Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Feel like I'm not smart enough for uni

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Thank you for your response.

I'm sorry that counselling didn't work for you. I don't think that ignoring the problem and finding some distraction is going to solve my problem.
I know that I might not improve but carrying on at university just seemed like an impossibility so I think that taking the year off was the right decision. I just would have failed everything had I continued and I was already struggling with deadlines before reading week. I couldn't just continue and pretend that nothing was wrong. I just felt like I needed to go home and rest and I think it was right.
Neither CBT nor medication has helped so it's quite possible that I might never recover, in which case I'll just have to drop out. If I'm feeling better next year I might go back to Canterbury but I doubt it. The reason i'd transfer would be so that I could live at home and still finish my last year at university.

Despite the sensibility of your post I can't quite grasp what it is that you suggest I do. Take a year break and then start at the same uni next year? Take another year out? Drop out of uni completely?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what I was saying either. It made sense to me when I wrote it but having reread it, I'm not sure entirely what I was getting at.

One of my friends recently lost her mother to cancer. She was unsure as to what she ought to do and how to deal with her grief but one of our tutors wisely noted that grief cannot be timed or controlled. I think I was trying to get at a similar thing. I guess I was advising you to carry on at uni, because that was the choice that made the most sense to me when I was doubting whether or not I wanted to be at uni. Finish what you started and focus on something else and all that, it sort of worked for me, although clearly not for you. The fact that you're a third year (I think you are anyway) also makes the decision much bigger though than when I faced it. In which case I don't really want to advise you to do anything other than ask yourself, your family and your personal tutor / or whoever is in charge of your wellbeing at uni.

This isn't a decision which should be influenced by the advice of strangers on the internet, and I don't think any of us have enough understanding of the situation, nor of you as a person, to provide any insight.

So although I think I was at first advising you to not drop out of uni, whether or not that included a transfer or year out, now I'm just retracting that advice and apologising for not giving any other advice...?

I'm confusing myself trying to write this :s-smilie:

and putting off an essay :frown:

I guess the advice I'm giving is to go to your personal tutor and explain that you feel like you're still in the same rut you were in when you took that year out and ask what your options are and which they think would be the most suitable for your situation. They'll be more invested in you and your well-being and more experienced in how to deal with your situation. If you need someone to help you make the decision they'll also probably be the most useful, which is something you're clearly in need of, thus we have this thread.

sorry, this whole post is basically saying "I don't know what I'm talking about! Ask somebody else!" I'm trying to say it in the nicest way possible though :tongue:

Reply 61

neilcahill32

I'm also in my third year, and have the same feelings on an almost daily basis. I study English Literature, so while the material I'm studying isn't always the most complicated in the world, I struggle because I'm such a slow reader compared to other people. If I really apply myself I can keep up with everyone else and get good grades, but only at the expense of extracurricular activity - I've done a couple of work experience placements and some travelling in my summers off, but termtime at uni I literally do **** all outside of my course.

I see people around me who are editors of the student newspaper or senior producers for the university radio channel, and I just can't get my head around how they fit it in with their studies, given how much time I have to put in to achieve good results academically.

I'm really worried for the future as I have very little to point out on my CV other than my academic achievement. This would be OK if I was studying, let's say, Maths or Economics, but when my degree is a soft subject like English it really means I'm not all that employable.