I hope it's alright for me to start a new thread...

I'm currently on a year's break from education. It was mostly so I'd have a year to sort myself out, but also so I could retake my GCSE exam so I could meet the criteri for the degree I want to take at university.

I live in Northern Ireland. There are two universities here, and both offer the course I want to do - Quantity surveying. Don't ask why, but that's just what I've wanted to do since I was about 14? I have 9 GCSEs, 7 Cs and 2 Bs. I also have a qualification specifically in construction, a BTEC National Diploma with thee distinctions (highest achievable grade).

Now, of the two universities in the country, I'd only be able to go to one... Queens Belfast will only accept A levels, which I don't have.
The other university is the University of Ulster. Where I have wanted to go since 14. They're criteria for quantity surveying is 2 distinctions and 1 merit minimum (which ( meet), but I also need a B in maths and a C in English GCSE. I have a B in English and a C in maths, so wasn't accepted for the course when I applied last year. That's the exam I wanted to retake this year... But there is no-where locally I can retake it -____-

So it looks like university at home is out of the question, at least for doing the course I want to do.

After a bit of reasearch, I've found that universities in Scotland and England have lower criteria than in Northern Ireland, and that I would be accepted into a university there with ease. I'm particuarly interested in the University of Reading, and Anglia Ruskin University in Essex. The only hard thing about this should be choosing what uni out the two, right?

No.

I have my lovely boyfriend. We've been together two years and things are strong. He's currently studying at the University of Ulster, where I HAD planned to go, and life would have been easy then. We've talked about it, and he says that he doesn't think it would work if I went to England. I don't think there would be point in trying if he already thinks it would fall apart. I'm not sure, but I don't think he wants to transfer either.

So my options are:
Stay at home and do a course I don't really want to, but still have my boyfriend.

OR

Leave my boyfriend and go to a different country to study the course I do want to do.

I still have plenty of time to think about it, and I'm going to apply for quantity surveying at home as well as another two different courses, and the two universities in England. I'm just very stuck. It's tricky, but this is the rest of my life :/

There are other fish in the sea. You're young, yeah, it sucks that you "have" to break up, but.

What happens if you take that course that you didn't want to, and then you and him break up?
Are you going to finish it out, or are you going to switch to the other school and the whole crazyness that that causes?

In my opinion, worry about your life and career, before you worry about boys, because they will come and go. But if you have your own career you enjoy and can support yourself with, well, then you'll probably be much better off, even as the boys come and go.

Argh I know that myself, I just wish there was something else. Blah.
I just don't want to do anything I'll regret... I regret so much already, and I want to do it right. I just don't know what is certain to be right in the long term perspective D: