Outrunner wrote:After a pretty rough year studying from home I've had my final essay marks back. Overall my marks are hovering around a high 2:1/low first. I'm genuinely really, really happy with how well I've done. I know that this is only my first year and so my marks don't count towards my degree but I feel like I've rally achieved a lot and it's been such a confidence boost. I get my official results next month.
I'm really looking forward to next year now and I've decided to start learning Japanese over the summer. Plus my grades mean I can apply to study abroad for a year. I need to sort it with student finance as it turns my degree into a 5 year program but can't see there being an issue, I know people who did the Foundation year with me who are going to China and Japan so I'm hopeful I can get something sorted.
Hope this doesn't sound like I'm gloating, just wanted to share a good news story that has improved my mental health this year
It took me until my 3rd year(actually 4th with retakes) and meeting my current partner with my very shaky mental health to finally reach that level of attainment (I started getting 2 or 3 assignments squarely in the 1st bracket towards the end) so that's really good outrunner.
You say those marks don't count but if you stay on that track with what must be pretty good dedication and focus on your studies, you are well poised to move into next year. I wish I was able to or had done that because then I would probably would have left with a 1st class. I did some very odd and pretty innovative work that was hard to pin down.. At one point I was told 2:1 is the best grade because it indicates you had tough subject matter which I largely chose to unearth through study and tackle myself. I wasn't just, painting or whatever. A high 2:1 (I was about 3% off a first) is by no means a bad degree, it's very very good, but that does bode well for you.
Believe me I met plenty of students that just laughed off the first year but then things really hit them in the face when things got more serious in year 2 and 3 when they remembered they (presumably) went to university for a reason. You could literally see some people drop off the radar and the quality of their work just plummet like they couldn't be bothered anymore. Things started getting a bit tougher with less lenient tutorial and they were like, "oh gooseberry fool, this is an advanced level qualification, not a frat house". It's not quite like flunking your GCSEs or A levels (just take an access course or foundation degree), repeating degrees is expensive, exhausting and time consuming. I really feel like some I knew grew up at that stage in their life. Sure there were parties, but they grew direction and they had a serious commitment to what they were doing and why they were there. Maybe this reflection of mine will help you keep sight of that aspiration if things get tough again. Anyway, well done mate.
Oh and one more thing, they say your 1st year marks don't count towards your degree (yet if you fail, you won't progress, so they sort of do...), and they don't affect your classification, but they do show up on your transcript. Sometimes if everyone has a good degree, an MA programme or similar will ask to see your transcript which does include a full list of all tour units and grades on there (if only to outline what the hell you actually did for 3 or more years as a lot of bachelors have very generic titles). Mine is pretty... Interesting. It goes like, 43, 40, 40, 62, 52, 60s, 70s, 60s, 80s, it's wild
. A lot of my marks were capped because they were submitted past the deadline as non-submission automatic retakes. It's always got to look good if you didn't piss up the whole first year because that's what most people do. So you will actually have that in your record in black and white. Hope that's a good thing!
In extreme cases, if a students ends up with something like 69.8% calculated grade for their whole programme, I don't think they'll look back at the whole programme but they might look at the overal impression of effort and how many of your units were actually 1st class (say for example there was a dip that could be explained as an anomaly or non-academic circumstance affected that). Especially if say your grades are mostly or close to 1st class in the final year, as that's more indicative of that's students growth and attainment shortly before the degree is awarded I.e. What level they are at
now rather than literally a year ago. Universities have a right to bump up a class in very specific circumstances but the rules they use are all different. I think I know at least one student at my university who was awarded a 1st class despite being on the borderline.