In 2020, I completed my A Levels and decided to take a gap year as I wanted to apply to a degree apprenticeship. Following multiple applications and interviews, I was unlucky and wasn’t able to land a spot in any of the degree apprenticeships I wanted. In June 2021, I felt I didn’t want to spend another year trying to get onto an apprenticeship so I decided to apply to university. After doing some research, I decided to apply to the University of Greenwich as I wanted to stay in London, not too far from home. Greenwich campus is in London so I could continue to work at my job and London has the best transport links in the UK. Looking on UCAS, I realised I missed the deadline for applications so had to apply through Clearing. I looked at the apprenticeships I had applied to and realised they all had HR in common, so I decided to apply to Human Resource Management (HRM) at Greenwich as my first choice. I called the clearing hotline and discussed my application with a member of staff and before I knew it, I was enrolled.
Clearing was a very simple process, and I appreciated the speed everything was processed. It was easy to follow, quick and ensured I wasn’t stressing about whether I’d have to wait for an answer.
Greenwich was my first choice as I have friends who were already enrolled and all of them loved the support they received at Greenwich and none of them had a bad thing to say about the lecturers or teaching style. My course is quite obscure; not many universities offer it, so I was pleased to see Greenwich does. Greenwich was ranked higher than other universities too, which was another persuading factor. When I complete my degree here at Greenwich, I will obtain my CIPD, which I feel is much better than doing another course post degree.
I chose to move out as I wanted the full university experience, but I was moving into a place where I didn’t know anybody. My initial flatmates were 5 Erasmus students, 4 from Germany and the last was French. Meeting them was amazing, but as they were only there for a term, they had to leave. It was difficult saying bye to them as they were all such lovely people, but social media has allowed us to stay in touch.
At the start of my course, I met my tutor, Dr Tsay, who issued an open-door policy from the get-go to answer any questions or issues we had. She would schedule meetings with us throughout the year and message us on Teams to check in on us. Dr Tsay is such a warm person and helped all of us ensure we had the best start to the year possible. This was really helpful and has made my first year at Greenwich so much easier.
The best resource I have found at the University of Greenwich is the library. Using LibGuides, I’ve been able to find the all the readings and book I need and track them down in the library within minutes. This has helped with my work as there are multiple copies of books with the best references to use, so I wouldn’t have to worry about whether they’ve been taken out or not.
The way HRM is taught at Greenwich is amazing. My lecturers have amazing communication and it shows. Everything we do during our tutorials is relevant to what we’ve learnt in our lectures. This allows us to strengthen our knowledge on the topics for each module and gives us a real focus each week. The days are quite spread out, allowing us a break between lessons, which is helpful and means I can have my own down time to myself or with friends.
Coming to university has helped strengthen my decision in wanting a career in HR. The modules have expanded my knowledge regarding the job I would have post-graduation and it has shown me that it is a role I want to fill.
When things become overbearing, I can sometimes find myself losing motivation. However, I always think about two things; the first is that this is three years of my life which I need to enjoy and make the most of because by the end of it, I’ll have a degree and be able to work in HR. The second is thinking of how proud my dad would be once I get my degree!
The experience at university has been amazing. Living in halls allowed me to make friends easily. Most of the friends I made are International students and I learnt so much about their respective cultures, which is very interesting. It has been so cool trying different foods and going on nights out with them around Greenwich. It has been easy to keep in touch with friends I made prior to coming to university and it’s been easy to go to work whilst attending university too.
I have definitely found the right balance.
I would definitely recommend Greenwich Business School to anyone applying to university because there’s a degree for absolutely everybody here. The events are current, the lecturers are outstanding, the campus itself is beautiful, and so are the views from Greenwich Park. The resources available in the library are fantastic and there is so much support available online. I am excited for my next 2 years here at the University of Greenwich.
