I’ve applied to do an Access Course and am potentially going to be enrolling tomorrow, and now I’m starting to panic about it. Here’s what’s running through my mind at the minute.
- I have a 10 month old DS who I am going to have to arrange childcare for at very short notice - I won't know what days/hours I need until I get my timetable, and I won’t know that until I enrol. Doesn’t give me much time to figure it out and I have no idea how much it’ll cost.
- I’m doing the course with a view to then going on to study Diagnostic Radiography at university. I don’t drive (haven’t learned) and the three nearest unis to me that offer this course are roughly an hour- 1.5 hours travel in each direction on the train. Season tickets alone will cost thousands. Moving isn’t an option.
- The unis I can get to that offer the course aren’t great...
- DH and I want to have another DC. Timing this is tricky... at the moment I’m thinking we could TTC this autumn/winter so I’m due next summer, then I take a year between the AC and starting uni, so when I start uni DS will be just shy of 3 so we’ll be entitled to however many hours free childcare. Is that the best way to time it? Also means I’d be pregnant whilst doing the AC. My pregnancy with DS was a breeze but there’s no guarantee that’ll happen a second time.
- I already have a ton of student debt from my first attempt at university (that’s a whole other back story). To do this I’ll have to apply for an advanced learner loan for the access course, and I don’t know how much I can apply for yet. Presumably most, or all of it will go towards the course fees (£3.4k). That being said, once I graduate (assuming I do, of course) that loan will be automatically written off. But I’ll still have to finance a degree- there is a government grant currently offered but whether that will be the case when I actually get to uni in potentially 2 years’ time...
- I have to do the science AC to meet the entry requirements for 2 of the unis. I haven’t studied these since GCSE nearly 20 years ago. What if it’s just too hard, and I can’t hack it, and I get myself into all this debt and plonk my baby into childcare and it turns out to be for nothing? What if I don’t get accepted into uni?
I want to do this, but I also want to do the right thing for my family, most importantly for DS and his potential future sibling/s. Now that I’m right on the edge of taking this plunge I’m starting to worry that I’m making a huge mistake.