Blogtember: Cheesy but true

Hello chaps and chapesses!

Picture the scene:  It's February 2005, I'm 17 and I want to be a journalist when I grow up.  I've read that it's best to avoid journalism degrees, so I've decided to study politics at university instead.  I've accepted an offer of a place at Exeter University, and my mother is pleased because she has a cousin in that part of the country who could be called upon "if anything happened".  One day, I come across the film Educating Rita.  I've never seen or heard of it before, but it stars Julie Walters, and I like her, so I give it a go.  That, right there, is the moment my life changed.

I know it sounds cheesy to say that a film changed my life, but it's true.

In case you haven't seen it, Educating Rita is a 1983 film adaptation of a play by Willy Russell, and stars Julie Walters as a young hairdresser who wants to better herself through education.  She takes an Open University course in English Literature, and in doing so, changes her life and has a profound effect on her somewhat delinquent tutor, played by Michael Caine.  The film was an epiphany for me.

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At the time, I was studying English Lit at A Level.  I enjoyed it, and was good at it, but had chosen a politics course at university because I thought it would be a better grounding for the career I wanted in journalism.  Educating Rita reminded me why I loved literature so much, and showed me how much more there was, that I hadn't yet begun to discover.  I spoke to my form tutor the next day, and contacted Exeter University to ask if I could change from Politics to English.  It couldn't be done, so they advised me to either go ahead with the Politics course, and if I still felt the same after a few weeks, then ask to change.  The only other alternative was to withdraw my application and apply again the following year.

My gut feeling was to withdraw my application, and try again the following year.  I thought that going to Exeter in the September, starting on a course I wasn't sure about, and hoping to transfer to another course that might not have space for me, just wasn't the best path for me.  So, I pulled out and took a gap year. I started a full time job that October as office junior at a firm of solicitors, and I loved it.

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When I started looking at English Literature courses to start in 2006, the University of Chester presented itself as a strong contender, so I dragged my parents up there for an open day.  I fell in love.  Chester is just gorgeous, and the University campus has a lovely olde-worlde feel to it.  The English department is housed in an old Victorian vicarage just off the main campus, and the staff there were so enthusiastic and welcoming, that I knew this was where I wanted to be.  

My mum had her reservations about it because there are no family members in the area "if anything happens", and it's a four hour drive to get there, along a less-than-friendly road (i.e. not a motorway).  Despite that, moving to Chester has been the best decision of my life - it's become my adopted home town, and the friends I made at uni there will be friends for life, and I owe it all to Educating Rita.