I know this seems like fairly small fry compared to some of the other problems in this thread, but I’ll admit that I’m feeling a bit down about university at the moment.
As many of you know, I started university around 2 months ago. Now I should clarify that my struggles are nothing to do with the environment or the people; the campus is lovely, the people are all really nice, and I’d say that I’ve settled into the university setting itself quite nicely. Independent train travel, which was a big step for me to take and was one of the things that most worried me before heading to uni, is going great too; in fact, I do actually quite enjoy taking the train now. So in theory, I should have nothing to be worried about.
However, I’ll admit that I’m increasingly feeling a little bit out of my depth within my degree and university in general.
Prior to going to university, I think I’d almost taken the work for granted to a degree; the course had no prerequisite to have ever done Computer Science before, and I got an A* at A Level, so while I knew I’d have to do a lot of work towards my degree, I was expecting to grasp the material fairly easily. I was anticipating much of it to be a repeat of stuff I’d done at A Level. So I’ve got to say that I’m a bit surprised at just how hard I’m finding some of the material; quite a bit of it is really complex stuff compared to anything I’ve ever done before, and I’ll admit I’m struggling a bit with grasping some of it. It probably doesn’t help that many of the other people on my course are absolute Computing and STEM prodigies who could probably do this sort of thing in their sleep even prior to university, but I’ll admit that I feel really stupid compared to everyone else there, and I’m worried at how slowly I’m grasping some of the material.
The other thing is that I think the general university study style has been a little bit of a shock to the system and something I’m finding quite tough to adjust to. Being autistic, I’ve always liked having explicit guidance on tasks and having a bit of structure. While I knew very well that I would have to do a fair bit of independent work in university, and this was something I had no issue with, I’ll admit that I’m finding the relative lack of guidance and unstructured study style compared to somewhere like school/sixth form quite hard to adjust to. In university, the assignment briefs and guidance given are very ambiguous, and they expect you to know what to do on your own, whereas in school (even sixth form) they gave you clear guidance and a very clear set of instructions for completing tasks. I know many like the independent approach of university, but I’ll admit that I’m personally struggling with it somewhat, and I’m starting to think that the more guided approach is more my speed. I’m also finding things like referencing and finding the right places to integrate references a bit tough, as it’s never really something I’ve had to think about before.
My initial assignment deadlines are in about 4 weeks, and while I’d say I've at least made a decent start on all of them (the written element of all of them now has 1,000-1,500 words at minimum out of a 2,000 word limit, if not close to the limit; in fact, I have actually finished one of them, and am trying to cut it down to fit the limit and further refine it), I’ve started to hit a bit of a wall with them, as there are some practical elements to some of them that I’m completely lost on. For instance, the code for my programming module is really complex compared to anything I did at A Level, and is currently giving me a world of pain, and I’m also struggling with the practical element of my maths module somewhat (although I was not that strong at Maths A Level, so I guess I was never going to find coding complex mathematical operations a walk in the park). Of the 4, I’d say there’s only one module that I feel really confident with at the moment, and that’s stressing me out.
Sorry to burden you all with all this, but I’m just feeling a bit down about it all at the moment, and even though I’m only 2 months into my first semester, I’m wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake, as surely it’ll only get harder from here…
Managed to locate the right album in the end, which was given to us when we left the Forest by Helen and her good friend Audrey, containing a number of postcards from the area and photos of trips we took together. The Dean Forest Railway was somewhere I was often quite fond of, and I guess that it - along with watching Thomas the Tank Engine, of course - is probably what started off my love of trains.
