Possible to work part time and achieve distinctions on access course?
Has anyone managed to work part time and achieve distinctions? If so, how did you manage your time?
I worked part time (24hr/week) throughout my access course and found it to be relatively easy to achieve distinctions consistently. I did the access to science at a local college and its very much a learn the content you need for the exam and then move on to the next topic, so it's quite easy to cram a lot of revision for an exam the week before and still achieve distictions. 
I did an online access course and worked full time. I organised myself, worked hard, and scheduled time for academics - mostly in the evenings and on weekends. In the end, I achieved all distinctions. However, I'm not sure if your course is at college?
Original post by ssman99
I did an online access course and worked full time. I organised myself, worked hard, and scheduled time for academics - mostly in the evenings and on weekends. In the end, I achieved all distinctions. However, I'm not sure if your course is at college?
Yeah my course is at college studying engineering. How many hours did you study on workdays and weekends?
Original post by chainschafing
Yeah my course is at college studying engineering. How many hours did you study on workdays and weekends?
My course was in Law/Criminology. Because my course was not in engineering and/or at a college, I'm not able to speak to these.
However, what I'll say is that as with anything in life, if you really want something, you need to be motivated. You need to have a game plan on what you need to do to attain your goal. You have to be super organised and dedicated.
I used to dedicate 3 hours on weekdays (4 days), with one day's rest. Then on weekends, I would pick either Sat or Sun to spend 5+ hours on academics. However, depending on the demands of a module, I may study for longer than the above times - not all modules are equally credit weighted, some are worth 3 credits and others are 6 credits.
My studying hours may or may not be overwhelming, but because I really wanted all distinctions, I knew that I had to go over and beyond when studying to leave no room for error.This was my approach.
Hope you find this useful.
Original post by TMedi
I worked part time (24hr/week) throughout my access course and found it to be relatively easy to achieve distinctions consistently. I did the access to science at a local college and its very much a learn the content you need for the exam and then move on to the next topic, so it's quite easy to cram a lot of revision for an exam the week before and still achieve distictions.
Before you started the access course, did you do any sort of preparation or revision over the summer? I want to be as prepared as possible without overdoing it before I start the course.
Great question. In humanities, its all essays. It was a while since I last wrote essays and in the weeks leading up to my access course, I brushed up on my essay writing skills and made sure I knew how to write essays (again) or at least to the level that was expected of me.
I imagined for a quantitative field like engineering, you may need to brush up on your maths/physics skills especially if its been a while since you last did these. You can look at the access course content for engineering at the college you'll be studying and do independent research on the modules. Learn the maths, physics and/or other quantitative modules at a basic and elementary level (slowly, slowly), so that you understand the reasoning behind them for engineering. There’ll be lots of videos and free content online on this.
Finally, please remember that my word is not gospel and I a have zero experience on the engineering access course. You should continue doing you own independent research, if possible, from others who did the engineering access course. My view in this area is general and based on my experience reading about this passively. But, a great start will be to look at the access course content for engineering at the college you'll be studying and build from there (pun intended)
I imagined for a quantitative field like engineering, you may need to brush up on your maths/physics skills especially if its been a while since you last did these. You can look at the access course content for engineering at the college you'll be studying and do independent research on the modules. Learn the maths, physics and/or other quantitative modules at a basic and elementary level (slowly, slowly), so that you understand the reasoning behind them for engineering. There’ll be lots of videos and free content online on this.
Finally, please remember that my word is not gospel and I a have zero experience on the engineering access course. You should continue doing you own independent research, if possible, from others who did the engineering access course. My view in this area is general and based on my experience reading about this passively. But, a great start will be to look at the access course content for engineering at the college you'll be studying and build from there (pun intended)
Original post by chainschafing
Before you started the access course, did you do any sort of preparation or revision over the summer? I want to be as prepared as possible without overdoing it before I start the course.
Are you doing a science/health access course? I didn't do much prep before the start of my course and honestly you really don't need to. The teachers will teach you everything you need to know. If you really wanted to do some revision beforehand, I would recommened briefly reading some GCSE biology books and some maths books - my first assignment was a 10 page maths assignment
.Original post by TMedi
Are you doing a science/health access course? I didn't do much prep before the start of my course and honestly you really don't need to. The teachers will teach you everything you need to know. If you really wanted to do some revision beforehand, I would recommened briefly reading some GCSE biology books and some maths books - my first assignment was a 10 page maths assignment .
.I get jealous whenever I see people say access teachers will teach you everything you need to know.
This probably massively depends on the course and the college. The teaching we got wasn't even enough to achieve a pass. We had to self teach almost the entire content.
Entirely, if you manage time accordingly. I work part-time at a hospital and did my access course between September last year and June this year, and I’ve ended up with full distinctions
I've found it very hard to get distinctions working part-time. And so did the people who didn't have a job during our Access course. I think it depends on the college, in our case it definitely wasn't ' everybody gets kicked through'. Even though I enjoyed studying and the subjects, I'd do a self-paced online Access course (that I'd probably never finish as I needed the pressure :-) ).
Original post by chainschafing
Has anyone managed to work part time and achieve distinctions? If so, how did you manage your time?
I'm studying Animal Behaviour and Conservation at Wrexham University. I've worked part time throughout my whole degree (I'm just about to go into my third year and I did a foundation year too). I have been getting 60-70+ in nearly all my assignments. It is hard but if you are organised its definitely achievable, I would plan my weeks/months out what when i needed to work, when i had class and when i could study, but also make sure to have free time to socialise etc. I would also add that there is a lot of support available as a student, so take advantage of that and ask your tutors for help as they can help by giving you a few weeks extra for assignments when needed.
-Victoria
Wrexham Uni Rep
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