Abbie
BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy
I was attracted to Physiotherapy mainly because my mums got bronchiectasis and has quite extensive chest physiotherapy. My dad and I have to do quite a lot of percussion therapy on her and from seeing how much it’s made her improve, it made me want to do physiotherapy - I wanted to have that effect on someone else.
Choosing the right place
"I did a BTEC instead of A levels, so I thought I’d look at all the universities that accept BTECs for Physiotherapy and Bradford was on the list.
"I thought 'right, I’m just going to make my way down the list and look around' and I looked at the league tables as well, because quite a lot of people that I spoke to on my work experience said make sure you go to as high a prestige university as you can.
"Bradford was second (in the league tables) so I thought I wanted to go and have a look there. When I walked into the Richmond Building with my mum and saw how big it was, at first I was a bit like ‘ah, I don’t know’, because I’m from quite a small school.
"From looking around other universities I realised that Bradford’s actually quite a small university, and that there’s so much support here and there’s not as many in a class as in some other universities. That really attracted me here. Everyone was so friendly and really helpful on the Open Days and I came to about three because I wanted to be 100% sure that I wanted to go to one university. I literally cried when I got my offer back from Bradford after my interview. I’m so glad that I came here in the end."
Support for me
"I think that the support services have had a massive impact. At first, I was quite nervous that the style of people’s learning is very different and I was concerned before I had any support sessions that it might not work for me but I do think it’s really helped me with my learning, especially with revision and things like that.
"I’m more of a visual or hands-on learner so the advisor said 'right, lets make some posters'. We printed off loads of posters, mainly diagrams where you can annotate on the diagrams and he was like ‘right okay, we can laminate it and you can use a whiteboard pen’ and he was telling me different methods that are supposed to help your brain remember more.
"I've got dyslexia as well so I wanted to look and see if there was any help that I could use at the uni because I had a one-to-one session at my college but that ended up fizzling out towards the end of the year. I have a one-to-one session every week and that’s really helped me as well. I’ve used the academic writing session as well and I've booked onto another one at the start of my second year. I think they’ve really helped me and I think if I hadn’t had that, I wouldn’t have got the grades that I did this year."
Making a move
"Moving away from home wasn’t a problem with me at all. I’m an only child so I feel like I’m quite an independent person and I love to make new friends so moving into The Green, I was so excited.
"When I moved in I was really happy. I sorted all my bedroom out and then my mum and dad left and I was a bit like ‘oh my god, this is serious, I’m actually at university’ but that night they had a moving in party at the SU. I went with some of my housemates and one of the girls that I’d been speaking to over the summer who was on my course. I went there and I had a really good time and I felt that I’d got put at ease.
"Living in The Green in general, I thought it was great because it’s so close. I’ve got friends who live half an hour away on a train from their universities and I presume quite a lot of them wouldn’t want to make that journey so it would give them less incentive to come to University but being so close, you’ve got no excuse unless you’re ill really to not come in."
I chose hockey and I really enjoy it. Everyone’s so inclusive and there’s so many people that I feel that are like me. They want to interact with other people and make friends and there’s so many people from hockey that I’ve become really good friends with.
This is where
... I've grown as a person
I think I’ve become a lot more confident in myself. Although I was very independent and I’m quite happy to make friends and stuff, on my first day I was still quite nervous and asking people questions and things like that. I would do things that are out of my comfort zone now, because I know that I have the confidence to do it whereas there’s a lot of things that I wouldn’t do before.
I feel like I’ve become more independent. Even though I said that I’m independent and all that kind of stuff, obviously you’re having to cook for yourself, you’re having to clean for yourself and you’ve actually got to get yourself up in the morning. I think that side of it has definitely made me more independent and I feel like I’m more of an adult now than I was when I got here. But now, I feel like I should be nearly getting a job because I feel like I’ve grown as a person and can actually do what I didn’t think I’d be able too.
I kind of feel like I want to do a Masters and specialise a bit more but I’m a bit unsure of whether to do it as a part-time Masters and work or just do the masters on its own.
In the long run, I’d like to have either a part-time business and work part-time, or run my own business full-time, but I’ve always wanted to have my own business and run that myself. There’s plenty of avenues to explore so there’s a lot of choice.
