Lucia Acott

I chose MidKent College as when I was in secondary school in year 11 I knew I didn’t want to stay on and do A Levels. I was quite driven to go down the police or paramedic route. The College is local to where I live so I came along and spoke to the tutors and bonded quite easily with them and that helped make my decision.

I’ve found it really interesting so far, it’s different to what I was expecting as you do very much a range of public services, so you learn about everything which is helpful as when you go into your chosen career, you have an idea what everyone else’s role is as well.  We have done different units with different tutors, so for example with Nathan with have learnt more about responding to and managing a major incident when you are at the scene, and with Neil we do custodial care and prisons. We have learnt about media and social media and how police and paramedics are portrayed and how they have to put details onto their website after an incident. These are things I might not have considered before doing the course. I am really enjoying learning about custodial care at the moment.

I think the tutors are great and get on very well with them. I really prefer the way you are treated compared to school.  I am happy with how we learn - our tutors give us the content of the course and go through it with us. Then they give us the assignment brief. I prefer it that way, having the content first, as I don’t really like exams as I feel there is too much pressure so you might not do as well.

I have applied to go onto university next, I have applied to Canterbury Christchurch to study Paramedic Science which is a three year course. I chose this particular university as they have a 100% access route so as soon as you’ve got your degree you’re guaranteed to be a paramedic.  I would say to anyone thinking of coming to College to study public services that they should definitely do it! I think you might be nervous at first but I found that the people in my class were brilliant and the tutors are great  Everyone helps you as much as they can.