I’m an entrepreneur at heart – I like to just do things. I’m also that person you might hear in the media or in a newspaper talking about careers & education and why we need change in the way we address them.

Back to basics – my name’s Tom Mursell, I’m 20 (going to get too old for this soon) and here’s how I fell into what I do…

The ‘notgoingtouni.co.uk’ story

I was happy bobbing along through the education system; not thinking twice about what I was doing, what I was going to do and more importantly how I was going to apply what I was doing now to what I will eventually do! I finally put my head down after years of being “the class clown” in school reports and eventually did well at my GCSEs. The next logical step was to go on to sixth-form to study A-Levels.

It was when I entered my second year at college that I actually started questioning what I was going to do next. I was aware that every tutor period & time we had with lecturers was spent talking about UCAS forms, how to juggle student finances, the different degrees that were available etc. and very little talking about what lay outside of the university route. I went along with it all anyway and applied to study Law at uni, eventually getting accepted. However, when it came to crunch point I turned down my place. Why? Two reasons – firstly, I realised I was stacking shelves alongside debt-ridden & disappointed graduates at my Saturday supermarket job, and also at that stage I just didn’t feel it was the next step.

So after leaving college in the deep end and after different experiences of careers advice I still didn’t know what to do.

Several months later my girlfriend came home from college both upset & angry with a little booklet in her hand. I soon found out that she had been turned away from college & made to feel like she’d join the dole queue…all because she didn’t want to apply to university!

This gave me the real motivation to look into the options that existed outside of university; I quickly found out there were a huge number of training schemes & alternative study options, yet no place to find them…notgoingtouni.co.uk was born!

Today

Just over a year after the official launch of notgoingtouni.co.uk I’m seen as the young people’s voice on education, careers & HR. I work on various projects & initiatives, frequently do public speaking events and am often in the media.

This is my personal blog with my views on the latest goings-on in the world of education, careers & IAG.