At the University I received several kinds of support. I was allocated a personal tutor which was a departmental lecturer who I had throughout my degree and she was able to advise me on both academic and personal issues. I also attended Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) sessions throughout the first semester of my first year. These were revision sessions run by older students to help us with any areas of the course we were struggling with and were really helpful for students not confident enough to ask questions directly to the lecturer. After seeing how helpful these sessions were to students, I volunteered to become a PAL facilitator in my third and fourth years of study, running over Microsoft Teams during the pandemic.
Once I graduated, I applied for and subsequently was offered the role of laboratory technician within the analytical/physical chemistry lab within STEMLab. During my time as a laboratory technician, I have been able to improve lab efficiency and develop my own practical chemistry skills. I have also learnt new skills applicable to future job opportunities either in industry or teaching. It has been nice to be able to stay part of the Loughborough family and work alongside a great group of people.
If someone was considering doing a chemistry course, I would say to make sure that they are passionate about learning the subject since there are a lot of hours worth of learning, whether that be attending lectures, tutorials or laboratory sessions. However, despite the big workload, there is a lot of support available from staff and they shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help at any time; no question is too silly or too long.