"Applying through Clearing at the University was easy. I phoned the hotline and asked if they still had space on the course and they said yes! Then it took me maybe a week in total to go through Clearing, then apply and deny my other offers."
Finding where you belong through Clearing
Anthropology student Brodie shares how Clearing was his opportunity to stay local and find the right university for him
Choosing Plymouth
I applied to the University of Plymouth because; A. I’m from Plymouth, so I know the area and the city, and B. because I’d visited lots of different universities and I hadn’t really clicked with them or enjoyed the cities like I enjoy it here. I thought “If I'm really missing home, and it has a good university, then why don’t I just stay?”.
I had already applied to other universities and I was shopping around, trying to find the one that fit me. I'd already gone through the whole application process on UCAS, but once I had figured out that I definitely wanted to study at Plymouth, it was so late that I then had to apply at the last minute.
Applying through Clearing at the University was easy. I phoned the hotline and asked if they still had space on the course and they said yes! It took me maybe a week in total to go through Clearing, then apply and deny my other offers.
A simple process
Clearing is not as difficult or as anxiety inducing as it might seem at first. For me, it was a mixture of feeling weird and almost a sense of failure, because it was really last minute and rushed. I was going through a lot of thinking about different courses that I wanted to do.
Deciding on my course was a lot more last minute than I ever intended, and it was very up in the air until I started the application process. But once I started it was really easy, and it took a massive weight off when I realised that applying through Clearing was much easier than I thought it was going to be.
Everything I'd been looking for
Anthropology was the kind of course I wanted to do, I just didn’t know it yet. I started off interested in the Arts. I did an Arts foundation course, then I moved to Graphics and then to Filmmaking. I realised whilst I was studying Filmmaking that I was really interested in documentary film - I was fascinated in politics, society and people, how people interact with the world and the socio-political situation going on.
So then, I ended up applying to Politics and Sociology somewhere else, but it still wasn’t right for me – so I started looking at the University of Plymouth website and found BA (Hons) Anthropology . I thought, “Oh, that's exactly everything I've been looking for!”.
Anthropology is technically the study of human cultures. It’s a hugely broad topic. We look at different societies, different cultures, and try to either find common themes or look at the underlying themes and what drives them. We can look at witchcraft, symbolism, ethnicity, race, capitalism, all of that, but a lot of it is focusing on the people themselves.
Lifelong friendships
Making new friends is a big part of uni and the first friends I made were my course mates. After a while I started making friends through societies, and I’ve met most of my best friends this way.
I'm part of the Rock and Live Music Society. I enjoy the rock and live music aspect of it, but predominantly it's the people. It's quite a close knit society and it's very supportive. Everybody is friendly and welcoming, and it’s very active; we do a lot of activities in and around town. It's basically just a community of very lovely people and it's great to meet new people and get to know them.
Thinking ahead
I have received support during my time at university from the Careers Service – as part of my course, we go to talks with them and attend CV workshops. A lot of my friends have made use of the Career Service too.
I’m really interested in looking at going into the museum sector when I graduate, but I’ve also only recently started thinking about land management, or something to do with conservation – working with people in communities and advising how they can best manage their wild spaces and reforesting.
Could Clearing be for you?
If you’re worried about your university place, you don’t have to wait until A level results day to apply for Clearing.
Whether you’re yet to apply or have already made an application to the University of Plymouth, we aim to make your next steps as easy as possible.
