At 8.15 on the 27th January 2004, 19 Year 10 students from St John's excitedly waited to board the bus which would take us to Northumbria University.

When we arrived, a few of us were nervous as we know that we weren't the only school going and we weren't sure what to expect. However, after what seemed like a very long walk through the university we realised that we'd nothing to worry about; everyone was friendly and it wasn't going to be a day of hard work.

Firstly, the staff gave us an idea of what we'd be doing and there was an exercise where we gave our views of what the good and bad points of attending university were. After this, each group was given two students who would be in charge of the group for the day. This was good as they were easier to talk to than lecturers and we could ask what they thought of university without receiving a biased answer.

The day was fun and we took part in activities such as researching strange courses (there was even a course on spoons!), having a look around the outside and answering questions about different places and designing posters which were judged, the winners got little treats.

We learnt a lot from the day and had a fun experience; we now know you don't have to a genius to go to university which was worrying a few people including me!

Megan