From Clearing to First Class Honours: Charlie Marshall's Sport Therapy and Rehabilitation story video transcript

Hi, my name is Charlie Marshall. I'm a third year student here at the University of Derby, studying Sport Therapy and Rehabilitation. So what made me go through Clearing is um - well at first I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to uni. Obviously, I wanted to do an apprenticeship and stuff like that and like hearing about university did scare me a bit. But obviously I went through Clearing, and it was probably one of the best journeys I've been through.

Went to go get my results, spoke to my teachers at my secondary school and they was like, if you're not too sure, go and speak to someone at Clearing. So I phoned up the University of Derby - you know, they're there to help you; they're there to give you advice and obviously put you like down the right pathways. Spoke to this lovely lady on the phone and she just basically said to me, "Look, it's fine." I had to do a foundation year, but she said, "It's fine. Look, some people do a foundation year and they come back, you know, even stronger." Being a student at University of Derby, it's been amazing. Um, I'm from obviously down in South London.

So coming up to Derby, obviously it's quiet, it's better, but obviously the facilities here are so good. You've got great support - obviously lecturers, you know if I need anything I can just email them or go on teams and they'll be there. If I need to come in early and and see someone, they'll be there to you know, early doors - and they're just so helpful. In third year now I see the lecturers and teachers like a little family. I come in obviously they know my name I know them, they know how I am, they know my abilities just because I use them so much. They're there to help you - you know, end of the day, they're there just to get you that degree - they're not there to scare you. But being a student is yeah really really fun, I've enjoyed it so much.

Anyone thinking of being a student, I would say go for it because you've only got one life and one chance. So part of the course we've got to do 200 hours externally. So basically what that means is you've just got to try and find your placement. It could be in a clinic, could be in a football club, any sporting environment. So I did my placement over summer this year at a football club called Dartford. First day I walked in, I was really nervous. The last day I walked out, they obviously like they just they loved me, and I loved them. They mentioned about having a job after uni which is amazing. So hopefully fingers crossed I can get a job there.

In the placement, I learned so much. That jump from second year to third year obviously during the summer I had the placement. When I came back to third year, it's like it's like I never lost it. Like I was I was on a groove, I was on a run. There's so many opportunities that the lecturers give us like events as well. Some people did the London marathon massaging and stuff like that. I did some massaging for the Derby 10K last summer. You connect with so many people. I feel like with our course, sometimes it's like who you know and like I'm so grateful because I'm on LinkedIn and I connect with so many people. I'm not a shy person; I like to get myself out there. So we are quite lucky obviously it's called Student-led clinic and basically we get people from bucks, and staff and even students to come in they've got any injuries or if they just want to come in for a chat like if they've got any problems. In that we learn so much from the top to bottom.

We learn about everything like you know might be a muscle injury, a bone injury, a tendon, a ligament. We're quite grateful to have that because it just again it helps us in the long term and it gets us used to the real environment. I can like add on the knowledge I got from placement onto that. If I didn't do this course, then I think I would probably - I don't I don't know what I'd probably be doing.

It all goes back to Clearing, like if I if I didn't pick up the phone then I wouldn't be here and like yeah having these opportunities is amazing and obviously I've loved it because obviously I've always had a smile on my face and like not one day have I said to myself I regret it because I wish I can go back and do it all again.

From Clearing to First Class Honours: Charlie Marshall's Sport Therapy and Rehabilitation story video

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