Hello everyone and welcome to the Ultimate channel for students!
My name is Francesca and today I hope to blow your mind because, I am going to give you
my 3 tips that saved my degree and allowed me to have a 2.1 although I am not an academical
person.
Listen on.
Messy look I don't care.
Ok guys, obviously you can tell I don't really care about my look right now.
But, I hope you like it anyway.
Anyway back to the actual video.
So for those who don't really know me, you do not know how much of a struggle uni was
for me.
I am not an academic person, I am much more of a practical person.
I think that with practice you learn much more.
So for me, uni was quite a struggle as it's highly academic.
Oh what a surprise.
The first year I really couldn't care less about my grades because "it didn't count"
therefore I'd hardly go to any lectures.
In second year I was like right this year counts therefore I have to make an effort
but I didn't really make as much effort as I thought I would.
And also I thought that people would be as nice with the marks as in first year.
Unfortunately I realised later that the lecturers in first year.
How to say, they really marked easy.
They really gave you marks when you didn't deserve them!
And I thought that it would be the same thing in second year and no.
And that's why I didn't resit any of my exams in first year, although I was very last minute.
And then in my second year I thought I was doing great and then I averaged a very low
2.2.
Anyone going to UK Unis knows how bad is a very low 2.2.
If you go to Oxford and Cambridge, it could be accepted, and when I say could be I mean
"could be" and it's not even sure.
But if you go to exeter university and you have a low 2.2, girl you are not going anywhere.
Low 2.2s is a no, it's a no, ok get that 2.1, like stress about it that's how bad it was.
So my first tip is do an Industrial Placement.
If you are a practical person, not very academic, chances are you'll have higher marks in that
year.
I took a year out, therefore I changed my course from Business and Management a three
year course to Business and Management with Industrial Experience, and what this did is
it really brought that practical thing that I really needed to my life.
So for a whole year worked in a company and it was very much life changing, very much
life changing.
I averaged a very high first.
Put me in a company and I can get you results.
And it's what I did, I got promoted to Social Media Manager of a sub brand of the company
and this was a medium size company guys so it's not as easy to get responsability as
it is in a start up.
So it was a very big deal.
And obviously because of that, I got a very high first in my third year.
This is how Exeter likes to cut it: - first year doesn't count
- second year counts 2/7 - third year counts 1/7
- and fourth year counts 4/7 So that's the hardest.
So yeah, every Uni is different, I know that Exeter is that way so even though my year
abroad counted half of my second year it really boosted my whole marks to a 2.1 like try to
imagine, I was averaging at the end of my second year a 2.2 a very low 2.2, went on
my year abroad, smashed it, and arrived in my last year averaging 60.
Moving on to my tip number 2.
So my year abroad definitely had a huge impact on my marks.
But how can I make sure that I always have a 2.1 in everything I do when academically
I've only had 2.2s, and rarely had a 2.1?
And this is where my secret weapon number 2 comes in.
Revise the lectures before you go to uni.
I know this sounds hideous but I highly recommend to do this, what I did is during my year in
industry, I didn't have much of a social life so yes that year for me was no social life.
It was more about me nailing my uni and me nailing my future projects.
I explain how I found myself in my Year abroad videos in my year in industry videos so check
that out!
I basically spent a whole year every day I would go through one lecture.
If you think about it it's not that much.
I mean sometimes even half a lecture but the essential is, is that you go through at least
half or a full lecture during that year because you have a whole year to start before everyone
else.
But this year you had a whole year to really take the time to take notes, to understand
the concept.
To read around it if you don't.
And that has helped me so much because I've arrived in my fourth year having practically
all the notes for every module that I knew I was going to take.
The core modules, so I would start focusing on that, by the way the core modules are the
ones who are most painful because they are the ones you didn't chose.
Therefore they are the ones that you would rather not study and that you would rather
put off.
So even though you don't know which are the optional modules and you are not sure.
Start with at least, finish the core modules, at least that.
So my core modules as a business and management was strategic management and finance for managers.
And those were 2 hellish modules.
I love strategic but it was just very very very heavy.
It was a thirty credit module guys.
Which means that that module was across the whole year.
I started with that obviously but I knew what extra modules I was going to take.
BUt at least if you are going to do one thing it's take the core modules and study them
guys, make sure you have the notes and make sure you have everything sorted so that when
you arrive, you are just refreshing your memory and you already have your notes written.
