First Year of University

Moving to London for University was a big step for me, as I was educated in a small Town called Colchester in Essex. Growing up in Essex, having all my friends and family here and adapting to the place itself, then suddenly moving to the big City of London, where I knew no one, was hard but I knew I had to get into the real world sooner or later, so I choose sooner. 

Coming to University taught me to be independent in my learning, as College teachers chase you up on your work and literally spoon feed everyone, where as University lectures give you deadlines and briefs to let you get on with your own research and if you don't do it on time then your mark gets capped at the lowest possible score. The teaching styles in University are also different as the class sizes vary, depending on the course and modules you decide to choose. Now that I am living in London I have to be very careful with my spending as I have to pay rent, bills, travel and food and I can not rely on my parents anymore. I chose to do the course BA Film and Television Production at first as I was not aware that there was a Technical Arts course and half way through the course I decided would be more suited in the Technical Arts course. I have no regrets changing courses, as both courses were great but prefer editing and being on camera to producing and directing.

Once results day came, I was pretty nervous but I suppose that's natural right? Overall I did not do too bad receiving 2:1 in two modules and 2:2 in the other two modules, it was the essays that brought me down as I got an overall 2:1 for the practice portfolio. After coming back to University we got feedback some feed back from our lecturers, my downfalls in my essays are that I don't cross reference enough and lacking on types of different research sources such as books and newspapers instead of relying on the internet for sources. I am more of a practical person than I am writing essays, this benefits me as the course is 100% coursework. I also find it very hard to concentrate from a young age and I always struggle on how to structure and write an essay. 

To help me improve this year on my essay writing I am going to get help and advice from the Learner Developer Unit and also plan out what I am going to write, giving me plenty of time to research and complete the essays. We did a debate back in the first year and I got a 2:2 for it, being the unconfident person that I am, I bit my tongue and got on with it as everyone else had to do it as well. We were put into teams of two to help us debate against the other team but unfortunately my team member was not feeling very well, so I had to do my debate on my own but I managed to work though it even though I had a weak argument.