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So, as you can see from the title, I dropped out of university.

The one thing I found hardest about it was telling people that I was leaving. In fact, I still haven’t told all my friends that I’ve left, and this is 4 months afterwards. But why not?

The thing is, I think many people view dropping out of university as such a negative thing, like ‘Wow! You’ve left, how awful’, when actually for me it was one of the best decisions, I think I’ve ever made.

One friend who I bumped into recently and didn’t know I had left said to me ‘I’m proud of you for leaving’ and this really resonated with me. It is human nature to not want to admit to being wrong or making a mistake, but the weird thing is that we all do. Yes, some may be bigger mistakes like picking the wrong course but it’s still fixable. My friend was pointing out that it takes guts to admit you’ve made a wrong choice and correct yourself.

Personally, the main reason I left was that I didn’t like my...

As you may already know, university is significantly different to sixth form or college, which also applies to term dates. Although the academic year is somewhat shorter – often beginning in late September/early October and ending in May/June – universities do not have a half-term holiday, an aspect of sixth form that I really missed when I first began my studies last year.

However, some universities, including my own, have ‘reading weeks’ which, in other words, are like a half-term break. Usually situated in the middle of a semester, reading weeks serve the purpose of enabling students to get a head start for the work and reading in the remaining weeks until the longer holidays (and exam period!) begin.

Given that the workload at university can feel so daunting at times, a reading week is often strongly appreciated because it allows you to breathe for a little while without worrying about time constraints as you might experience during the semester. I...