UCL natural science degree

Hello! I have an offer to study Chemistry at UCL, however I would like to switch this to a natural science degree as I have become more interested in cell and molecular biology during my gap year and want to potentially become a dietitian and looking at postgraduate courses, I would need modules which this natural science degree offers! I was wondering if anyone here is taking a natural science degree at UCL and if you are generally satisfied with it as I have heard it is unorganised! Thanks

Hey, did you get a reply from UCL? I am thinking to switch to natural sciences too

Yeah they said they had no spaces what course did you want to switch from?

Yeah they said they had no spaces what course did you want to switch from?

Damn :/ that really sucks to hear. I was gonna switch from Psychology but now idk what to do. I don't want to study it bc of the unemployment and bad prospects. Did they say anything about trying to switch after you've been enrolled?

Did you try asking UCL about swapping to other courses btw?

Hmm yeah I guess that natural science would you with more options, especially stem options compared to psychology. Are you living in the UK? I also have no clue what to do, because I don’t want to turn down UCL but I also don’t want to study chemistry

Yep. I tried asking if I could do the BASc Arts and Sciences and they also would not let me

Yeah I am living in the UK, and I already took 1 gap year so I don't want to turn this down :/ Likewise I don't want to turn down UCL but I don't want to study Psychology bc my parents & everyone says its a useless degree so I feel really bad

I see :/ that's really unfortunate and annoying. Have you seen the chemistry with management degree? Maybe you'd get less chemistry that way but i'm not so sure.

Omg no way haha I also already took a gap year!! And I don’t want to me 20 in my first year of university. I live in the UK as well. Well I mean firstly ask yourself do YOU want to do psychology. Don’t let others saying it’s a useless degree stop you from going if that is the degree you want to do. Firstly them saying it is a useless degree is not true, I am sure you have heard many companies look for graduates from all disciplines! But of course if you personally would prefer to study something different then that is a different situation

Yes, that is actually the degree I have applied for🤣, but I just say chemistry because it is easier. And it’s not actually less chemistry it is just that the optional modules are in management but the core is the same as a chem degree unfortunately

Honestly I'm not sure so I'll tell you about my cursed UCAS journey. Hated Psychology at the beginning of Year 12 bc it was too difficult content wise (volume was a lot), then went to summer school at UCL for Psychology w/ Education and I enjoyed it. But my parents were saying psychology was a useless degree & no jobs & that my disabled (blind) sibling who is older did psychology and hasn't gotten a job after a year.

So then I applied to do Biochem at QMUL and lied to everyone saying I applied for Psychology at the same Unis. Come results day I got A*AB and did clearing at QMUL to do Biology. Fast forward my mental health went to absolute crap & i developed a neurological disorder, my relations with my family crashed and I was left stuck in a rut. Decided to re-apply to UCAS (I applied to Psychology at UCL, KCL, Accounting & Management at QMUL, Pharmacy at KCL and Comp Sci at City Uni) and got all 5 offers. Realised Pharmacy was too long & since I go to the pharmacy all the time to get meds I wasn't too interested (now I kinda regret it bc the people at my pharmacy are nice :/ but I made that realisation a week ago).

Chose Psychology due to the reputation of UCL, then now I realise I don't really care about the Psychology content & I didn't want to study it bc even at A-level some parts were very scary for me and I had some break downs over the sensitivity of the content so now I have no idea what to do.

Biology at QMUL was alright- but studying a Biology degree felt weird bc I had no sense of direction and had no idea what to do with the degree

Honestly I feel so stuck bc Idk what to do since no one in my family went to Uni apart from my sibling who is blind. I do have enough maintenance loan to take a year out since I'd have to start paying my form of rent. A year ago I wouldn't have managed to get a job but this time I have learnt how to take care and manage my looks so maybe on that basis I could do a job/volunteer somewhere for my CV but idk...

But yeah you are right and I've seen a lot of companies just state "any degree" but that also kinda stresses me out bc idk what they're looking for

