The Sweetness of Being… Officially In Debt

It’s that time of year again, where I write a blog post. No, but actually I feel in the first few months of this year I did well to keep up blogging! One a week, I believe. Especially since I really wasn’t supposed to as my life is occupied by solely exams. But anyway, minor details! Hello. How are you?

Big news in my life. I have all my responses from the universities I applied to! The application period of my year has finished, thank goodness. I did like the application period, because I managed to visit so many UK cities that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. My highlight had to be Bath; it’s honestly such a beautiful city and it would have been incredible to live there for a few years. But I have decided my firm and insurance choice – which for the not so applicant savvy, is the place with high grades you want to go to, followed by the place with lower grades you’d like to go to if you don’t get into the higher graded place. And the fact is, no beating around the bush, they’re both in London. I knew from the start that I wanted to go to London, so applied to 4 there and 1 elsewhere (guess where…). I’m afraid I can’t tell you where exactly in London I’ve put down – you know, security reasons! – but I thought I’d tell you the general area in case you were just kind of interested. This blog post is basically going to be about university application, so quit now while you’re ahead!

My reasons for London, as everyone seems to have their own impression of being a student in London, and I feel the necessity to explain my own motives. I find some people are genuinely insulted by my choice, and when I say it to them, they give me a look as if I stamped on a kitten. So I’m sorry if this angers you, but no kittens are being harmed today! Basically, I love London as a city because of its atmosphere and buzz (as experienced from many a visit there), and whether I’m being generally naive about that, I’m not sure, but I really want to find out. The first thing people say to deter me from being pleased with my choices is to say the big M word, money. I agree completely. London is expensive. But that is part of my reason. I feel 1) that now is the right time to move to London for me as a person and 2) a student with financial support will actually get a better kick start into the city than if you tried to make the move at a later date. I’m not saying it’s not possible, I’m just saying, given my feelings, I feel it’s an appropriate time for me to make the move. I think you just know whether it’s right, because I’ve met people who are repulsed by the idea of living somewhere so big and bustling. But it attracts me.

So, not everything about the application process has been hunky dory. I applied to 5 universities. I did 2 interviews. I got 3 offers and 2 rejections. All in all, I came out very well with some very decent offers. Originally I was feeling sort of nervous because I messed up my penultimate year at school so thought I’d be turned away at the door. Thankfully, it didn’t happen quite like that. In one of my interviews I performed the best I’ve ever done (and that’s not incredibly well, but I was still proud, okay?), and in the other, it was appalling. Sometimes, it just works out the way life seems to want it to. I had thoroughly prepared for both, and the questions I got were pretty much on par, but one went well and the other didn’t. There is a lot of luck involved. But I’d say, if you have an interview for anything in future, prepare as well as you can so that if luck is on your side, you know what you need to do!

The biggest resistance I got when considering where to apply was from social pressure and managerial pressure. That’s something which you will probably encounter, not just for uni, but for anywhere. There’s always people who will tell you that you’re ‘too ambitious’ or ‘have no chance’ when they don’t really know you that well (even if they appear to at first). If you have dreams to go somewhere – uni, career, city, etc – then I would say with absoluteness that you should go for them. Of course, know the risks. And then take them because it’s worth it. And not trying is a ridiculous alternative. You’ll find a lot of support in the people who know you the best. As much as you may find some of this false because you think they have to do that, mostly they are actually supporting you because they know that this thing is what you want and they want you to realise your dreams.

Wow, that went deep quickly. Anyway, it’s all becoming very real now. Obviously to actually meet my offers, I have to work non-stop from now until summer to try and punch out those grades they need. But I’ve applied for accommodation and it occurred to me that I just applied to the place that I may well be living in this time next year. Or not. Who knows? Life’s kind of funny. Anybody applying for uni/jobs in the future, I wish you luck! Remember those dreams of yours, because they’re you!

Right, I apologise for this blog post being entirely about me. It’s just this is the major thing to talk about in my life, so it just sort of flooded onto the page. Tell me about your experiences! I’ll briefly mention, as well, that I’m currently shaking with nervousness because tomorrow, I am going to a cinema screening of some short films created at the BFI Film Academy of which I was the producer for one. I mean, it’s going to be on a huge screen in a room that can fit 300 people. And then we have to do a Q&A session. I’m not ready for this!! But I am somewhat excited as this is probably the first and last time I’ll ever see something I’ve worked on on a big screen. Weird. I told you. Life’s weird.