Oh wow! I've had such an incredible day! The clinical open day for radiography was amazing, it's made me realise it's the perfect career for me, which has made me even more determined to get on the degree next year!
I'll try not to bore you all too much with my ravings, but there is so SO SOOO much more to radiography than you'd ever think! You can specialise to become a sonographer and do scans on pregnant women; be part of the cardio team where you do angiograms and go into theatre during heart surgery etc. You can go into the forensics side and assist murder investigations by making images of dead bodies; deal with trauma cases in an A&E setting; research; becoming a specialist in MRI, CT or ultrasound!!! EEK! It's all so exciting. Also not to make a big deal about the money side of things (I'm not in it for the money I just want a job I enjoy) after the shift allowance, on call allowance and weekend working allowance radiographers with 6 months experience earn between 35-40k!!
That's insane compared to most graduate jobs! The NHS also fund the course so you don't have to fork out 9k a year for uni fees AND they pay you around £550 a month to study in a combination of bursaries and allowances! Plus for the past 10 years the degree at Hallam has a 100% employment record!!
The downside - competition to get on the course is TOUGH! Apparently my first choice uni Sheffield Hallam got 900 applications this last year for just 28 places!!
Even though I've got a 2:1 in my Law degree and 5 A's at A-level (I've always been a bit of a geek!) I'm still not sure I'll be lucky enough to get on the course. All the uni's do an assessment day which involves tests in maths, image interpretation, team work, writing and a panel interview! You're allowed to apply to 5 courses throughout the country. As I'm not moving from Sheffield it might mean a lot of commuting but I'll do ANYTHING to get on this degree so I don't mind really! I've narrowed down my choices to Sheffield Hallam, Leeds, Derby, Bradford and Salford in that order. Although Salford would be a bit of a push travel wise I'd still do it rather than wait another year if it was my only option.
Anyway, despite the huge competition for places I'm feeling really positive about things. The only downside is that I was the biggest person there, but you know what? I'm working on it, every day I'm getting healthier and closer to my goal, so I refuse to worry about my size, it's changing as fast as I can so I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Besides the NHS health check won't be till next summer, by then I'll be loads slimmer.
Also to top my day off when I got home 4 books from the Open University were waiting for me! My course starts in 3 weeks so it's great to know I'm all prepared now. The only thing left to do is write my personal statement for the degree application and get it all sent off. So that's my main job for next week, I have no idea how I'm going to get down my passion for this career path on paper in under 4000 characters, but I'll try my best!
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Sorry for going totally off topic with all the radiography talk!
You'll all be experts in the subject soon
Anyway, food wise I'm doing well so far - an entirely free SW breakfast for brunch and an 8 syn City Kitchen meal for tea. If I get peckish later (likely!) I've got fruit, babybel and a muller to munch on. Also got some body magic in today as I had a tour of the hospital which lasted around an hour, so lots of walking involved!
Jet2 wouldn't let me do our on-line check in for our flights at 00:01 this morning ( maybe I was overly keen but they said it'd be available on the 14th!) so I'm off to try again now.
Week 6, Day 5 - EE
Brunch -SW fry up - 2 x poached eggs, lean bacon, mushrooms, plum tomatoes, baked beans
Tea - City Kitchen skinny coconut chicken - 8 syns
Supper - 2 x mini Babybel ; muller light ; nectarine (not sure I'll need all that but I can always edit this later!)
Total - 8 syns
Feels really good to have managed a low syn day at long last. At least that makes up for my Subway HEXB boo-boo earlier this week!
