Let me start at the beginning. I f*cked up my first degree.

I started mechanical engineering, dropped out after a year, and spent far too long feeling ashamed of it.

Four years later, when I returned to university, I was older, humbler, more curious and a great deal more self-aware. I went on to complete a degree, two Masters, and a PhD.

Since then, I’ve spent years teaching and building programmes across the UK and beyond. I’ve taught undergrads, postgrads, and professionals. I’ve designed courses, coached students, and helped universities rethink how they teach. I recently spent four years in Zambia helping establish medical education programmes and training a new generation of teachers.

My adventurous career has given me a front row seat to the weirdness (yes it can be weird!) of higher education. What works, what doesn’t, and why students so often feel lost when they embark on a degree.

I launched WeGoGeek to make the messy, human side thrive, not just survive, at uni.

Students are arriving at university with incredible digital instincts. The challenge? Learning how to ground those skills, build on them, and connect them with traditional learning methods that are still widely used, and still valuable, for developing deep understanding. However, while today’s students may show far greater technical agility, that doesn’t help with one of the hardest challenges of university life. The emotional side of learning.

The toughest part of starting university isn’t the workload — it’s how exposed it makes you feel. Every essay, presentation, and bit of feedback holds up a mirror, showing what you don’t know yet. That can be uncomfortable, even intimidating. At WeGoGeek, I help students understand those moments, manage the fear that comes with them, and build the confidence and resilience to keep learning when things get messy.

The quickest way to succeed in anything is to find out where all the failure points are, and hit them early. Consider uni your trial and error playground.

Most students fear failure. Acutely. Enough to cause real anxiety. But failure itself isn’t the problem. It’s the fear that the problem. The mindset around what failing at something means. That fear can be pervasive. It doesn’t just affect wellbeing, it can stop you from engaging at all. Students don’t raise their hands when they have a question. They stay quiet in group work. They hesitate to ask a lecturer to explain something over again.

University demands a radical shift in the mindset drilled into you in school. Failure isn’t bad. The truth is that your most important lessons will probably come from trying and failing, repeatedly. The trick is to fail early and often, before you submit your essay or stand up to present in class. Failing early gives you time to course correct. Being shackled by the fear of failure will hold you back from trying.

Universities throw you into essays, group work, and presentations, but rarely explain why these things actually matter. And for most students new to uni, these are just writing, speaking and collaborative assignments. News flash. They’re not.

That essay isn’t just a tedious assignment. It’s a tool for learning how to think critically and wrestle with complexity. That presentation is a chance to build real communication skills. And group work? That’s training for collaborating with difficult people in the real world.

But most universities rarely fully unpack this properly. Much of higher education has been overtaken by tick-box bureaucracy. Submit this. Present that. Attend lectures. The real learning potential often gets lost in the process.

My first three books for new students could easily have been written about mindset, emotions, or AI. But I wanted to weave these ideas into the real, tangible things you actually do at uni. That’s why I designed and wrote the Why Students F*ck Up series. I hope you find the books and webinars useful. They’re the launch platform for WeGoGeek!

I launched WeGoGeek to help students see that the sometimes boring tasks you get handed at uni, aren’t just hoops to jump through. Every opportunity is a chance to develop skills that matter - like handling uncertainty, working with difficult people, and getting your point across under pressure.

On my own learning journey, I used every assignment as an opportunity to learn how to adapt. That's what I want to teach you through WeGoGeek. Not just how to get through university, but how to use your time there to prepare for a world that's changing faster than any curriculum can keep up with. In short?

Learn. Adapt. Repeat.