Adjusting back to academia after gap year

I am currently on a gap year and so by the time September comes I will have been out of education for a bit. I'm worried about adjusting back to academic life, whether I'll be able to get back into the swing of things like essays, exams, revision and be able to do all of them well.

I'm particularly worried about chemistry as it is part of my course and I haven't touched on it in a while. When would you recommend looking over past A-level stuff to build back my knowledge? I just don't want to be behind at uni.

I'm sure there are others in the same situation or have been in the same situation so any advice?

I took and a gap year and had no problem adjusting to doing academic work again. I would say for Chemistry it would definitley help to refresh your knowledge so your at the same page as everyone coming straight from a-levels.

I would recommend looking over your chemistry stuff, but I would also recommend finding some summer reading to help prepare you. This isn't always easy (my uni are VERY reluctant to let students know the reading list before classes start) but it can be done. I'm already at uni, so I don't do it this way anymore, but before I started uni I would look up the course description for each of my modules, see if the reading list was on blackwells yet (for the current or past version of the module) and then do some reading that way. It really helped me get a grasp of my modules whilst my friends were struggling. I think that will stand you in better stead than just looking over A level stuff.

Cheers guys, I'll definitely do that. Would you recommend me to start doing this now?

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Yeah, it's never too early. However if you think you'll get bored of it after a few weeks because of having no strict deadlines or set reading lists then I'd maybe leave it until the month or two before your term starts . I've got my summer studying roughly planned out for when my exams finish and I'm starting pretty much straight away.

Yeah there was a period of time in February-March when I was doing a lot of recap and work but sort of lost the drive to carry on as I had no 'target goal' and was getting bored.

I'll definitely have to focus on the Chemistry though.

Wow you are motivated! It's great that you do so much extra reading in the summer and seem very eager.