"A year ago, tomorrow, I attended my first ever university open day, it was at UCLan. I wasn't sure what I really wanted to do but I knew I liked sports and I knew I liked the outdoors. I had a read of the 'Outdoor Adventure Leadership' leaflet and well........

.....Yesterday I was Gorge Walking up Afon Ddu (near Conwy) following four brilliant days rock climbing all around North Wales. I can now lead climb, place gear and build a belay. All my coaches over the year have been amazing - I can use crampons and Ice Axes - having stared the Beast from the East right in her eyes. I've been able to successfully capsize most vessels in the fleet (need some further work on keeping them the right way up now). Also, through the first class opportunities available to me I have been on a week long Scottish Winter Skills course, my coach was Adele Pennington (Google her) - she was the first British female mountaineer to successfully top Everest twice - that's the kind of quality instruction made available to us. A friend of mine on the course is off skiing in France at the moment and a few others are off kayaking in Slovenia in a few weeks. Not to mention the guys who have snapped up jobs in the summer working in America with CCUSA!

It's not all "playing" - there's some academic stuff to be done too. Since the start of the course I've submitted some work I am extremely proud of and, wait for this - had a piece of work published in an academic journal - pretty cool eh?

So, what do you reckon - fancy joining arguably the coolest course in the university? You will not regret it! Make it happen."

1st year student Outdoor Adventure Leadership