[Closed] A done ANyone else feel like they've done F all with their lifes?

Recently started a physio degree and I feel like a totally different person for it.

GET UP OFF YOUR ASS!!!! 😯

Yup, Exactly how i feel.

Mind you, with redundancy i'm having change forced upon me - if i can ever get the relevant people moving with regards to funding my training i'm hoping to become a cycle instructor through CTC and Link4Life (rochdale council trust company)

Goan, how old are you? Ive been considering that, but i will have to study A - levels etc first.

I was hoping to join the army, but now it looks like to to an old back injury from 10 years ago, i wont be able to... Its annoying as it hasnt bother me for years and years...

Well at the age of 39 I felt I had done a lot but not much was meaningful really, and I'd been unhappy a lot of the time.

So I have given up work to do an MSc, and it seems there is a possibility of doing a PhD afterwards which is something I'd love, so right now I am extremely happy and fulfilled in what i am doing and feel like I am just about getting going life wise.

So yeah, chin up and remember it's up to you to make things happen, and they will if you really want them to.

How are you mature students affording to study? Is it from savings, or are you working? Its not something i have considered much.. I always thought that as i missed a levels, etc it would be too difficult to go to uni.

left a high paying job in casinos to travel round oz,12ys later still a free spirit cycled through 2 Continent's(no 3 next year), work part time to pay for my travel.mind you I'm living in a 1 roomed shack ,don't have a lot of money but i own said shack & the 110ac it's on & have no debts.
so as long as your fed/roof above you few $ in pocket & have a bike !
just be happy with what you've got.

not really i spent years in the army did arctic warfare and was climbing instructor left after too many tours of crap holes but went to some lovely places tho. lived in norway and switzerland doing mtb and high altitude guiding. learnt to chef whilst living in brussels too 😉 then joined the fire brigade im now a fitness instructor in the brigade and just about to move to a new station as water rescue specialist 😉 i was doing a maths degree but i had to put that on the back burner as ive got two little ones so a bit too busy and my biking time was suffering lol

Dude, you're shooting fish in a barrel on here - people who do things with their lives are busy doing things - unlike us lot posting on forums.

I aspire to be a smug git like Mick and the Fettler one day...

I'm at that point at the moment. I feel like all my decisions have been to keep others happy. Don't know what to retrain in though.

Im finishing my degree because i'm 2/3rds way through, had to take a job at somerfield on the checkouts....lets just say its lame and it feels like i'm wasting my time!
But looking on the brightside (as you always should) i'm saving every penny i can to buy a van and begger off round the world for as long as possible as soon as i finish my degree 😀
Hopefully doing that will help me realise what i should be doing with my life!

I appreciate its much harder just to up sticks and change your life direction if you have commitments etc, but i hope you find your way dude!

Reccommend coming to uni if you can, meet some really great people including mature students. Get an idea of the course you want to do, where you want to study and give them a ring...they may well not require you to have A-levels etc?

good luck anyways, could always go for a ride too?

fettler- amen to that! so many people just go chasing the money...no point being rich really is there...

Did **** all with my career but everything that happened to me lead me to meet my lovely wife (who supported me through a career change) - if I had made one single different choice that might not have happened.

Money and career prospects need to get better as of now, but, God willing, they will.

my brother in law who sometimes posts on here is now a teacher. he was in the army with me but left a few years earlier. he did a degree thru the ou and then went on to do a pgce full time and is now in his third year of teaching cdt at a nice school 😉

you make choices in life!
I'm single/never married/no kids,very much a loner.
so I've missed out on a lot of "normal things" some times you need to walk your own path

lyons - i'm 33. grant and student loan give me enough to live on. wife has a decent paying job and is happy to support me throughout the course.

I've passed my genes on and ensured the recipient has a reasonable start in life. What more is there to do?

Goan - you have a decade on me then... do you think you could do it without a wife to support you financially? Luckilly/ unlickilly im sigle and dont anticipate that changing at the moment...

I shoudl have said, where did you get the grant from? and who should i be looking at talking to first? I have no idea where to start to be honest...

If I was single and had no kids I am fairly confident that I could survive on the loan and grant alone, if not a part time job would be easy enough to fit round the studies.

As my course is in Scotland they come from SAAS.

My advice would be to get in touch with the uni you want to go to and see if they do an access course. This would give you all you need to gain entry to the course - depending on where you go it all but guarantees a place too.

In Scotland there are only 3 unis that do Physio, QMU in Edinburgh, RGU in Aberdeen and Glasgow Caley. I'm in Glasgow.

I would say half of the people on the course have not came from school and have been doing other things first.

Goan - thanks for the advice... although being a scotsman, no doubt youve got a bigger loan than an englishman like me will get. 😡

I feel like i should get some of my taxes back though...

I went back to college at 28 to do A levels in photography. Went on to get a BA Hons as a mature student in photography. Now running a small, reasonably succesful photography business.

Being back in full time education takes a bit of getting used to - especially the cr@ppy jobs - getting told what to do by jumped up spotty 20 year olds for minimum wage is hard to take, but much easier when there's light at the end of the tunnel (and they're still there, HA!).

