Story Of My Life - BLOG

My Year in University

My Year in University

I started university at 16 years old (I turned 17 during the semester) on 24/9/2016, Saturday morning. I am attending Arab Open University in Kuwait. AOU is not like any other university, we chose when our classes are, and some classes are once a week and some are once every TWO weeks.

Before I was officially in they made me take a test for my levels of English and Arabic. There are 5 Levels of English and they are the following: EL097, EL098, EL099, EL111, and EL112. EL097 is Level 1, which is the very beginning of the English Language, EL098 is the next level and after come EL099. AOU works with credit hours, the first three levels have zero credit hours while the last two which are EL111 and EL112 (these are more advanced English) have three credit hours. These classes are mandatory. Me, coming from a British system school jumped right to Level 4.

And then there is the Arabic which has only two levels. Level 1 (AR111) and Level 2 (AR112), again me being from a British system school I am absolutely crap at Arabic went to Level 1. EL111 was once every week, I was being so wise and chose it on a Thursday, yeah I'm so smart I know. Arabic was once every TWO weeks, when I knew I was like hallelujah, but again I was being wise and chose it on a Saturday.

Alongside these subjects there was two more mandatory subjects that no matter what you are majoring you have to take which are GR101 (Self-Learning Skills) and TU170 (Computing Skills). GR101 had absolutely NOTHING to do with self-learning skills, all it had was what is type of studying there was and with just my luck it was in Arabic too. TU170 is EXACTLY what you took in school or me in IGCSE's, it was the EXACT same thing.

Enough about studies, more onto my experience there. The first month and a half was very lonely because everyone knew each other and I honestly am not a social butterfly when I'm alone plus I feel guilty very easily and interfering with their groups felt wrong. So I was friendless for that long until a girl and her friend approached me in the university's cafeteria (which is Subway) and we became friends from then onwards. That was the first semester, it ended late January.

Mid February came and the second semester started, new classes and new people. During that time I joined a List (a group of people helping other people in university) called Motahedon which means in English "Unified". I met amazing people and sparked many great friendships.

But the university life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. One of the girls that approached me in the first semester started acting weird. Whenever I meet new people I tell them ALWAYS be HONEST with me because I expect nothing less even if it hurts. She said the same thing to me but when I was honest with her she didn't like what she heard. I'm not going to dwell on the details because I'm here to talk about me and I respect her privacy although we are no longer friends.

That was my first year in university. It is a great experience, you get to meet all kinds of people and all kinds of nationality which teaches you a lot. I, myself don't regret anything I did wrong or right because if you start regretting you won't move forward. I know it was mostly about the studies but I'm going to leave all the entertainment for another blog.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.