Career-wise I'm still somewhat undecided in terms of subjects that I think I'd thrive in they'd be computer science and chemistry since I was always quite strong in them at school and had always enjoyed lessons in them specifically the practical aspects (programming and experiments, respectively). I'm leaning more towards chemistry as I feel I'd have a great chance of success with UCAS studying it and I feel that it may prove to be a more useful degree for me as I'm already a fairly strong programmer and am looking at taking a govt bootcamp in digital work during this next year. Also I'm fairly unconfident in my mathematical ability right now, after this past year and feel like I need a bit of time to build that back up and chemistry isn't as maths heavy as compsci is (at least early on)
As far as what would be different. These past two years I had been working full time as whilst my parents earn enough that I am only entitled to the minimum maintenance loan, due to our family circumstances they can't actually afford to lend me money for uni and 6k isn't anywhere near enough to live in central london. Come 2024 I will have been provably financially independent for three years, and should be able to apply to SFE as an independent student. I feel like the reduced need to work to survive would make a fairly significant difference. Over the past year and a half my mum has also experience a tumour growing in her neck region (on her thryoid gland specifically I think) which paired with her mother being very ill for the past two years has been very stressful and draining for her, and obviously causing her difficulty breathing which was already harder for her as she has asthma. As a byproduct this has affected my studies as one I don't like to see my mum suffer, and two I've had to contribute to looking after her and take my eyes of studying at times. Over the past few months, the growth has seemed to be reduced a bit and my mum's overall health has improved. My grandmother has also passed which whilst is awful and still very raw for everyone, I feel long term will less the amount of stress on my mum and the rest of the family as she's won't be worried about her mother's health constantly. The last thing, which is a bit harder to control is making friends and not agreeing to live with people without getting to know them. As socialising on the natural science course I was at was quite hard since even if you were doing the same degree, for my options at least there were very few people you'd see often or consistently and I was the only stem undergraduate student in my accommodation (due to living costs I was placed in a post graduate accommodation, which had one flat dedicated to undergrads). As far as choosing whom to live with being more deciding on that front also instead of immediately agreeing to live with the same people as from halls, as by beginning of term three in 2022 my flatmates had already fallen out and the entire atmosphere and situation within the living space felt awful.