: University of Southampton and University of Sussex. I was specifically going to the admissions day I'd booked a place at at the University of Sussex, but soon as though Southampton was on the way we briefly stopped there to have a look too.
We only stayed at the University of Southampton for an hour or two. All the people we met there were nice. We wandered around the campus and had a look inside the new building which would be where the course I'd applied for would be studied. I don't know much about Southampton or what it what be like to live there, but although the Uni campus wasn't near the city centre it was very much in the city.
After staying one night in a terrible Travelodge in Brighton (which we decided not to stay another night at!) we spent the day at the University of Sussex. The campus there was completely different to the other ones I'd seen. It was outside the city of Brighton and was surrounded by countryside, right next to a national park. All the buildings were very spread out compared to other campuses.

Library Square and the Library building at the University of Sussex

The library there was the biggest one I'd ever seen, and they have enough accommodation on campus to guarantee all first years a place in them. We had a look around two different halls of residence. They had some new accommodation that had all en-suite rooms, which I really liked but is the most expensive.

Northfield accommodation at the University of Sussex

 I think it's very much a campus life university, it's like a little student village with everything you'd need.
After looking for somewhere else to stay we ended up staying in a hotel on the seafront in Brighton. There was no comparison between the two places we stayed, there was nothing to complain about at the hotel. We walked around Brighton for a while and had dinner in an Italian restaurant, before going back to the hotel.

Me outside Brighton Pavilions

I don't think Brighton would be a bad place to live if I ended up going to University there. I actually started to like the idea as I spent some time there; it's right by the sea, next to the countryside and a national park, got a lot more shops than we're used to in Cornwall and plenty of things to do.