Transferred and think I got it wrong. What should I do?

Yes, I started at Winchester in September, then transferred over to DMU in early October. Someone in a previous reply said that because of this transfer, I'd miss out on a "gift year" of funding. To be honest, I'm a little bit confused about this - I was only at Winchester for a couple of weeks?

Yeah I very much doubt a creative writing course will get your into English Teaching especially at secondary level, so a change is worth it for that.

Please be aware that changing university won't make stuff massively easier for you. There will still be lots of people, there will still be times you feel uncomfortable and these are just challenges that you'll face wherever you go. It's unreasonable to expect a university to naturally accommodate the social needs and expectations of everyone.

Otherwise I think you've been given really good advice in this thread and I hope it helps you moving forward.

That's fine, nothing for you to worry about it was just not 100% clear whether you had done a few weeks at Winchester or a whole year.

You will be able to get student finance if you start an English degree next year

Thanks, that's why I was so sceptical about continuing with a straight CW degree.

I know that there are still gonna be difficult times at any uni I could go to, but I feel that the environment you study in can take the edge off and make it just that little bit easier.

I'll extend this to everyone who's replied - thanks for your help.

Yes, I started at Winchester in September, then transferred over to DMU in early October. Someone in a previous reply said that because of this transfer, I'd miss out on a "gift year" of funding. To be honest, I'm a little bit confused about this - I was only at Winchester for a couple of weeks?

I'd recommend you check with SFE directly to be sure then; it's slightly murky ground I think. I'd recommend using the "Ask SFE" forum on here, or DMing them on Twitter or Facebook as those channels are managed centrally by SFE in Darlington, who generally have the most experience with stuff like this which is less routine (whereas the phone number may go to a contracted call centre, who are good at dealing with the routine SFE issues but stuff like this you can get conflicting information from them in my experience)..

With respect, I don't see how it's murky ground considering OP has used only used about 2 months of his student funding entitlement? He could have used a whole year and still be entitled to another 3 years

Because tuition fee loans are paid directly the universities, and the original university may not have pro-rata'd the loan payment and hence may not have "returned" the rest of the loan; usually universities have a cut off date where after that you are liable for full fees for at least the term, if not the year. Likewise the new university probably would have demanded payment of the full tuition fees, and are unlikely to have pro-rata'd the rate accounting for the missed time at the start of the course.

I am speaking from experience when I recommend to not make any assumptions about the vagaries of SFE's entitlement calculations, because it can very easily leave you with the liability to pay a year of tuition fees out of nowhere. At least if they verify this in advance they can prepare for whatever eventuality if needed - which I was unable to when I was in a similar situation (although luckily I was on the old fee scheme at the time, and my university agreed to a payment plan, which made it more manageable). This is also likewise why I recommend they go through the channels I suggested so they get a practitioner from Darlington to be looking at it.

I can't see how OP could be charged for more than a year's worth of student finance given his situation but since you have more experience of SFE than me, agree that it wouldn't hurt for him to check with them that he would be eligible for another 3 year loan, using one of the methods you suggested

The perspective I could see being taken, depending on how things actually worked out with the tuition fee loans, would be:

Uni 1: tuition fee loan paid, after withdrawal period, full fee liability so one full years worth of tuition fee loans are/will be paid

Uni 2: tuition fee loan paid for one full year as normal.

Thus, 2 years of funding, with only 1 gift year, even though it's all within the same academic year. The important thing for the OP is to verify whether this is or isn't the case, so they can plan ahead.

Thanks for your reply. I didn't realise how many options I had open to me. I'll take a look into them and weigh everything up.

With regard to the question you just deleted @certainlynothj the answer is No you don't need to disclose that Good Luck with everything

Okay so I'm studying at Creative Writing at De Montfort. I want to change to an English degree at Loughborough, with Leicester as a backup.

Discussed it with my parents, the conclusion we reached was that I could finish this year at DMU and then start over at whichever uni I move to. That way I'm still in education while I wait to change unis.

About grad jobs - I'd like to teach English, so I feel that a proper English degree from somewhere like Loughborough would be beneficial in a number of ways. My current course itself isn't too bad, save for the short teaching hours.

Hope this helps.