Hello everyone! I am a new member, I'm psycologically drained and I'm confused about everything. I graduated with a 3rd class in BEng (Hons) Chemical Engineering at a prestigious university in England. My classification was not my overall grade but I was given a third class due to an extenuating circumstance. I fell ill during my third year and I was unable to complete my final year exams. The university gave me a third class and they offered me Msc in Chem Eng due to my academic achievement in first and second year of undergrad. I graduated with Merit. The uni concluded that my masters will cover my undergrad.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to get any science job including low entry level jobs, companies are not ready to look beyond my undergraduate classification. I contacted the university, I was told that it has been a year since I graduated and it's too late to come back and complete the third year.

Help me! What shall I do? Am I to start contacting other unis if they will offer me the opportunity to complete my third year? I am clueless, I know that I am exceptionally good and I can achieve better than that if I had taken my third year exams. I tried applying for PHD, they all want minimum of 2:2 with a masters.

I don't know about re-sitting the thrid year, but have you tried getting hold of an official copy of what the university did and your special circumstances and attaching that along with your first and second year transcripts? It's a lot extra to add to a CV but it should demonstrate the point more clearly.

Hey! It's really unfortunate that your uni only offered you a third when you were too ill to take your exams. I was ill in my final year undergrad and was told that I didn't have to take my final exams, and that the grade awarded for that semester would be based on my average grade for the year, which was a first (In the end I took my exams anyway, even though I was ill, because I didn't want to think I'd been awarded a first on the basis of only half a third year). So it seems quite unfair that they only offered you the third. Anyway, I would certainly push further to see whether you can re-sit the year- after all, your circumstances were extenuating- and if not then you are going to have to be very persistent with your job-searching. I doubt you would be able to go anywhere else just to do a third year. The only thing you can really do is include a transcript and an explanation of your low grade with your applications and hope that someone will overlook the third given that you have a good masters. Another way round it would be to try for an RA position, which you might have a chance of, and hope that this could lead on to a PhD- quite a lot of people take an RA job and then manage to get funding for a PhD from the same institution for when the job ends. But I would say you will have to be very determined and persistent! Good luck with it, KB

Thank you.
I contacted my local uni and they have offered me an admission to start from second year of their Chem Eng to be able to get a better grade..this way I will be able to build up my grade to a first class or a minimum of 2:1. Are there things that I should be aware of before undertaking this course? for example, the completion date of my undergraduate will be different from my masters?

I'm not sure how sensible this is - you can't ignore the original one on any applications and you have a master's already. Do you really want to spend all that money for no guarantee it will work. I would use the money to pay for the first year(s) of PhD and try to pick up some funding along the way.