Blogs

For many of you awaiting A-level results, this week will be one of the most important of your lives. On results day morning, you will be waiting at your computers and tapping on your phones to see whether you’ve secured your chosen university place. For many, this will be a positive and exciting experience. But if you don’t get the grades you’re expecting and can’t confirm your university place, it can feel extremely daunting. 

To my college tutors I was a typical A* student – destined to achieve top grades that would open the doors to any university in the country. 

They set the bar high with my predicted grades: A* (psychology), A (geography) and A (English literature and language) and assumed I could go anywhere and do anything. The world, as they say, was my oyster. Unfortunately I didn’t share the same belief.

My first experience of Tsinghua University was during my freshman year of high school, when my classmates and I travelled to Beijing. We went to the usual spots, including the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, Tiananmen and the Summer Palace.

After finishing the tour of the latter, I noticed a group of people crowding around an ancient Chinese gate, which I later learned was the west entrance of one of China’s most prestigious universities, Tsinghua.

The University of Oxford’s release of its undergraduate admissions statistics earlier this summer was met with a barrage of criticism. Despite making significant progress in some areas (for example, improving the proportion of students from state schools), in other areas such as ethnic diversity and the proportion of students from northern or working-class backgrounds, progress has been unacceptably slow.  

Youngstown, Ohio, on the surface, displayed almost no sign of life. Shop windows were boarded up, the shells of empty factories stood decaying, and the roads were poorly maintained. Salena Zito, the Washington Examiner journalist and author of The Great Revolt whom I was shadowing for the week, shook her head with sadness. Turning to her small cohort of Harvard University students, Salena began to recount the town’s ill-fated past.

On the Times Higher Education Student Twitter feed (@THEUniAdvice, if you aren’t already a follower), we have spells where we ask students to look after the account for a week to share their university experiences. 

The one activity I didn’t mention in my previous article that I would be doing this summer was Dorm Crew Clean-Up. Reflecting on why I had not mentioned dorm crew, I realised that I was embarrassed by the fact I would be kick-starting my jam-packed summer by sweeping, vacuuming and mopping college dorms. 

Choosing a university is a big decision. I am from Belarus and I decided to study in Lithuania. I enrolled at Vilnius University as a bachelor’s student and now continue my journey as a master’s student. 

Lithuania is a popular place – if you go to the old town in the evening, you will hear at least five different languages. Many international companies have opened their offices here, such as Booking.com, Google and Nasdaq. 

These days you can study pretty much anything at university. Harry Potter fan? There’s a course for that. Want to learn more about Jedis? There's a course for that. Want to get your academic Game of Thrones fix? There’s a course for that. 

This holds true if you fancy learning more about your favourite musicians and their work. Some of the most influential artists have inspired university courses, whether they are a straight-up analysis of their music or a look into their influence on society and culture. 

As someone who grew up in London, when I moved across the country to do my undergraduate degree in English and creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, I was apprehensive. The campus that I was going to be at was the Cheshire campus in Crewe (now sadly closing down) which was a completely different world to the one that I was used to.