Right­ing Wrongs Gravesend

Chapter 8

Right­ing wrongs

Some­times, de­spite the best of in­ten­tions, things at uni can go wrong. Maybe your course isn’t what you thought it would be, or your uni­ver­si­ty ex­pe­ri­ence isn’t of­fer­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties you’d hoped for. Or the course is just too hard and you’ve failed im­por­tant ex­ams. If one of these things hap­pens to you, keep in mind that uni­ver­si­ty is just as im­por­tant for its mod­ules in the de­gree in Life Ex­pe­ri­ences – like how to cook a meal – as cours­es on the am­bi­gu­ities with­in Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’, or how fis­sion oc­curs in prokary­ot­ic cells.

So take a step back and don’t rush in­to de­ci­sions. This chap­ter looks at pos­si­ble prob­lems you might be fac­ing, and prac­ti­cal steps to take to im­prove your sit­ua­tion or, if nec­es­sary, ex­tract your­self from some­where you don’t want to be. There’s al­so ad­vice on the best peo­ple to ap­proach if you’ve changed your mind about one of the big fac­tors in your stu­dent life.

The pos­si­ble prob­lems

Wrong uni­ver­si­ty

You don’t like the lo­ca­tion, peo­ple, staff, or have an­oth­er rea­son to want to Get Out Of There Fast. Make sure you’ve giv­en your­self at least a few weeks to get ‘in­to’ uni life – set­tling in can take time. Even if you’re cer­tain that you want to move, seek ad­vice be­fore do­ing any­thing dras­tic. See be­low for more de­tails.

Wrong point in your life

You or some­one close to you has prob­lems that mean you can’t fo­cus on uni life and stud­ies. Or your fi­nances are in such a mess that you need to take some time out to earn more pen­nies. You may want to think about de­fer­ring for a year, or more, then re­turn­ing. Again, seek ad­vice about your op­tions – a year with a job could solve the prob­lem if it’s fi­nan­cial. Even if you’re sure you want to quit uni for ev­er, or you land a dream job that puts you off study­ing for life, de­fer rather than with­draw if pos­si­ble – it keeps your op­tions open.

Wrong ac­com­mo­da­tion

You’ve tried re­al­ly hard but just can’t get on with your house­mates, or the ac­tu­al house or flat just doesn’t cut the mus­tard. Speak to your ac­com­mo­da­tion or­gan­is­er as soon as pos­si­ble and ex­plain why you are un­hap­py. This prob­lem will prob­ably be eas­ier to fix if you’re in halls, but if there’s a se­ri­ous fault with pri­vate prop­er­ty you can still rec­ti­fy the prob­lem. If you don’t know what to do, con­tact your Stu­dents’ Union hous­ing ad­vi­sor.

Failed the year

First, try not to pan­ic. Take a few days to think about what went wrong and what you want to do next, and find out as much ad­vice as pos­si­ble. Or­gan­ise a time to meet with your tu­tor or a mem­ber of the fac­ul­ty. Your op­tions will de­pend on the rea­son for fail­ure – ill health, for ex­am­ple, may mean you are grant­ed spe­cial dis­pen­sa­tion to con­tin­ue with­out re-​sit­ting, but this will great­ly de­pend on in­di­vid­ual cir­cum­st...Yoga is a traditional mental and physical discipline that originated in India. It is generally known as a form of exercise that consists of many specific, often intense or advanced, stretches, poses and breathing exercises, but is also often associated with the meditation practices of certain religions, such as Hindu and Buddhism.

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