Okay I see that sounds tough, I feel you. I don't think you should base the degree being unemployable based on your brother. Considering he is blind, despite equality acts, many jobs will not employ him because of that reason and not because he has a psychology degree. May I ask why you lied and said you applied for psychology if your family were against the idea? Applying to such a wide range of courses sounds like you don't really know what degree you wanted to study exactly, which is totally okay - most people have no idea! Just a quick little thing about me that might make you feel better and I can try and give you some tips that worked for me and things that I learnt: Our situations are not exactly the same but reading this through I honestly feel like I understand you so much becuase I went through the exact same decision paralysis after my a levels. my mum always pushed me to accounting so I was trying to learn a level maths by myself in my gap year because I wanted to do accounting at a raeally good university, then I realsied I didnt want to do accounting it was jsut my mums thoughts imposed on me. Then i thought I wanted to do eonomics, looking back I only wanted to do that becuase it was the degree that had the best prospects i dont even care that much about money it was just external pressure and the fact i didnt want to let my parrents down they also have not been to university. At the same time I was studying for the ucat to go into dentistry, as my cousin said "i could learn all my life if it meant i would be rich" when we were talking about medicine and this set me off thinking that to be succesful I had to do dentistry or medicine. I then butchered the ucat becuase the day before i decided i didnt want to do dentistry and i was joining an art and design course during my gap year. at this point i was still trying to do maths. I left the course after a month to focus on maths but I was in such a bad mental state I really was going no where. i payed for therapy out of my saving after a friend suggested I speak to someone professionally - my parents did not know. And I ended up applying for chemistry as that is the thing i enjoyed most at a level. During the second part of my gap year somehow i managed to get a job i have no idea how i was in such a bad state and that really helped me get out of the rut. I have grown so much since then and I am still undecided about the whole university situation but my attitude towards it is much different. I feel like it sounds as if you are maybe still in the place I was and I honestly Sympathise so much with you becuase that was the worst period of my life, i wasen't sleeping due to stress, i wasen't eating well. it was tragic. I just wanted to share this, not to change the topic to me, but to give you some clarity that it is not just you going through situations like this! In reality most people do not know what they want to do at university becuase in reality how can they - they have maybe studied the subject before but they have nnot studied it at university, i think some poeple just get less stressed by the unknown and we are probably those people. I would suggest you try and speak to a profesional therapist, if you can afford it. If you can't then make an account on ChatGPT and prompt it by saying: acts as my therapist and explain your situation - i know it is not ideal but i tried it yesterday about switching degrees to arts adn sciences and it wasen't too bad. Remember that it is easier to stir a moving boat that a stagnant one! What i mean by this is that, if you take psychology and end up hating it, then you have options, you can drop out, i know this isint what you want to hear but so many people do it, they drop out and reapply in the next year! If you take psychology, you might go through with the 3 years but when you are at university there are so many different opportuniteis that you might find something you like that is not even part of your degree and you go into that! If you decide to take another gap year, i wouold suggest getting a job and the job you get might clarify things for you, you might end up working in an industry you love and then move into that or you might hate it and then know that is something you dont want to do. you can do a accounting course - you like it - great, you dont like it, then you dont do it. This is the thing that you honestly can't just keep juggling thoughts in your head until you try them becuase looking at the same course contents of the degree for the 100th time is not going to magically make you make a decision like yes i defo want to do this. As humans we tend to only like making decisions when we have the full information but picking a university degree you wont know what it will be like regardless of what degree you choose, you really just need to go for it! I know it is scary, I honestly can't stress enough that i have been there before, like looking at requirments to be an actuary, and thinking oh i need to do economics because there is a slight chance i might want to be an actuary. similar to you, you had no interest in doing pharmacy really, but now have relasied the people are nice so you might want to do pharmacy. pharmacy is not about the people, there are nice and not nice people everywhere, you shouldn't choosepharmacy over psychology jsut because the people in your local pharmacy are nice you know. Sorry if i am sounding harsh but it is just the things i probably needed to hear when i was in the situation, i honestly hope you will get better asap and i know everyone says it if you have spoken to people about it but it will work itself out. Try also listening to some podcasts about stoicism - that helpedme or sadghuru on youtube also helped to get a different view of life.

Though on a separate note could you tell me more about how you went about finding the job & what you had on your CV? I can send my CV while blurring out details bc it isn't much but just a yes/no of whether its good or not (not gonna ask to critique since that might not be so exciting)

Any guidance would be appreciated (I did use the QMUL website which can tailor your CV to certain roles which I think did help) since that would give me a good direction & place for me to start searching job vacancies & whether i feel confident enough to pursue it. I feel like I'm not good enough or comfortable doing any role bc i don't have much confidence in my voice, but being more positive i think that is just me not giving myself the experiences to grow & applying for jobs and even just doing interviews will give me a better sense of self & confidence (sorry for the rant)

Sorry for the late reply, but honestly I know in mind and heart you are 100% right about all of this. that i was chasing degrees simply because out of external pressure and lack of an internal will due to no real-world experiences. And in my heart I do want a job because just like you I do thing it'll really help mentally, and I did do one consulting internship during my time at Queen Mary and that was pretty good. I also did it bc during Term A i had no friends & it got to the point where i didn't want to go Uni anymore, so i pretended i went outside and was just walking in the parks for 2-3 hours which was so miserable (especially with my neurological disorder making me more sensitive to night) and i never want to do that again it was like i was killing myself but i didn't know what i could do & felt very stuck until i took the internship.

