Switching course/degree

[KIRN]

Hi Mumsnet,
Asking on here as I am the only person in my family who was born and raised in the UK, as well as having attended uni, so I don’t really have anyone to ask for advice. I did a foundation course at a different university for entry into any humanities degree available within the same faculty of my foundation. I then transferred universities to study an English degree, however I did not complete English A Level (silly me, I know).

It is the end of first year now and honestly I’m not sure if I am interested enough to continue my course for the next two years to the best of my abolify. I haven’t found the content as interesting or engaging as I thought I wouldve found it. I thought second/ third year content was more interesting, so I’m wondering if first year was just the driest part of the degree. We had to start from Medieval Literature, and I prefer contemporary literature (which I did in an optional unit & was the only 1 out of 5 I enjoyed this year) meanwhile first year mandatory units has focused on older texts. Looking at the later years units, there seems to be opportunity to study things that I’m genuinely interested in, so I don’t know whether it was just because I had a difficult first year or if I’m on the wrong course. I’m also thinking about the potential extra costs, the fact I will be two years behind my agemates (watching them graduate meanwhile I’m still in first year), spending three years as a fresher (even though I switched unis and my first year wasn’t a degree) and whether I will face similar issues with a different course.

I regret not choosing my favourite subject in school which was History, even though I never did well in exams due to unmedicated disabilities & no accommodations for it.

I probably add that I had recently diagnosed disabilities which were unmedicated, which worsened my ability to complete assessments (my uni is aware of this). My goal is to proceed with a law conversion (which requires good grades) or to enter consulting (which also requires good grades), as my university is prestigious enough to enter the latter to welcome my humanities degree.

Sorry, this is just my night thoughts (which means this post wasn’t written to the best of my ability) & also probably me overthinking. Can someone offer advice? Thank you and have a good night!

Medieval literature put me off studying for a long time. It's understandable!

Stop overthinking and complete what you set out to do. Choose the most interesting modules for the rest of your course, then if you want to study history, law or other things later on, you can.

From someone who didn't stop overthinking, changed course, dropped out and never finished a degree!

First of all, congratulations on knuckling down and completing your foundation year.

Are you planning to stay at (say) Oxford or UCL or whichever university you went to after your foundation year? If so, have you spoken to them to establish if they would allow you to transfer courses? They will all have their own processes.

Have you had your prelims results yet & are they good enough to secure a place on a different course? Why do you think another humanities course would be any better? What have you done to check that you would be happy this time?

Get in touch with your Personal Academic Tutor and talk to them. They can advise on the module content of years 2 and 3 and also about potentially switching to another degree. They also can direct you to disability support at your university. Communicate, don't fret in silence. You won't be the first or last student to have doubts.

A lot of first year content is dry. However it is also an opportunity to explore genres you might not otherwise have chosen and may even enjoy. Look at the subsequent years’ options and focus on what you prefer. If you liked history for example, use reading around the texts to add context and detail to your essays. You are not limited to reading the text or author itself. Have a discussion with your personal tutor, is there a combined course or Liberal Arts you could swap onto? It depends on what you hope to achieve afterwards if continuing is worthwhile but Law is very competitive even with a good degree and conversion course,

If you don’t find it interesting in first year then I’m afraid it’s probably not for you on its own. I did literature at university and found lots of us pursued joint honours with another subject which reduces the amount of literary analysis required and the modules - so you could then do contemporary lit and something like creative writing or philosophy or history. Ask your university if there is the option to do this.

However if you want to do a law conversion I would think that something like philosophy would work well as it introduces critical thinking, ethics and structured reasoning.

If you're relying on student finance to fund your studies, you need to be careful how many times you swap around. SF funds the length of 1 course plus 1 gift year. If your foundation year was not integrated, you may have already used up your gift year. Even if it was you have had 2 years funding, so starting a new degree from Y1 means that you will probably have to fund all of that first year yourself (fees and maintenance), and possibly Y2 as well. Definitely check with SF before making any final decisions.

First of all I think you need to consider do you really want to be at uni or are you just on that path with encouragement from others?

Look to see if your uni offers a liberal arts degree - these are degrees where you can do a mixture of english, history and many other subjects. If they do they might allow you to transfer and pressumably some of the units you have done could count towards that degree.

Apologies if I'm confusing you with someone else, but you had always wanted to do law or history, so switching to English was quite a change.

You really do need to stick to something now, especially if your path through your A levels didn't run smoothly. Speaking to your current uni to establish if it's even feasible should be your first move.

Honestly, I also question whether I want to be at uni as well but I come from a low income household, & I see uni as a way to access networks (which I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t get into uni) into good careers (law & consulting) rather than a direct trade school.

I actually did transfer from a Liberal Arts degree but my unis Liberal Arts degree was so restricted due to the compulsory modules (which I hated) I thought I might’ve just done English alone.

Youre confusing me with someone else. I haven’t posted about always wanting to do law or history. English was actually my second favourite subject in school, hence why I chose it. I knew I wanted to study something else’s before a law conversion as law wasn’t something I was 100% set on. My path (through the entirety of school actually) wasn’t smooth because I wasn’t diagnosed and didn’t have medication. I did well in class but it wouldn’t show up in a heavily exam-based system, which let me down at the end of A Levels. My degree was mainly coursework based (which also made me choose it) which helped me passed with a high 2.2 (not that great I know).