Photography wasn't my first choice. I think it's more about taking that leap of faith and jumping out of your comfort zone. It was a bit easier for me, as my life sucked big dogs' c0cks before I made the jump...

No - you get more than scottish people get, its just that you have to pay more back.

If you do want to give it a go and have any more questions you know where i am.

johnny_met - Member

Dude, you're shooting fish in a barrel on here - people who do things with their lives are busy doing things - unlike us lot posting on forums.

LOL

Ain't that the truth!

Done LOADS with my life, just pretty much nothing interesting inside the last 5 years, it's just been wake up, earn money, go home... Then I get made redundant twice in 12 months! I'm still optimistic about the future though!

apols for hijack...Goan - don't know if you saw my post re knee physio specialists ? - if so and you have any ideas I'd appreciate a mail, many thanks....hijack over.....

where are you in the country ian? my physio is very good. When i injured my knee a few years ago, i saw 5 physios before him who were a waste of time. Then after 2 sessions whith him, i found i could actually kneel down again and ride my bike for more than half an hour...

I should say, getting more debt is one thing that puts me of studiyung again... I have a friend from romania, and he was amazed we have to pay at all.

lyons - Glasgow

Thanks

hah - goan should be more help than me then... Good luck with it...

lyons - I ended up with 4 rather bad a-levels after college. I decided to spend more time surfing and skating than actually going to college and as a result ended up with 4 grades so bad I just shouldnt have bothered to turn up for the exams.

I spent 5 years bumming around working abroad doing ski seasons and spending summers in the UK in any town that had decent surf working shitty jobs. A broken ACL ended that rather sharpish.

While recovering I decided to change my life and give myself a little more direction so I enrolled on an Access to HE course at my local College. The course got me the equivalent of 3 A levels (sociology, english and history) and all the modern key skills shite that the government seems to think we need. It was a walk in the park, as someone who isnt all that good at studying I walked out with a final grade of 97%. I put in applications to 6 Unis, and was offered a place by every single one.

Now Im going into the final year of a Law degree. Granted the degree is as much use as a wet piece of bogroll as I made the bad choice of transferring to a shite uni but its opened some doors for me. Although I sometimes wish I had gone with what I really wanted to do which was a science based Access course and then onto a degree in some kind of marine science.

If you are thinking about any kind of University routes I would suggest talking to your local college or Uni. If you want to go down a science/engineering route a lot of Unis offer a "year 0" route which gets you up to the required standard to then go on to a degree with that same uni. If not then see what Access to HE courses your local college is running which might get you into a Uni.

Student funding is available right up until you turn 60 and if you have a family to support I believe they offer even more benefits to you. Universities also offer bursary schemes too which can net you a few extra £ (my uni gives £1300 to all students below a certain income level).

Lyons

I'm a mature student studying at Leeds University.

RE Entry: Find a university that will let you do an onsite foundation year. It's called Year Zero and it's funded in the same way as your standard degree. it is used in place of A-levels, HNCs etc.

RE Funding: You should be eligible for a grant that will pay your course fees and give you up to £1200 per year. All that is required is that you're either over 25 or have been self supporting for 2 years. You don’t have to pay this back. You will also be eligible for a full student loan £4-7K per annum.

I packed in a well paid job in IT to go to UNI and study Aerospace Engineering. I'll graduate this year with a first class Masters Degree.

It's all doable 🙂

I feel like i should get some of my taxes back though...

So do I. Do something useful, eh?

similar to daffy here, left my nice cul-de-sac job in IT to do something i should have done years ago. depends on your interests but there are NHS accredited(sp?) courses out there that are crying out for students, you will prob have to find the right uni for these and possibly move though. the upside for me training to be a biomedical scientist is 2K a year bursary on top of other loans etc, other courses give you even more cash.

it was a huge step at the time giving up a cushy life but im already well into my 4th yr the time passes quickly when you have new things to do/learn.
you could always get a job in mac D's and you might get all 5 stars in about the same time 😉

get your tax back, go to uni in scotland on an NHS course. seriously im getting more money now from the uni than my 1st proper job 12yrs ago and im working PT with tax credits. (no house, crap car but my bike is mint haha)

The only person who can make anything happen is you dude.

Been around the world, stayed and lived in some amazing places, done some awesome stuff that I can look back on and say 'yeah, thank god i took the chance rather than never and regreted it'

Three O grades and a trade behind me, plus the drive to go and do what i wanted, where i wanted.

Married now with a family and love it, get out riding most nights and weekends, do the family stuff, but glad i got up off my arse, unlike a lot of my friends who still go to the same pubs, sit in the same seats,talk about the same things and will probaly die without even experiencing a fraction of what I have.

Lyons - potted summary; followed a "career" in the automotive sector after falling into it rather than with any aim or intent.
Last year, after 4 years or so (cant remember) wife decides marriage over and wants a divorce. I agree and decide its time for a bigger change. Got some careers/coaching advice a while back and mentioned gardening "did it" for me.
So now, I'm in France gardening. complete change. skint and surviving my first business year.

One tip that stuck with me was to ask yourself "What do you want to be doing in 5 years?" not related at all to that rather predictable interview Q but what means a lot to you and your aspirations - what makes you happy, where's your mojo?

As said ^^ you are the only person that can make it happen.