The reason I haven't gotten a job is because of my physical appearance, in particular my hair (its embarrassing to say) but i didn't know how to style it well (this was until a few weeks ago where i can now do it in 5-ish minutes), and now i have started going outside more to places like the gym without wearing a hat because now i can be presentable & confident. My teeth were also kinda yellow but recently it has been starting to look a lot less yellow (i know teeth have natural yellow hues) but that was a big insecurity of mine. I know its a basic thing but i was never taught these things when i was young + my hair texture literally changed from literally curly to straight w/ wavy front hair when i turned 18 (yeah don't ask idk how) so the entire year i've been trying to make sense of it (which now i have finally!) and that was such a big stressor i wanted to just shave all my head or something and wearing a hat was annoying bc it felt more uncomfortable making eye contact and talking to people (i don't have a problem with eye contact just when wearing a hat it feels weird)

I do have that internship under my belt so that is one thing in my very barren CV (apart from a few online things here and there, and knowledge and ability to help blind people since i can read braille and know how to approach them and be of help to them as a guide etc. (not sure if i can even add this to my CV)), and you talking about your experiences of getting a job gave me the wake up call and reminded me that all the time and effort I spent into my appearance/basic presentation is over and i can now apply for jobs while being a bit more confident in myself. Though I'm not sure where to look or even what jobs are available, since there are many websites & i can't really narrow things down.

Though on a side note since my relationship with my family is very toxic & abusive (its very complicated bc they are disabled) i think it'll be good to go out and get a job too, bc when im inside & when they shout at me it feels like i can never get a job but i did the internship just to prove and see if i have any will or guts (even while they were saying that awful stuff) so they are wrong.

Admittedly I also kinda used ChatGPT for that in some cases, less of what degree was good bc it kinda regurgitated what we both read on the course module pages which doesn't give a big picture of what its like studying the degree. But I did use it for personal problems (including the hair and teeth issues) and that did push me into a direction & ofc i eventually found the right answer.

And yeah that was pretty stupid to think that about Pharmacy haha, i did choose not to do it bc 4 years of full-time studying + pre-reg year was not very appealing to me. I also looked into accounting for that exact same reason, though i knew i couldn't hack medicine/dentistry bc i was very slow during A-levels and many things only clicked to me towards the end of exam season.

My only concern is tuition fees, because i think that based on your words & my thoughts its better to do the psych degree, because if i don't like the degree i can do an internal application to whatever course i want instead of UCAS which is 100% better since if im unsuccessful i could just study something else/more time to see if psychology is right for me so that might be something for you to consider too by taking the chem degree at UCL. I don't think Semester A of psych will harm me as much as i think it will bc im being scared & irrational. and if i really hate it i can take maintenance loan, drop out after Term A (this will push me to get a job at the first term regardless of my decision) and i will be making my life in the future more easier since i will have a better mind-set & mental health.

But i have taken the maintenance loan from studying my bio degree at QMUL + as a last resort i can ask my GP (known them for a few months) who diagnosed me with my neurological disorder which has impacted me mentally & psychologically (further compounded my problems, introduced new problems & makes it harder to go outside due to light sensitivity but got glasses with tints so that is sorted) if they can write a letter to SFE alongside evidence of family abuse since that is on court papers (i'll think about that more if i ever get to that stage).

but thank you so much honestly you've been the first person who i've ever spoken to about any of this & this has made me feel a lot more calm & realised not to give up on myself since i've been fighting & rooting for myself all along. i hope that you can make a decision you are comfortable with, and the most important thing is to never give up since you can always try changing slowly or drastically to alter how you feel about yourself etc.

Hey! I am literally so sorry about the late reply, I have had a family emergency and have not had time to go onto TSR. I hope you are doing okay. Of course, I found the job on indeed and i was just consistent with it, looking several times a day. I also applied to jobs which I don't see as future career jobs as any experience is better than none! If you still want to, I am happy for you to send your CV to me and I can defo help out! Also don't be sorry at all!

It sounds like you are having a really hard time and as you identified, I think you do just need to go for it! As scary as it is, it is the only thing that will help get you out of the rut of overthinking. So that sounds like a good plan, to go to UCL for Term 1 and see how it goes. I have decided I am defiantly going, so I guess I can try and help you out in person at UCL with your CV, or give you some tips on other things of how I got out of my rut. Please never give up on yourself! As difficult as it may be, there is always a way forward, just take things one at a time as it sounds like you have a lot to deal with. Also I wonder if your self-talk may be negative e.g., I am not good enough, I am stupid for doing this, they won't accept me to that job because XYZ. The reason I mention this is because you seem really positive and supportive towards me, although I am in a, not similar but regarding the indecision towards university then we are in a similar situation. So I think if you spoke to yourself the way you speak to me when trying to decide on the university, i think your mind would be at a much calmer place. We tend to be much more critical on ourselves, but maybe try and give yourself advice as if you were trying to give advice to a friend. Also once again, sorry for the late reply!