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me to progress into my chosen degree at my local university. (As much as I would have liked to have gone to a university further afield, this wasn't financially viable as I'd already decided to do the whole thing on my own without help from anyone.)

*Once I got to university

My degree of choice was BSc (Hons) Computer Science. For me, it would be a five year degree (Foundation year, two years of the "proper" degree, a year out followed by final year) and while I didn't think the foundation year was necessary for me, it was compulsory as a mature student.

Settling into university was a mixed bag for me. Certainly the getting up for lectures and tutorials was easy from my time in the real world. The harder part was getting used to the teaching styles of the lecturers. Some were very good, and some were downright poor. Another point I found hard to deal with was a lot of the time it wasn't very clear what was actually expected of you. A levels and GCSEs had always made it very clear what they expected from their students, but some of the coursework and exams set by the staff were exceedingly vague in their requirements. However, after the first term, I found I had gotten to grips with most aspects of student life.

*Should you expect to be treated differently as a mature student?

I know I did. Not from other students I didn't go around blowing my own trumpet about how old I was but I expected to be given more "time of day" from the staff and lecturers if I ever went to them with a problem. Well, the first two years were a disaster my Advisor of Studies (we are allocated a staff member who is supposed to help you with any problems you have, and I had two in two years due to retirements etc.) was useless and treated me like an 11 year old, never mind an 18 year old or even a 28 year old (as I was at the time). Now, I'm sure this is just my department in my university, and not true of all universities, but meetings were cancelled at last minute, sometimes with no contact, I was fobbed off with lame excuses and the help I got was generally poor.

I even complained to the head of the department about both my ongoing problem at the time with a lecturer and my problems with my advisor of studies. Again, he treated me more like a child than an adult. After two years, I was eventually allocated an advisor of studies who was extremely helpful.

At the same time, university life wasn't the same as I'd heard from my friends when they were at university around half a dozen years before

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