The first year of college, done!

This time last year Ellie had just left school and I was worrying about her starting college but here we are, at the end of this week she has completed her first year doing electrical engineering! I know for a fact I have worried a lot more than Ellie has, she has taken it all in her stride!

Ellie started college the day after we came back from our little holiday which was stressful to start with but it was also the day that Ellie would get the bus for the first time for herself. All summer I had tried to get her to say where we were going and pay but she was having none of it. Thankfully when she got her college bus pass she just had to scan it and get on without saying a word. On the first day she met up with some friends and that was it, she was away!

She settled into her class so well, obviously she paired up with the only other girl on her course and they have been an unstoppable force. The teachers have said they try their hardest as if they are trying to prove they are just as good as the boys. They don't have to try, they are as good as the boys!!

For the first few weeks of college Ellie hung around with people that she had known from school at break and lunch times but soon branched out a little and made friends with people in doing her course and others in the engineering department. She soon got herself a boyfriend which thankfully didn't last long. He was a bit controlling and the final straw came when he said to Ellie she couldn't hang out with her friends, she told him where to go.

Every day she comes home and says so and so said this, so and so said that and I can't keep up with who she is talking about as she seems to know so many people. For months I thought Alex was a boy but it turns out she's a girl. She thinks nothing of waking into town with her friends and having a look around the shops and popping into Wetherspoons for lunch. Some of her friends are 17 and 18 years old which I am wary about but they all seem like decent people.

The highlight of the course has been when she has had her practical lessons and she has been in the workshop doing the wiring and whatever else she does. Trunking, trays, conduits and many more words describing things that I don't understand. My dad does though, he has loved talking to Ellie about what she has been doing in college.

Ellie has cracked on with the written work and actually finds those lessons fun and interesting. In her course she doesn't have one final exam, she has assessments throughout the year and she has passed them all. There was one in the middle of the year which she had to resit but learned that she had to revise and that paid off with her last assessment when she got full marks!

Ellie has one more day at college and that's her done until September! She has already signed up to do the next year of Electrical Engineering. She has said that the teachers are hoping to put the two classes together with those doing their 2nd year so there will be no new starters holding them back. She is looking forward to another long summer of fun!