College while claiming benefits?

chelsearichards

Hi everyone

I am 20 years old & currently claiming benefits (JSA). I have been on benefits since September 2011

I have no qualifications except basic NVQ's (that I got at school) and 2 x adult literature/2 x adult maths (all levels 1 & 2) which I have completed since been out of work. I was lucky in that my dad had a succesful business and I worked for him up until last June (admin) meaning my qualifications (or lack of them) weren't a big issue.

Anyway, I want to make the most of my brain and my ultimate goal is to become a doctor.. far fetched considering i've got no A levels!:rotfl: Anyway I want to start college ASAP to get plenty of A levels under my belt (I want five above C grades) and ultimately go to university before my 22nd birthday.

I am applying for jobs everyday but no luck yet, live in a small town so not got a huge amount of hope for finding a job in the near future so I have decided to start college part time while claiming benefits. Does anyone know how many hours I will be able to study for? I am willing to pay the tuition fees out of my savings however apparently I would be entitled to free tuition as i'm on benefits. How do I go about this -will they make me come off benefits if I want to go to college?

vb1986

I'm sorry I can't help much with benefits, the best person to ask is probably the job centre advisor next time you sign on.

However I just wanted to wish you luck with your studies, and good on you for aiming high! If you are seriously considering becoming a doctor, make sure you know what it is you need to do at college to get there. When I was studying A Levels you had to have at least three A Levels at A grade, and one of them had to be Chemistry.

saintjammyswine

Best to speak to the college student services team or JCP who will advise on what you can do. Good luck.

dizzyrascal

Hi
I think you may be asking rather a lot of yourself to be honest. Getting into medical school will take more than getting 5 C's. You need to be thinking more about getting 5 A's. The route to medical school is littered with plenty of students who got good enough grades but did not get in because they did not have a passion for the job. I am sorry to say this but you have not convinced me that of why you want to study medicine. Just that you want to.
You need to be able to explain WHY you want to do this.
In order to show a medical school that you have the desired passion you need to have worked or volunteered in medical situations, care or nursing homes (as an example). You need to be able to show that you have an aptitude for the job, understand it is a vocation and also understand that it can be a difficult job with responsibility.
In addition, you will need to show that you are academically very able. At 22 you will be competing with a large number of graduate applicants. Generally people who didn't get in to med school the first time and went on to study an undergraduate degree. They may have a string of good A levels AND a very good honours degree in a related subject. In other words, a proven academic track record.
A medical school may accept less if you come from a widening participation background but only you can know if this is the case.
Five A levels in 2 years plus getting related work experience (to put on your UCAS form) is going to be a full time role in itself. If you need to do any paid work then make sure it can be useful on your application form.
Applications for medical school need to be in by 15th Oct each year to start in the following September (not Jan as for other courses) and you must have got a pass in the aptitude tests each medical school requires before applying. These are usually done between April to August.
The other thing to consider is how flexible are you? If you want to stay in your home town it will limit your chances of getting in to the medical school of your choice.
Also, roughly 600 people will apply for 100 places per medical school.
I don't wish to be very negative but if you really want to do this you are going to need to be more realistic about what you can achieve and set yourself some goals. Because it is so competitive, you may need to concentrate on study, rather than working whilst studying, in order to achieve your goal.

bevanuk

dizzyrascal wrote: »

. I am sorry to say this but you have not convinced me that of why you want to study medicine. Just that you want to.

Give the OP a chance. I don't think they knew that Dr Simon Cowell was reading

heretolearn_2

Hi,

Well it's lovely to see that you've woken up with some ambitions and want to go back to studying.

What the reason you only got a few NVQs at school? This might effect what you should realistically be planning to do. If it was dyslexia, for example, then a medical career is going to be pretty much impossible for you as the results of any errors/confusions could be deadly. I know someone who had to drop out of their lifelong ambition to be a veterinary nurse after starting college for this reason - the college would not let her continue.

To be a doctor - well, that's going to be tough, as I'm sure you know. There is huge competition and they only accept the highest academic achievers combined with a real vocation and some care/medical type experience such as volunteer work for St John ambulance/at a hospice/care home. You really need a big collection of A/A* GCSEs plus 3 or pref 4 A grade A levels. C+s just won't do it.

Another route would be to do an Access course to get into university to do a science area degree getting a First, and then to get into a post-grad doctor training place.

But you have to be extremely academically able not only to get a place but also to survive and pass the intense training. Which is why I asked for the reason you only got NVQs at school. If you missed years due to illness or something, you might be able to pull it off. But if you just find studying boring, or hard, find another ambition.

P.S. I think you have the Adult Literacy qualification, not Adult Literature, which is another ballgame (ooer missus) altogether!

dizzyrascal

bevanuk wrote: »

Give the OP a chance. I don't think they knew that Dr Simon Cowell was reading

I didn't want to be overly negative but sometimes a bit of realism can help. I'm not saying the goal is impossible but a bit of realistic planning at this stage could save at lot of stress and misunderstanding later.

podperson

5 A-Levels in 2 years is basically full-time study so you would not be able to claim jsa while doing that - unless you could possible get them all as night classes but would be rather unlikely they would do that and if you did find a full time job would be a massive workload. As others have said if you're wanting to be a doctor then should really be aiming for A's in all subjects, which will require a lot of work. I do Open Uni with a full time job, it's extremely time consuming and I know that on some modules I could have gained better marks if I didn't have work commitments as well and could have put more time in.