{"id":7995,"date":"2019-02-05T16:02:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T16:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/?p=7995"},"modified":"2020-06-22T18:27:54","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T18:27:54","slug":"school-college-vs-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/school-college-vs-university\/","title":{"rendered":"School\/College vs University"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Going to university is for many, the first major decision people make in their lives these days. Of course, university isn\u2019t the sole road to success and no-one should feel like they have to go. However, the experience has too many benefits to name and is a time where you really do (clich\u00e9 imminent) find yourself and grow as a person. Saying this, there are also many differences between school and college to uni, and in this post, I hope to point to some of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Independence<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uni is one of the first times that you truly experience\nindependent living. Away from mum and dad and for most, in a whole new city, it\ncan be challenging at first but after a few dodgy dinners and clothes\nshrinkages from the wash, you will get the hang of it and start to feel like a\nreal adult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Free time<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tying in with the independence, many courses are not 9-5\nwhich means that you will probably have a lot of spare time on your hands.\nHowever, this is crucial for doing your independent work and assessments. On\ntop of this, you can also consider undertaking an internship or getting a part\ntime job alongside your studies. This is something I did last semester which\nbrings huge benefits and a little bit extra money! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Lecturers can be like friends<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unlike school, your lecturers won\u2019t be treating you like a\nchild. Lecturers and seminar leaders are there to help you and sometimes can\nalso help after you graduate by putting you in touch with their vast network of\ncontacts. It definitely doesn\u2019t hurt to get to know your lecturers. They do say\nit\u2019s not what you know it\u2019s who you know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Fun<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">University is a whole lot of fun. I\u2019m not saying that school\nand college isn\u2019t but for me personally, university definitely tops it and I\ncan certainly say that I am currently living the best years of my life so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Better facilities<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Universities can be huge however, this means that there is\nroom for great facilities and libraries. Cardiff also has great departments\nsuch as health and wellbeing, global opportunities and job shop to name a few\nwhich are hugely beneficial to your uni experience.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Easier to find likeminded people<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As you probably know, being a teenager, let alone being at\nschool is a tough time where people can be judgemental and unaccepting. Not at\nuni. You can be anyone you want to be here and you are pretty much guaranteed\nto find your people whether that is on the first day, month, year or even in your\nsecond and third year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Community<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">University has a great sense of community which is most\ndistinctly evident in the annual Varsity competition against Swansea where\neveryone can be seen sporting Cardiff merch and cheering on all our sports\nteams. I am proud to be a student at Cardiff and here will always be a second\nhome to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Sports and Societies <\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One way easy way to make friends is through the hundreds of\nsports and societies on offer at Cardiff which can definitely not be found to\nthis extent at school or college. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>The work is harder<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yep. You guessed it. Although uni can be all fun and games\nyou do have to remember that you\u2019re paying \u00a39,000 a year to do a degree and\nwith that comes a ton of hard work. However, after, you will be rewarded with a\nhuge sense of achievement and better employment prospects!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Longer holidays<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uni students don\u2019t strictly get half terms (although many\ncourses do get reading weeks) which means that our Christmas, Easter and summer\nholidays are longer than school ones. Summer holidays can be just under 4\nmonths long which seems ridiculous but is a crucial time to gain work\nexperience, volunteer and relax. I have written a separate blog post all about\nthis so check it out here: <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/2018\/04\/03\/7-ways-to-spend-your-uni-holidays\/\">http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/2018\/04\/03\/7-ways-to-spend-your-uni-holidays\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So overall, I have to say that since coming to university my\nlife has definitely changed for the better. I have a ton of new friends for\nlife, had made incredible memories and am doing a course that I love. So in\nrelation to School\/College vs University\u2026 uni definitely wins this one. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Going to university is for many, the first major decision people make in their lives these days. Of course, university isn\u2019t the sole road to success and no-one should feel [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1499,"featured_media":8093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15,704],"tags":[41,671,199,160],"class_list":["post-7995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-only-in-cardiff","category-settling-in","category-why-university","tag-cardiff","tag-compare","tag-uni","tag-university"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7995"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11524,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995\/revisions\/11524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}