And if it's a new professor or a new book, even if he changes the modules and the lectures
and everything, he's not going to be that far from what was taught last year.
It's not possible.
Therefore just adding to your notes all the new concepts, this allowed me to go into the
lectures, refresh my memory, it gave me the possibility to really interact with my lecturer
and to have a conversation rather than just feeling stressed and taking everything in
and not feeling able to you know do anything.
One question that I know I will get is: how did you study in advanced for your modules.
How did you get into the lectures...
blablabla.
In Exeter we have this system called ELE, in ELE they basically give you access to every
single module of every single course ever.
Usually ELE is used by students to watch their modules during the year.
But what they never do is watch other people's modules of other people's courses because
people are obviously like "I don't have the time to do that".
But if you are in summer or if you are during your year abroad, what you can do is watch
what your fellow third year students who are not doing a year abroad are watching because
they have access to that and look at all of the lectures in real time.
And you can even take notes from what the lecturer is saying, it's huge.
And people from other universities Iam sure you have an ELE system as well it's just not
called that way.
Moving on to my third secret weapon and guys this is a must.
Every single can take a language except for the courses like PPE and medicine, those courses
can't take an extra language and there are a few others.
But generally if you are doing economics, if you are doing business, if you are doing
sociology, whatever you are doing, you should be able to take a language as an option.
Taking a language saved me.
Not only it made my university degree spicier.
But it saved me as it enable me to really make sure that in that 4th year I would average
a 2.1.
And this is how it went.
So I did the classic mistake to start a language in first year and second year which turned
out to be not that much of a mistake.
But I'm telling you why: I started Mandarin Chinese in first year as
a thirty credit module and the business school in Exeter University says that if you do a
language, same language for 2 consecutive years, and you pass obviously the year both
times, you can get proficiency in your degree.
So I did Mandarin Beginners first year and then Mandarin Intermediate 1 in my Second
year and that allowed me to get with proficiency in Mandarin Chinese on my degree so think
about it guys I went from having to graduate only with Business and Management 2.2 with
graduating 2.1 in Business and Management with Industrial experience with proficiency
in Mandarin Chinese.
Think about how these tricks make the difference.
Like honestly...
So I did these two years and then I was like well I am obviously going to continue it in
my fourth year because I went to Germany in my third year, no Chinese there, and then
in my 4th year I wanted to go back to Chinese so doing intermediate 2, I arrive in the class,
worst thing ever honestly I was the only European student there and felt extremely out of the
box and I didn't know anything.
So what did I do?
I thought well no way I am going to take extra business modules, I still want to do a 30
credit module in languages, and I went to see what I could do and I managed to get on
Spanish Beginners.
I knew my Spanish, so Spanish beginners in my fourth year which counted enormously, that
counts 30 credits, you have no idea, it saved my life because it enables me to not having
to study and focus that much on thirty credits, that is a fourth of the credits, yeah a fourth,
it's a fourth of the total modules in my fourth year and I could leave that on a side.
Think about it, think about it.
So, first of all great thing that A, I knew spanish but most importantly guys, it was
beginners, so my tip for you guys it's to choose a beginner language in your last year,
chose a beginner language, Spanish is what I highly recommend, so what happened?
Well the combination of arriving in Uni with the 60 thanks to my Industrial Experience,
with the fact that my core modules which were 45 credits were already covered because I
already did in my year in industry as well, I studied them before hand, with an additional
30 credit modules that I kind of knew already because it was beginners spanish, I'm Italian,
so it's very similar, it left me with 45 credits to actually study well, honestly guys it makes
such a difference in your final year so be smart.
This is not to devaluate my degree in anyway: I got my 2.1 in Business and Management and
Mandarin Chinese and these comments that I'm saying to you guys about getting extra marks
or being extra smart about things, those tricks still involved hard working, smashing my industrial
experience, studying in advance my whole modules, those are my 3 really secret weapons that
allowed me to go from low 2.2 to a 2.1 in my final year.
Hope these tips helped.
Let me know if they did: give this video a thumbs up because these little secrets you
will see them no where else, little disclaimer, this really worked for Exeter University so
this will be extra helpful for exeter university students but these tips can be applied for
different unis, you can just follow the pattern and try and find how you can do it in your
uni.
These are my secret weapons and I want to know how useful they were: subscribe to my
channel, if you want to know more tricks and I will see you in the next video.
Bye guys!