How university changes your learning

You now know that learning at university is different to what you have experienced at school or college. Listen to some students sharing their reflections on their time at university, how they have changed and what advice they would give to college students getting ready to enter university.

Transcript

How have you changed as a learner and what advice would you give to school students?

I think the way I have changed is that I'm a lot more passionate about what I do, I think is the main takeaway, personally. I really, really enjoy and I'm really excited about coming to lectures each week. I think about the, maybe, different topics and concepts we discussed, and I just really enjoy it because it's all self-directed.

It's stuff I want to do and stuff I genuinely really enjoy, as opposed to just reading a book or doing arbitrary work like a robot. I'm doing stuff that I love to do and have, and I have the passion to. I have the desire to sit there and read because I love what I do. I'm not doing it to get to the next step, I’m doing it because I care.

I think as a university learner, I'm a lot more proactive. So, the fact that I have that encouragement to actually go and find resources, find people, talk to, you know, people with different perspectives, it's made me a lot more empathetic in a lot of ways because I'm talking to so many different people and also a lot more independent in the way that I learn.

The advice I would give to school students is probably, don't be so sad when you get a bad score, because the feedback you get from lecturers is very important in your studies. So, when you fail once, it doesn't mean you're going to keep failing. Just keep learning from it and keep improving yourself. It's definitely a process to go through.

If I could go back to A-levels, I would tell myself to start revising earlier and definitely ask your teacher a lot more questions. But apart from that, I think you have to get in the headspace that you know you want to do well. You have to put in the effort.

My advice for A-levels is do past papers, because most of the times the questions that they'll ask you in the exam have been asked before and to find some way to do active recall. So, for me it was flashcards.

And also, if you ever have a question, ask the question because the answer will be so beneficial.