Preparing For University

I am starting a new series called preparing for University. Hopefully in September (exam results depending) I will be starting my first year at the Uinversity of Central Lancashire to study Retail Management. I thought I would start a series all about my preparation for university to help other people that maybe going through this process. Today I am going to start with a introduction about my process  and how I decided I wanted to go to university.

Let me start by saying that going to university had never been something I really wanted to do. There are some people that know from year 7 that they want to go to university because they want to be a vet, doctor, teacher etc. However I never knew what I wanted to do and I still don't really but I have narrowed it down a bit now. At the end of year 11 and the start of year 12 I really wanted to be a makeup artist so I started looking at places that I could go to study and going to visit some of them. Whilst looking around, I realised that I didn't think I'd actually like being a makeup artist although I love makeup I didn't feel like it was the right career path for me. This really confused me as I wasn't sure what to do as this had been what I was planning to do after A levels so I had to spend awhile thinking about my other options. My favourite subject is business studies so I decided that going to university to do a course in business would be my best option. Whilst searching for courses on UCAS I came across a Retail Management course (quite by accident) and after reading about the course I knew that this was something that I wanted to do. 

After deciding what course I wanted to do, I began to search UCAS for universities that offered that course. Unfortuantley not many universities offer this specific course so I didn't have as much choice as others but I knew that this was something I really wanted to do. I managed to select 5 universities that I wanted to apply to and then I needed to start writing my personal statement. A personal statement is a bit like a cover letter that you write when applying for a job. It is basically a piece of writing in which you have to sell yourself and make the university want to offer you a place as you are competing with 1000s of other people (I will do a separate post on this as it is quite a topic). 

Once you have written your personal statement you can apply and then you just have to wait for your offers to come back. I was lucky and got offers from all of the universities I applied to and I got them back quite quickly so I was able to make my firm and insurance choices quite quickly. Once you've made your choices and booked accommodation all that is left to do is revise for exams as well as buying things that you'll need for next year. 

This was a relatively brief overview of my process so far and I will do posts that go into more detail of each area. I just want to mention that this is just my experience and my adivce everyone has a differnt way of doing things but I wanted to create this series as I thought it may be able for anyone going through the process. 

If you have any questions about the university application process then let me know and I'll do my best to answer them and if there is anything specific that you would like to see let me know. 

Prettylittlefashionista xxx