Naomi Maher

Access to Leeds is a great scheme for students who may have been held back from achieving their full academic potential by personal circumstances.

I personally feel that I have benefited greatly from the scheme as it helped me get a place at the University. I attained a grade average of a 1st every year, even though my A-level grades would not usually have allowed me to study at a university like Leeds. I gained a lot of confidence both personally and academically.

If you are applying, I would recommend that you should be open and honest on your application form as the University are very understanding of personal circumstances and are doing all they can to help disadvantaged students reach their potential.

I enjoyed completing the academic assignment as part of the online Access to Leeds module, and getting a feel for university-standard essay writing. The study skills component was also a good introduction university-level study. It was nice to get an idea of what would be expected of me. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as complex as I had imagined university work to be.

And when you start, I’d say make the most of your university experience by getting involved in teams and societies. Don’t listen to other students who say that first year doesn’t count and you don’t need to work hard because first year sets the foundation of your understanding for the subsequent years. Working hard in first year will help you to achieve highly by the end of your degree.