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Access course materials

hi! i'm new here. i am looking forward into going back to college this september and i am now enrolled to do the access to higher education in nursing (which i am dreading because of the recent change in university requirements) and i was just wondering what materials do i need? i already have the following:

-large lever arch folder
-divider
-plastic wallets
-notepad (with holes that will fit into my folder easily)
-pen
-8gb usb

what else can be essential? i know i already have a laptop and an ipad but is it essential to have scientific calculator? multicolour buttoned folders for each subject? what materials are not essential but can be very useful?
Reply 1
Original post by msnickile
hi! i'm new here. i am looking forward into going back to college this september and i am now enrolled to do the access to higher education in nursing (which i am dreading because of the recent change in university requirements) and i was just wondering what materials do i need? i already have the following:

-large lever arch folder
-divider
-plastic wallets
-notepad (with holes that will fit into my folder easily)
-pen
-8gb usb

what else can be essential? i know i already have a laptop and an ipad but is it essential to have scientific calculator? multicolour buttoned folders for each subject? what materials are not essential but can be very useful?


A scientific calculator helps and they only cost like £7 so you might as well get one in place of the tacky £1 calculators.
Revision cards are useful if you really want to cement everything you learn.

The best thing you can do is study GCSE level Math, English and Science during the summer; it will give you the best preparation for an access course. Even if you think you know the content do it anyway. It will make your first few weeks/months a lot easier. For example your grammar isn't great and your not capitalizing the start of your sentences and your proper nouns. It's obvious your level of English is good, I'm guessing you're just being lazy, tired or both.
Get in the habit of always using the correct punctuation and grammar as I believe your coursework can get marked down because of it.


Edit:
Make sure you get a highlighter! They make finding important parts in your textbook so much easier.
Sticky notes are great as well for quickly writing down something a teacher might say or reminding yourself of something important to read later on.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 2
Original post by msnickile
hi! i'm new here. i am looking forward into going back to college this september and i am now enrolled to do the access to higher education in nursing (which i am dreading because of the recent change in university requirements) and i was just wondering what materials do i need? i already have the following:

-large lever arch folder
-divider
-plastic wallets
-notepad (with holes that will fit into my folder easily)
-pen
-8gb usb

what else can be essential? i know i already have a laptop and an ipad but is it essential to have scientific calculator? multicolour buttoned folders for each subject? what materials are not essential but can be very useful?


DIARY! Get yourself an academic diary, you can get them from The Works for about £2. I got mine from Poundland last year for my access course and it is the only thing I have bought so far for my degree. Use it for putting all homework into it, assignment deadlines, room changes, exam and holiday dates etc and then check it every day. I also listed my assignments in the Notes section at the back as we were given them and then crossed them off as I handed them in so I couldn't forget any.

We needed a scientific calculator for our Maths units and for Chemistry. I didn't know how important it was so I got one for about £3 but my advice would be to buy a Casio (about £7 at Tesco/Asda) because no-one knew how mine worked which made it difficult when trying to show me how to use it.

I used my little stapler a lot, it was a small one that fitted into my pencil case. There were ones available to use in the library but I found it useful to have my own. Our assignments had to be stapled together before being submitted. I also had a hole punch although that was left at home because we were given quite a lot of hand-outs that I wanted to put into my folder. And a glue stick, we did a cut-and-paste exercise in biology. Things like that were provided when needed but it was easier to have my own than waiting to share.

A couple of different colour biros, a highlighter, pencil (+ eraser and sharpener) etc. Blue and red pens are really useful in biology, plus a ruler of course. I had a short ruler in my pencil case and a 30cm one in my bag.

I used those A4 plastic envelopes for carrying my work to and from college. One for each subject. I would just keep the current hand-outs and anything I might need for that lesson. Some people carried their stuff in ringbinders or small folders. My plastic envelopes did get scruffy and fell to bits, I'm trying to think of a better way for university.

In all honesty all you will really need to start with is pen and paper and you can pick things up as you go along. They don't need to be expensive either, most of my stuff came from cheap shops for a few pence rather than WHSmiths. I don't want people reading my post and thinking they need to spend a fortune on stationary before starting.
Reply 3
Original post by msnickile
hi! i'm new here. i am looking forward into going back to college this september and i am now enrolled to do the access to higher education in nursing (which i am dreading because of the recent change in university requirements) and i was just wondering what materials do i need? i already have the following:

-large lever arch folder
-divider
-plastic wallets
-notepad (with holes that will fit into my folder easily)
-pen
-8gb usb

what else can be essential? i know i already have a laptop and an ipad but is it essential to have scientific calculator? multicolour buttoned folders for each subject? what materials are not essential but can be very useful?


Really useful are the notepads with spiral binders, and reasonable quality paper to write on, Wilkinsons do them for about 70p. Oxford notepads are luxurious to write on, but expensive, note taking is much more pleasurable on good paper.

A printer at home is really handy, but use the colleges printers as much as possible to conserve ink! A hole punch, not used a lot but handy for when needed. The white hole reinforcercers to repair sheets of A4 so they don't hang out of your folders.

