u/No-Respond-3239

I’m considering doing an Access to HE course next year but I’m really conflicted and wanted advice from people who may have been in a similar situation.

For context, I originally went to university for Computer Science but things didn’t go well academically or personally and I’ve most likely failed my foundation year. I currently have BTEC Level 3 grades of MMP in IT. I know I can still get into some universities with those grades, but the issue is that I feel like they don’t reflect my actual potential due to a lot of personal difficulties I was dealing with at the time.

I recently went to a consultation at a College and they told me I could still apply to universities now with my current qualifications, but I keep thinking about whether doing an Access course could give me a second chance academically and help me aim for stronger universities later on.

At the same time, I’m worried about:
• being older than everyone else
• spending extra years in education
• whether universities will still make me redo a foundation year anyway
• whether I’m wasting time when I could just apply somewhere now

Part of me wants to move on immediately and continue with university, but another part of me feels like I’ll regret not trying to improve my academic profile first.

Has anyone here done an Access course after struggling at university or after getting grades they felt didn’t represent them? Did it help you get into better universities or feel more confident academically?

Edit: I also wanted to add some context because people are assuming I’m “not ready for university” purely because I failed academically.

I previously made a long post on r/UniUK talking about my negative experience at the university I attended. Someone replied saying that I wasn’t ready for university. I responded calmly saying that failing academically or failing a foundation year does not automatically mean someone is incapable of university, and that dismissing people’s personal circumstances can come across as harsh and invalidating. I didn’t insult them or become aggressive.

After that, I was called immature by an entirely different person and told I shouldn’t attend any university at all.

I’m aware I made mistakes academically, but I also know the circumstances that affected my performance and I know I’m capable of more than what my grades currently show. Part of why I’m considering an Access course is because I genuinely want to rebuild myself academically instead of pretending everything went perfectly.

Finished my first year at Royal Holloway and honestly, I wouldn’t recommend it.

The main issue for me was that the cost of studying and living there didn’t feel justified by the overall experience. Egham is quite expensive for students, yet the facilities and support often felt lacking. Grocery options are limited and overpriced, accommodation costs are very high for the quality offered, and a lot of food options on campus are expensive as well.

One of the most disappointing aspects was student support. I struggled heavily with my mental health during the year and didn’t feel properly supported by the university services. Most of the help I received amounted to being referred elsewhere by the University GP rather than receiving meaningful ongoing support from the university itself. Even then the support wasn’t much help.

Academically, my experience with some staff members was also negative. My physics lecturer sometimes made me felt dismissed or belittled when asking for help, which made it harder to engage with classes and support sessions. While not every lecturer was bad, some interactions with her seriously damaged my confidence. During 1-1 sessions she would belittle me when helping me with seminar questions I struggled with. She made me feel like a person with a lack of intelligence, knowing full well that I was struggling mentally, hence the low grades.

The campus itself is also very misleading in advertisements. The Founders Building looks impressive, but many other buildings are dated, cramped, or poorly maintained in comparison. Some teaching spaces felt uncomfortable and overcrowded.

Socially, I struggled a lot too. I joined a few societies hoping to make friends, but many already had established friendship groups, which made it difficult to integrate as someone with social anxiety. This may partly be due to my own confidence issues, but overall I found the social environment quite isolating. There are cliques and social hierarchies within the university, it may not seem so at first but do not be fooled they are definitely present. If you are highly attractive or come from some sort of status/wealthy background you are favoured highly and put on a pedestal by other students while others are left to rot. In this uni there are a lot of people from wealthy backgrounds or were privately educated. I don’t fit into those categories.

There were some decent people and moments throughout the year, but overall my experience at RHUL was disappointing. For the price of accommodation, living costs, and tuition, I expected a much better experience both academically and personally.

I’m planning to do an access course this next academic year and hopefully apply to universities that are a better fit for me, such as Queen Mary or King’s. I will be getting treatment for my mental health issues alongside this to make sure I don’t fall into getting low grades again. I do want to try my best and show what I’m truly capable of doing and I think this university was stopping me from showing my academic capabilities and worsened my mental health.

I(19F) did a foundation year at rhul this year and I’ve failed due to declining mental health. I want to do an access course in digital technologies and computer science. At the college open day they told me that the course has 15 maths credits which was the only thing I needed clarification on as the unis I wanted to go to require this.

I want to do an access course as a fresh start. I have had disruptions with my studies before during gcse is when my mental health issues arose. I didn’t get the grades I wanted at the time even though I was predicted all 9s and 8s, those issues persisted into college and now I’ve wasted a year of uni and put myself in even more debt.