So you’ve made it to the end of your first year at university – congratulations! Hopefully, you have passed your exams and can now go on to plan the rest of your degree years with a good idea of what you can expect, the grade you might get and understand your strengths and weaknesses. For some students, the end of year one is the time they realise they are on the wrong course. Never fear, because in most cases it’s not too late to switch courses.
Note: If you want to change universities, you will need to go through the admissions application again
Consider Why You Want to Switch Courses
Before you speak to anybody in authority, you need to list the reasons why you want to switch courses in the first place. Good reasons tend to be:
• You have found an interest in another niche to which your current course does not cater
• You will get a better focus on your area of interest elsewhere
• It isn’t quite what you thought it was
• A better career option
Then speak to faculty members about the course to which you want to switch courses. That way, they can advise you on whether you will be better off staying and trying to tailor your original course a bit better to your interests, or whether the more sensible option would be to switch at this point.
Speak to Your Tutor
If you already know to which course you want to switch, the first thing you should do is speak to your tutor. There may be varying levels of difficulty depending on how big the switch is. For example, if it is part of the same school (you are studying English literature and wish to switch to something more linguistics based like English language), then the process will be much easier than if you were on a language course and wished to switch to biology for example. There may be set criteria for applying if your change is too big and there will inevitably be dropouts who failed to make the grade whose place you could take.
Student Finance
In most cases, this will be fine if you are switching a like-for-like programme in terms of how many years it may take. However, pitfalls may happen if you wish to switch to a longer course – engineering is a four-year degree and you may have to apply for extra finance. Any bursaries or grants you applied for (that are renewed for the duration of your course), especially those that are subject-specific, you may lose as you’d be studying an ineligible course.
Think carefully about whether you switch courses – there is much to consider and you could end up making the wrong choice and not being able to change back.