Why Did You Start Studying?

I love hearing the stories of other students and the reasons why they start studying. Making the decision to study while working, bringing up a family or running a business is a big one.

It takes a lot of dedication and you must be able to motivate yourself. But the decision to invest in yourself can give you this motivation to keep pushing when you’re feeling down.

I would love to hear why you started studying so please leave a comment below and tell me a bit of your studying story.

I’ll go first with my “why”.

I didn’t go to university when all my friends did as I had become disenchanted with learning and convinced myself I wasn’t good enough to go. I'd been distracted at Sixth Form and hadn't tried hard enough. Everyone else upped their game and studied harder but I thought I could continue "winging it" and get good grades.

So instead I moved to Barbados for 18 months. I was a bit jealous as everyone I knew was at university having fun and building a life. But at the time my own foreign adventure was exciting.

When I came back to the UK I jumped straight into work in the events industry and then as an office administrator. A niggling doubt had been growing for awhile that I wasn’t happy with where my life was going.

I saw lots of successful people around me, and the common thread was they had been to university. Now I don’t believe university is right for everybody (it wasn’t for me straight out of school). But what these successful people shared was that they had invested in themselves.

They picked a path and worked incredibly hard to try to better their future.

This stuck with me so I started thinking about what I might want to study. Working for a large corporation piqued my interest in Business so that seemed a sensible subject to study.

I applied to the Open University and started the following month! This decision changed my life.

Not just because I gained a First Class Honours degree in Business – but because I proved to myself that I can do anything I set my mind to, even if I experience set backs along the way.

So this is a small part of my story that led me to where I am today.

I would love to hear yours so hit reply now and tell me something about your reasons for starting studying and what keeps you motivated to carry on.