Starting university

When I started University, I was worried that I might feel intimidated because I didn’t know so many people, but everyone was in the same boat as me so it was really relatable talking to other people that I was meeting for the first time. All of the worry then disappeared for me and I made a lot of really good friends.

Step up from A Levels

The workload definitely increased for me; I found that I had to step up from doing 1 or 2 hours a day to needing to do around 3 hours. I have so far been alright in managing to do that amount. There are two exam sessions at Bath: one in January and one in May. I recently had my January exams and they weren’t too bad. The exams were of a similar level of difficulty to A Levels, and there was a revision week before the exams started, where a lot of my lecturers organised revision sessions to help with parts of the course that we were struggling with.

Support offered by the University

I found that I did struggle a little bit with the work at the beginning and how much I needed to do, so I went to Student Services. They were very helpful, they organised regular meetings for me straight away and always followed up so they knew how I was doing. They also contacted the Department and made sure that I’d get any extra support during lectures and tutorials that I needed.

If I was having trouble in a lecture, I could go to the lecturer at the end and they would arrange a meeting with me, so I could sit down with them one-on-one and they would talk me through anything I didn’t understand. The lecturers here are always really open to helping the students. There are always PhD students and lab technicians that I can ask for help in the lab sessions.