The Scottish universities are very good. The universities require a certain grade – ‘A’ to ‘C’ are passes. ‘A’ is the best, followed by ‘B’, then ‘C’. Usually, they ask for three ‘C’s or above. I passed, fortunately, and I went to Leeds University, which was my first choice because it had a very good Russian department, and I studied Russian and Spanish. University usually lasts for three or four years.
We were lucky, as when I was at university, we were given a grant, or a lump sum of money to live on, and we didn’t have to pay it back. The amount you got was graded according to your parents’ income. So, if your parents didn’t have very much money you got a full grant, which was not a lot of money, but you could live on it. So you could pay your rent, get food and go out quite a lot, as well as buy your books. Going to live in Leeds in the North was better, because things were much cheaper than, say, if I had been in London, where I imagine it’s very difficult for a student to survive, especially these days.
At university, it`s quite different from being at school because you have to rely on your own motivation. I know a lot of people who just didn’t go to any of their classes because they weren’t compulsory.
It was three years of enjoying yourself, basically, studying what you wanted to study, being away from home for the first time, and having some money and being able to go out to parties and concerts. For the first year, I lived in a hall of residence, which was a bit like being in a boarding school. There were lots of eighteen-year olds away from home for the first time, and of course they couldn’t cook, and they weren’t used to doing their own washing or looking after themselves. It kind of eased you into living on your own. So this was good, because we had to learn to look after ourselves, cooking and cleaning, and at the same time finding time to study for our finals. Final exams at university were based on the whole three years’ studies, so there was a lot to learn and it was quite stressful in July when exam time came round.
Some people think that this is not a good idea, and that maybe it would be better if there was some sort of system of continuous assessment, because there are a lot of people who do very well all year, and work very hard, but when it comes to doing exams they just go crazy with stress and can’t remember anything when it comes to the three hour exam you have to do. So, I would be more in favour of that because I don’t think three hours can fairly represent however much you have learnt in three years.