Rapheal Mutu went through Clearing after the Covid-19 pandemic impacted his studies and meant he didn’t get the grades he needed for his chosen course. He was accepted on to our BSc Accounting and Finance with Foundation Year course, in 2021.
‘In lockdown was when everything changed for me,’ explains Raphael. ‘I always had the potential to be a grade A* student but being sat at home with no interaction, my grades started to slip.’
Rapheal, who grew up in Surrey was originally predicted A*, As and Bs for his A-levels and had firmed up offers at the universities that he wanted as first and second choice.
‘When my results came through all I thought was “well, what did you expect?” I knew I had lost track but it still hurt to see it on paper. The worst thing was I was out in rural Nigeria and had no service on the day to make calls or emails to try and secure a place – my family who were in the city had to help me out.’
Rapheal’s father had always instilled in him a sense of picking yourself up and making the best of a bad situation.
‘He suggested that I might not be ready to study degree level business if I didn’t get the grades, so advised me to look at Foundation Year options.
That’s where I found University of Kent. I didn’t know much about the university, but I found the experience of Clearing through Kent to be very reassuring and stress free.
I really liked the look of the campus particularly the library, the state-of-the-art Sibson building and Turing College accommodation halls. I was thrilled to get a place to study Accounting and Finance.’
Rapheal immediately realised he had made the right choice, the foundation course offering him a steppingstone to enable him to brush up on topics that he hadn’t studied for a while.
‘It was learning a lot of what I already knew but there were beneficial areas, such as the mathematics and statistics module, I did politics, which I knew quite a bit about already, but then I had the new things like sociology, which at first I wondered why I was doing it, but it gives you a well-rounded education.’
Rapheal is pursuing the idea of becoming an accountant upon graduation and feels the first year of his BSc, which he has just completed, is really helping him to meet his goals.
‘I’ve enjoyed the modules on Financial Markets and Accounting but also things that I might not have considered, like management.’
Moreover, it is the people he has met at Kent that have given him a sense that everything happens for a reason, and the campus was the right place for him, despite not being his first choice.
‘I have rediscovered my faith and am part of a really supportive Christian group here at the university where I’ve met so many people, from various courses and backgrounds. I also became a Student Ambassador and have been enjoying tasks like running calls with new students about to start next year to give them help and advice and working on things like University Open Days.’
Rapheal feels his extracurricular activities have really enabled him to feel part of university life and make the most of his time here.
‘Clearing meant that it was not the end of the world. Clearing gave me a space at a decent university even though my grades were not what I expected and helped me pick myself up and carry on.’