Changing Your University Course

So you hate your course? That’s not an uncommon emotion for students. Don’t worry if you feel like this, it is entirely possible to change your course (or even university), even after a year or two of studying.

You may even find that the course you wish to move to allows credits to be carried across from the course you are currently on, for example if you are moving from a maths course to a maths with computing course.

This is less likely if you’re looking to move from medicine to law or something similar.

The actual changing of course is usually the easy part, if you have the grades to study the course you want to move on to then you shouldn’t have any problems.

Changing courses: problems

The problems that you may face include the following :

• If you want to change course after say 6 months of starting university then you may find you have to wait until the start of the next academic year as you’ve already missed too much work.
• Your LEA (local education authority also known as local authority) may not be willing to fund you for the full duration of your new course if they decide you’ve already used up 1 year of loan / grant entitlement.

They are likely to be the two main issues you will face once you make the decision to change course. There may be other issues too, such as telling your family!

There is no real advice to be given on changing course other than give it very careful thinking.

Don’t decide to change course because you don’t like the idea of doing a bit of work. If you’re certain that you should change then speak to your course director, the course director of the course you wish to change to (or the university if you’re looking to also change university).

Again, we can’t advise you on what your local authority will say about funding you for an extra year, the only way to find out is by contacting them directly.

Just make sure you’re moving course for the right reasons, be honest with yourself and with your tutors about your reasons and listen to their advice.

UK Degree Types

For a breakdown of degree types, see our page on degree types.