Barely mature student in need of help & advice (also posted in mature students)

Hi guys! Let me just preface this post by giving a bit of backstory and how I got into my current situation. I graduated college ~2 years ago (I'm 20 at the moment) with AAA in English, History and Drama. Went on to study History at university, ended up leaving during 2nd term last February after discovering it was not for me and I didn't want to continue doing History. I felt pressured to apply early to university because of my high predicted grades rather than think about what I really love and want to do with my life; I ended up just doing what I did at college, and I made a very bad decision as I only chose my A levels based on what I thought would be easy and fairly interesting rather than what would ultimately satisfy me academically. I have an A in GCSE Physics, B in GCSE Maths (although I could've very easily gotten an A looking back, I was lazy), A in GCSE Psychology etc.

I have spent the past year working for my stepdad at a care home, full-time since August. I have had a lot of time to figure out what I truly want to do with my life and after about a year of solid thought I've decided I want to pursue Computer Science. I love and have a passion for computers, having built my own and spent many thousands upon thousands of hours playing video games and have recently began to learn how to program (Python at the moment, early days). I have also developed a retrospective respect and interest in Mathematics; I found Maths to be fun and engaging at every level of my education but did not take it to A level due to trepidation regarding the workload.

Thing is, I am now set on going to university to study CS. I have read up a lot on the subject for the past few months and am particularly interested in the software engineering, artificial intelligence, computer graphics and computer networks areas of the subject, and while the computer architecture and theoretical side of things are intimidating, they are also very interesting to me.

However I am lost on what to do with regards to actually applying to university. I have read through league tables countless times and have ordered prospectuses recently from universities I am interested in (Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Leicester and York).

I am worried that because I lack a Maths A Level, I will be unable to get a place in university for CS. I am unsure where or if I would be able to study an accelerated Maths A Level. I am unsure as to what an Access Course is, how it would help get me into uni and how I would get access to one. I am worried that, if I do not do some kind of Maths course before I arrive, I will be unable to get back my proficiency at Maths I used to have (it has been 4 years since I did real Maths in a formal setting) and end up getting swamped by all the Mathematics involved. And I am unsure of what resources I have available to me to help make my decisions easier. In school I had teachers, careers advisers, guidance counselors etc. but coming from the working world it feels like I have no-one to talk about these issues.

Can someone help me out?

Reply 1

SlowlorisIncognito

Hi,

Firstly, a mature student for the purposes of most university related things is someone who will be over 25 when they start the course- so many things that apply to mature students may not apply to you.

It sounds like you have a good idea of what you need to do- it is very likely that you will not get a place at a good university to study computer science without A-level Maths. There are lots of options to take single A-levels in a year, through self study if this is something you wanted to do. You could probably continue to work alongside doing this. You would probably have to pay to take your exams, though. You could possibly also take a course through college- but some will ask for an A at GCSE to move onto A-level.

I'm not sure how suitable an access course would be for you, given you already have three full a-levels. It's an option worth investigating, but it might not be the right level for you, and funding may be difficult.

Another option may be to take a foundation year at a university- these are generally designed for people who have taken a-levels but done badly, or not done a-levels appropriate to the subject they want to study at university. They act as a bridge between a-levels and university, and you can do a foundation year at one university and apply for BSc courses at others if you wanted to. Because they take place at university, you can normally secure student finance while studying these courses- BUT as you have already studied at university, you probably won't be able to get full funding for a foundation year and your undergraduate degree.

You could contact the admissions departments of the universities you are interested in- they may advise on the route(s) they think are suitable for you.

Maths skills tend to degrade faster than other skills, so you may find jumping back in straight at a-level to be difficult- it might be worth revising some harder GCSE work first.

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