Hi everyone, I’ve been a silent member in here for a while just trying to soak in as much different perspectives as I can and this subreddit has been super helpful with giving me some idea of uni that I haven’t had before.
I’m looking for some objective perspectives on my current situation. I’m in a bit of a dilemma regarding my path into Medicine (specifically aiming for Neurosurgery long-term). This may be a long post please forgive me.
For context, I was homeschooled from age 10-19 (I am now 20) with almost no formal schooling. I only started getting qualifications at 19. This is due to my mum making the decision to remove me from school to focus on business as she believes it’s more important and stable and she believed I was tech savvy so I could help her with building websites and such at age 9/10 😂. You can imagine that didn’t end well what with me being removed from my social and educational to be at home all the time whilst still wanting to be a kid. Anyhow it ended up that for the 9 years I was at home we did little to no schooling at all. Basically just chilling at home all those years. I’ve got no idea how I’m managing to keep up. When I look back it doesn’t feel real and I still feel stuck in the same stagnation I was in for so much of my childhood.
Fast forward to now, I have GCSE English and Maths at Grade 7 (still no A-levels) which I managed to gain at age 19 after a year of fighting with my mum to allow me to go to school. (Support from my dad wanes and waxes. He recognises that my mum is wrong but is too scared of rocking the boat to do much to stand up for me and my younger siblings who are also in the same predicament). At that age I would’ve had to pay to get extra GCSE’s and I have no financial support from my parents to do so, neither was I allowed to get a job as my mum saw basically everything I wanted to do as beneath me. Her views have developed along with the times and she’s now a firm believer that ai is the future and it’s useless me wanting to study even medicine she in future ai will be taking care of that too and there will be no jobs. I try to ask her then — what happens to everyone else in this equation?? She says new jobs will be made. Idk. It’s all very wishy washy and I don’t believe she ever had a solid plan for when she removed us from school till now.
I am currently finishing an Access to HE Diploma (Medical Biosciences), it is QAA registered too. I’m on track for high Distinctions (aiming for 30-45 Distinctions). Again this is without any support from my mum and her mostly just ignoring me studying. It’s laughable to think that majority of the fights I’ve had with my mum and continue to have are legit just about me wanting to follow my own path and go to school 😭 it doesn’t feel real.
I currently have offers for neuroscience. The two I’ve confirmed are Bristol as my firm and York as my insurance. I am very interested in the study of the brain but I also don’t want to lose my dream of doing medicine. My original plan was to do this degree, then apply for GEM since I don’t have my full GCSE’s or A-levels however when I’ve done research I now know this is really competitive and may be a long shot and would increase the number of years I’m studying for.
My two options are:
Honestly I’m just very exhausted, I spend so much of my time navigating the situation at home while trying to keep myself motivated to keep trying but so far it just feels like an uphill battle and I feel so behind constantly. The last five years have been especially hard dealing with very close bereavement in my family as well as being the eldest I feel so much responsibility for how my siblings lives are going to pan out as well. I guess it makes me feel more pressure to get out of this situation so they see a way out too.
I’ll be 21/22 if I start in 2027. I know that’s not "old," (esp in this subreddit 😂) but coming from a homeschooling background where I didn’t do anything at all education-wise I feel behind. I just wanted some outside opinions since I know so little about how universities work and what my paths could potentially look like so I can begin planning and maybe feeling on track again.
Thank you 🙂