Associate
Hello all who use OCUK Forums. I haven't posted here properly in a while because I've been busy with life in general.
As the title reads and states, I'm just looking at my options once again because I achieved Triple Grade Distinction in my BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in IT many years ago. However I live in an area of the country where lack of investment is a thing (North West England for you haha!). Firstly, I've considered the possibility of university, although it's not really something I want to be doing because I've heard some mixed stories and opinions about university as a whole. These stories include: poor quality teaching, lack of help and support, preferential treatment of A Level students over BTEC students, unorganised timetables and mental health problems (which I already suffer from and I will touch up on more later in my post). Also, I will be paying £15k+ per year for 4 years (total cost including both tution fees and living costs for food, equipment, etc.). Whether it be via a loan (which will have added interest inflating the cost even more in the long run) or paying some of the costs upfront) to look at textbooks and presentations in order study a computer science or computing degree of some sort, without no actual guarantee of a decent paying job at the end of it is questionable (as it is with anything tbh).
I achieved my BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in IT many years ago (the end of 2015 or so according to my certificates), although since then I've done bits and pieces of minor jobs in customer service, retail and I've had a little bit of experience in call centres, too. However since 2019 I've been kinda out of action due to mental health problems, since my local doctors thought it is best that I stay away from work until I feel slightly better (slowly getting there which is why I'm looking for work, but I'm overwhelmed by what I am seeing). My mental health were quite bad prior to 2019 and I've had it since I were in high school (left high school a decade ago) and my mental health has been exacerbated by the whole pandemic, which also worries me because if I were to go to university, being stuck in my room will just make me feel worse and I'll fall behind even more and because of that I'm reluctant to want to go to university. Also, I've taken a look at Apprenticeships, but where I live there is almost none in the area of IT I want to work in and living away from home on an Apprenticeship wage would be such a struggle that it would be like trying to get water out of a rock (because I'd have to move back in with family because of the wages being so low on Apprenticeships) and I don't necessarily want to do that. I've been looking at IT Technician jobs on the internet in nearby big towns and cities and a lot of them ask for years (2 or 3 on average) worth of experience (I really don't know how someone is supposed to get that experience without actually having it in the first place - do people lie about experience or something?). I'm finding it really odd and the reality doesn't match up with what you're told about getting jobs (even normal jobs such as retail and customer service in shops and stuff ask for abysmal years of experience, which I had to tell small lies about to be able to get my foot in the door even though I have an education of some sort and I volunteered for a while many years ago).
As I mentioned before I have mental health problems and those include depression, anxiety (including mild social anxiety) and a mild form of PTSD and these can fluctuate from time to time and get worse from time to time, too. The whole pandemic has made me feel even worse because being in lockdown for 5 or 6 months twice prevented me from wanting to do something about my situation and delayed my process of getting back on track (I want some sort of plan before I fully shift myself back into working full time). I'm considering getting a part time job to begin with and doing that for a while (whether it be 6 months, 1 year or several years). However, I genuinely don't want to be working jobs like that for the rest of my life and because of that my end goal for the future is to hopefully find a suitable job in IT, which will be full time work of course, although at the moment I'm not fully prepared to do that due to mental health problems, thus that is why I will find something temporary and make the goal of getting an IT job a futuristic goal of mine. I'm just looking for advice and guidance from people who completed their BTEC Level 3 recently or years ago, so please post objective comments and don't troll me because I genuinely need advice and also what would be helpful is if someone who has had similar experiences to me could post in my thread. I want to add more details to this post (or thread), although I can't remember the rules for editing your posts on OCUK Forums because I haven't posted on here that much in years, so I may have to add multiple posts to this thread to convey my concerns and situation.
Thanks, BuZ.
As the title reads and states, I'm just looking at my options once again because I achieved Triple Grade Distinction in my BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in IT many years ago. However I live in an area of the country where lack of investment is a thing (North West England for you haha!). Firstly, I've considered the possibility of university, although it's not really something I want to be doing because I've heard some mixed stories and opinions about university as a whole. These stories include: poor quality teaching, lack of help and support, preferential treatment of A Level students over BTEC students, unorganised timetables and mental health problems (which I already suffer from and I will touch up on more later in my post). Also, I will be paying £15k+ per year for 4 years (total cost including both tution fees and living costs for food, equipment, etc.). Whether it be via a loan (which will have added interest inflating the cost even more in the long run) or paying some of the costs upfront) to look at textbooks and presentations in order study a computer science or computing degree of some sort, without no actual guarantee of a decent paying job at the end of it is questionable (as it is with anything tbh).
I achieved my BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in IT many years ago (the end of 2015 or so according to my certificates), although since then I've done bits and pieces of minor jobs in customer service, retail and I've had a little bit of experience in call centres, too. However since 2019 I've been kinda out of action due to mental health problems, since my local doctors thought it is best that I stay away from work until I feel slightly better (slowly getting there which is why I'm looking for work, but I'm overwhelmed by what I am seeing). My mental health were quite bad prior to 2019 and I've had it since I were in high school (left high school a decade ago) and my mental health has been exacerbated by the whole pandemic, which also worries me because if I were to go to university, being stuck in my room will just make me feel worse and I'll fall behind even more and because of that I'm reluctant to want to go to university. Also, I've taken a look at Apprenticeships, but where I live there is almost none in the area of IT I want to work in and living away from home on an Apprenticeship wage would be such a struggle that it would be like trying to get water out of a rock (because I'd have to move back in with family because of the wages being so low on Apprenticeships) and I don't necessarily want to do that. I've been looking at IT Technician jobs on the internet in nearby big towns and cities and a lot of them ask for years (2 or 3 on average) worth of experience (I really don't know how someone is supposed to get that experience without actually having it in the first place - do people lie about experience or something?). I'm finding it really odd and the reality doesn't match up with what you're told about getting jobs (even normal jobs such as retail and customer service in shops and stuff ask for abysmal years of experience, which I had to tell small lies about to be able to get my foot in the door even though I have an education of some sort and I volunteered for a while many years ago).
As I mentioned before I have mental health problems and those include depression, anxiety (including mild social anxiety) and a mild form of PTSD and these can fluctuate from time to time and get worse from time to time, too. The whole pandemic has made me feel even worse because being in lockdown for 5 or 6 months twice prevented me from wanting to do something about my situation and delayed my process of getting back on track (I want some sort of plan before I fully shift myself back into working full time). I'm considering getting a part time job to begin with and doing that for a while (whether it be 6 months, 1 year or several years). However, I genuinely don't want to be working jobs like that for the rest of my life and because of that my end goal for the future is to hopefully find a suitable job in IT, which will be full time work of course, although at the moment I'm not fully prepared to do that due to mental health problems, thus that is why I will find something temporary and make the goal of getting an IT job a futuristic goal of mine. I'm just looking for advice and guidance from people who completed their BTEC Level 3 recently or years ago, so please post objective comments and don't troll me because I genuinely need advice and also what would be helpful is if someone who has had similar experiences to me could post in my thread. I want to add more details to this post (or thread), although I can't remember the rules for editing your posts on OCUK Forums because I haven't posted on here that much in years, so I may have to add multiple posts to this thread to convey my concerns and situation.
Thanks, BuZ.
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