Apologies, there are a lot of similarities with another poster who often turns up at this time of year & posts in the early hours.

Have you looked at all the compulsory and optional modules within your English degree? If the contemporary modules are the ones you enjoy, can you focus on those and weave in others which will challenge you? I'm not convinced that switching again will resolve the problem.

Building up interests in the wider university community such as the law society or debating might help you decide where to head with your career. You will need to put in a lot of work beyond your degree to secure a grad scheme place for either law or consulting, so another course would be yet another distraction.

Honestly, not sure I’m motivated or interested enough in the modules, I can see myself scrapping by my resits but I think i’m starting to hate the content of my course. I was an English major with Liberal Arts so it wasn’t really a switch.

Hello, thank you for your response! May I ask what was your joint honours and what do you do now?

Apologies I’m so late to this. I’m a bit of a funny case. I did English Lit and Creative Writing and then became a journalist. However I have left the industry now for something else that requires another degree… so remember that you can always be like me and do a few over the decades lol.

There were lots of English and History grads in journalism. But it’s badly paid.

I think if you like contemporary literature only, the academic study of literature is not for you. Its is essential to have studied Beowulf and the Canterbury tales etc and then Shakespeare & contemporaries to see the links that carry on all the way thru to modern fiction, poetry and plays. That's what academic study is, its not a reading club where you only discuss your favorite books.

Yeah, obviously I knew it wasn’t a reading club to discuss Colleen Hoover (terrible author btw). I’m not that ignorant. I enjoyed studying plays such as Twelfth Night, The Changeling (which was my favourite) etc. and the discussions that we had in seminars about it, and I was looking forward to my next unit which was looking at 19th Century literature (Brontës etc), I think I’m just not a fan of Medieval Literature and that was a huge part of my first part of the degree. I think I’m not the best at literary writing and prefer the argumentative type of essays you receive in Historical academic study.

Given that you want to do a law conversion and not devote your life to Eng Lit, I'd keep your eyes on the prize and knuckle down for the last two years of the degree you're on. You can pick modules that appeal more and the third year will be your dissertation in a subject that truly interests you and can be relevant to your future, so it's all going to get better from the dry stuff in y1. But there's also a strand in your posts around you hating this or that or reasons for not being motivated enough, and I suspect that won't change even if you switched to another subject. History has plenty of dry bits, so does law, so you need to find ways to lock in and motivate yourself even if it's not your favourite aspect.

There's this part of you questioning whether uni is even right for you and these extrinsic reasons for feeling pressured to keep doing it for your family, but none of that will help you when you're in the middle of second year doing a dull essay and giving into the 'grass is greener' feelings. You need to remember that you chose this degree for the edge the uni can give you when you're at the next step and applying for those highly competitive law conversions. Starting over and amassing debt won't help you and it won't make you feel more motivated when you get to this stage again and get fed up with History. Power on through year 2, join societies and activities that help you with the bigger mission, do projects and work experience, go to networking events, anything that keeps you in touch with the purpose behind all this. Because it's not really about whether you get a bang out of Chaucer or Ian McEwan. It's building critical thinking skills, stamina and resilience, and there's always gonna be pain involved in pushing through it, but that's how growth happens.

If you want to do law conversion, pick a strong subject or any kind, excel in it, get a 1st and then do the conversion.

Maybe take the summer and find work? Unis are so expensive I think you should only do one if you're 100% invested and know what you want. It might be worth taking a break, getting a real job and decide when you're ready.

I come from an immigrant background/culture where “taking a break” (leaving uni) and discovering what I would want to do later isn’t very socially acceptable, or acceptable at all. My parents partially fund parts of my uni life. Not really an option for me I’m an afraid.

Understood but feels like you're having the worst of both worlds. You can't take a break because of that culture, but you're not doing the head down/locked in approach of that culture either. If the cultural aspect is strong enough to mean you're committed to seeing it through, then you have to see it through, not angst too much over whether you're enjoying the novels enough. But if enjoying the subject is the thing that really matters to you, then you need to park the parent pressure and do what's right for you and that might take longer to find out and need the kind of break that @342524u suggested. It sounds like you're more bound by the cultural side, but that's why I'm saying keep your eyes on the prize and get through this degree with whatever gritted teeth and toil it takes. It makes no sense to switch things up for a history or philosophy degree at this point if your main aim is to minimise the costs to your parents and get your start in law.

I think to an extent the course is what you make of it, my son hated first year of college but by the third year there were more opportunities to do the areas of study that he enjoyed, and so plowing through it was right for him.
His girlfriend switched from pure maths to maths/philosophy and enjoyed that more, perhaps you can look for related courses and join year two, I wouldn’t start again though.

I never did Beowulf or Canterbury Tales throughout my BA or MA in literature. I did study Middle English texts but not those ones so to say they’re essential is untrue.

Don't be obtuse. Those were just examples. As you will have understood.

Thank you for your very thorough advice, this genuinely helped. Yeah, I’m looking forward to building my degree based off my interests more in second & third year.