You’re in your last year of school or college and the next big step is going to be whether you want to go to university or not. For me personally, I had spent 3 years studying performing arts at High Melton College in Doncaster and I loved it so much that I actually never wanted it to end. It was coming to the end of my year at college and I had no idea if I wanted to go to university or not but I decided to apply to a few universities to just see if it would be the right fit for me.
I went to visit Chester Uni, Newcastle Uni as well as the possibility of staying where I was at High Melton. The degree that I would have gone for would have been in Performing Arts but I was so unsure if University was for me, as I just wanted to get out there and perform. I panicked and even though I knew it wasn’t the right choice for me at the time, I decided to stay at home and attend High Melton to pursue my degree in Performing Arts.
Rolling into freshers week, I was super excited! I had heard so many great things and I couldn’t wait to meet my new class mates and see what uni had in store. After the first few days, I realised that I had made such a huge mistake and that this wasn’t the path in life that I was meant to be on. After celebrating freshers week, I decided to end my degree before it had the chance to even get started and I have absolutely zero regrets with my decision.
University isn’t for everyone and it certainly wasn’t for me. I did everything with my studies that I wanted to and I went off into the real world and I performed. I had a few jobs until I realised that I wanted something more, which was to travel the world. I took off to Australia for a year where I had the time of my life and with this experience, I really found myself, as cliche as that sounds. After my experience in Australia, I went to work onboard cruise ships where I met my now husband Gareth. After my contract came to an end, I went to live in South Africa for 4 months before returning to the UK.
So far in my working life, I have worked as a professional dancer as well as working within the fashion world. For the past 2 years, I have been working in marketing and I love every single minute of it. I was very fortunate that my boss gave me such an amazing opportunity even though I didn’t have much experience within marketing and I didn’t have a degree. What I did have was the knowledge of social media through my blog and managing the social media account for my previous job. I also have tons of life experience, which is priceless.
I guess, the whole point of this post today is to show that it’s OK if you don’t have everything figured out as everything turns out exactly how it should be. Don’t feel pressured to go to university if it’s not for you, at the end of the day, this might not be the path that you’re meant to go down. Listen to your gut and go from there.
Images were taken at the recent Doner Summer Vegan Event
