Back to the books!

I have a degree in Biochemistry, I think it became clear quite early on that I was on the wrong course, but instead of changing to something more suitable I decided to bury my head in the sand and carry on regardless.  Unsurprisingly, this meant that not only did I not enjoy university as much as I could have done, but I found it extremely stressful and ended up with a classification lower than I expected.

After this, I decided to turn my back to science altogether, and so have been working in administration since graduating in 2007.  Which was going fine until recently, when the itch to go back into science became too much as I saw course mates become Doctors (both Ph.D. and medical) one of these, despite not having completed her Ph.D. yet had a paper published in Nature (scientific journal). EDIT: Another friend, has now completed a Ph.D, and on top of that is a cycling blogger who has been quoted in the Guardian!

But I've been out of the science area for quite a while, and it's not one to stand still, plus I don't want to go back to Biochemistry. So instead of doing what I did at A level and just rush into it (I really think young people are under too much pressure to make such life changing decisions in so little time) I started to think about what I WANTED to do.

During A Levels, I considered Dietetics, as from an early age I've been interest in food and health. As a child, I was quite a fussy eater and my Mum often persuaded me to eat food by telling me it was good for me. I remember being delighted that Beetroot had great health benefits and it tasted good too!  But I dismissed it as an possibility because at the time I didn't feel like my diet was particularly healthy, and I hate feeling like a hypocrite- I don't get how health professionals can lecture patients on smoking and then nip out to the smoking shelter to puff on their own cancer sticks. However, my diet has now improved (and on reflection, my diet wasn't as bad as I thought) so I looked into that again, but again, dismissed it as due to not getting the grades I expected, I would need to do a four year undergraduate course, which I'm not prepared to do, plus the more I looked into it, the more it didn't seem to be for me.

When I started looking into Dietetics, another possibility came to light- nutrition. It seems like it may be a bit more up my street, and seems a bit more 'sciency' than dietetics. Plus I would be able to study it at Masters level.  However, I still wasn't too sure- it looks great on paper, but will it be something I enjoy? Or will it turn out exactly like my first degree?

So when I read that Open University do a short course in Understanding Human Nutrition, I saw a chance to test the waters before diving in. So I signed up for the May start date, and my course materials came today!

I'm really looking forward to getting back into studying again, and I'm hoping to share some of the things I learn along the way on this blog, so watch this space....