If you have room for one a wall planner with calendar on, is great for a visual aid to plan work, I used mine more than I used a diary.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my LT15i
Reply 4
Like above i would recomend a printer. Last year my friends all used college printers and some of the assignments were quite big so it cost a small fortune. I use Asda own ink in my printer and it cost around £13 for black and colour. I would deffo recomend getting your own as also the queues to use college ones are quite long. My college had only 1 colour printer and 2 black and white ones.
Reply 5
Original post by kittycat82
Like above i would recomend a printer. Last year my friends all used college printers and some of the assignments were quite big so it cost a small fortune. I use Asda own ink in my printer and it cost around £13 for black and colour. I would deffo recomend getting your own as also the queues to use college ones are quite long. My college had only 1 colour printer and 2 black and white ones.


Printing at our college was free :tongue:
Reply 6
Original post by jami74
Printing at our college was free :tongue:


Really! Mine charged 25p a sheet for colour :eek:

Well of course op would not need a printer if the college was kind enough to provide free printing :tongue:
Reply 7
@adam721 i am just being lazy but no worries, i already have done my gcses and the only thing i failed is maths, i will make adjustments when needed but thank you.

i already have a kodak printer that is cheap on ink.. im looking forward to buying rhe oxford notebook as my handwriting depends on what paper im writing on. so i dont need folders for each subject then?
Reply 8
Original post by msnickile
@adam721 i am just being lazy but no worries, i already have done my gcses and the only thing i failed is maths, i will make adjustments when needed but thank you.

i already have a kodak printer that is cheap on ink.. im looking forward to buying rhe oxford notebook as my handwriting depends on what paper im writing on. so i dont need folders for each subject then?


tbh, i found that i didn't need a folder per subject. i'd take notes - go off and do the reading and whether i made any additional notes or not was questionable - and then when assignments were launched, i just did the assignments.

it's largely down to your own style as to whether u feel the need for folders because if u are the type that's gonna go nuts for note makin (and i deffo wasn't!) then i suppose go for it.
but if i had to make a suggestion from my own experiences i'd say note-pads for each subject may come in more useful than folders - cos u may find that once u have covered a unit, u get the assignment that effectively closes that subject/topic and u move on to the next thing.

that said, i only used one thick A4 note pad throughout the course that i sectioned per subject. i'm lazy tho and got by on the bare minimum to be fair :smile:

your two best purchases imo would be an academic diary as already mentioned and an A4 notepad for note taking in class and for use during further reading. oh and, deffo plastic wallets for the submission of work...presentation, presentation, presentation! as we were always told lol

additional advice would be, back up every piece of work that u do. as an example, i kept mine on my desktop+external hard drive and college desktop. nowt worse than losing that assignment cos of a tech glitch.
:smile:
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 9
Original post by msnickile
so i dont need folders for each subject then?


I didn't have a ring-binder for each subject but I did have a big lever arch file which I put notes etc in after I finished a unit. The units were quite small and our hand-outs covered pretty much everything. One of our teachers even put blank pages in the unit hand-outs for us to make notes on so I didn't use any extra paper for that subject except at exam time when I revised by making notes but all those notes went in the bin after the exam. I used a lot of paper for maths because I did lots and lots of practice but again most of the practice went in the bin and I only kept the pages where I had written out neatly how to do something. All my assignments were word-processed. Most of my notes were made in pen in the margins of the hand-outs or sections highlighted to be honest. However, some people in my class made loads of notes but as most of it was just repeating what was in the hand-out I didn't bother. I guess it depends on learning style.

I think I will need to make more notes for university but I don't really know. I'm planning to buy folders though :tongue:. I like these ones
Original post by jami74
I didn't have a ring-binder for each subject but I did have a big lever arch file which I put notes etc in after I finished a unit. The units were quite small and our hand-outs covered pretty much everything. One of our teachers even put blank pages in the unit hand-outs for us to make notes on so I didn't use any extra paper for that subject except at exam time when I revised by making notes but all those notes went in the bin after the exam. I used a lot of paper for maths because I did lots and lots of practice but again most of the practice went in the bin and I only kept the pages where I had written out neatly how to do something. All my assignments were word-processed. Most of my notes were made in pen in the margins of the hand-outs or sections highlighted to be honest. However, some people in my class made loads of notes but as most of it was just repeating what was in the hand-out I didn't bother. I guess it depends on learning style.

I think I will need to make more notes for university but I don't really know. I'm planning to buy folders though :tongue:. I like these ones


that's quite pink, innit?

i'm still stuck at the ' can't find a decent academic diary' stage and it's doin ma head!
Reply 11
Original post by ashtoreth
that's quite pink, innit?

i'm still stuck at the ' can't find a decent academic diary' stage and it's doin ma head!


Yeah but they come in blue and black too! :drool:

ashtoreth, I trust you have seen this: The stationery and organisation thread! :biggrin:
Original post by jami74
Yeah but they come in blue and black too! :drool:

ashtoreth, I trust you have seen this: The stationery and organisation thread! :biggrin:


*hands jami a tissue* there ya go chick, i believe that may come in useful for the drool comin outta yer mouff looool (they are nice tho!) i got this set...http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=35058724

yeah, i've seen that thread but, it's rather loooooong and i didn't really wanna trawl thru it :colondollar:
will give it a ganders tho. my personal addictions are a decent diary (day to day ones) and PENS! i love a pen that flooooooows like silk! gel pens seem good but, they vary in fluidity and i'm after the perfect one still...tho the ones i got are good but i've nearly run outta the purple now (fav colour along with green and dark blue) :frown:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uni-Ball-Signo-Needle-Rollerball-Coloured/dp/B003BT5EW6/ref=sr_1_1?s=officeproduct&ie=UTF8&qid=1343339680&sr=1-1
(edited 11 years ago)

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