My First Year At Uni Experience :)

My friends and I have spent aloot of time reminiscing on freshers year & what we would’ve done differently, lessons learnt  and all the rest and I thought why not share my first year experience for all of y’all.

First & foremost – If you are a girl and you’re going to uni you've gotta beware of predators loool. As a first year, guys just think you’ll be an easy target or whatever because your young and “naive”.  Don’t be fooled lol run away.  

                                                             Flatmates – The first people you make friends with in university will be your flatmates so it's definitely important to make a lot of effort with them, especially since you spend the majority of your freshers week together. I met most of my flatmates through Facebook and already started speaking before we moved in so we weren't complete strangers when we met.  

Also just note that not everyone has been raised the same way you have, people live completely different lifestyles from you so if you’re abit of a clean freak you’re gunna have to be more accommodating because communal areas are shared.

It may help if at the start of the year you try sit with your flatmates and make some sort of cleaning rota or something because chances are it will get dirty. Honestly speaking you probably won't stick to it but it's worth the try.

                          

                                      Friends – In the first few weeks of uni you meet ALOT of different people from events, on campus, classes and nights out literally everywhere. It’s quite easy to make friends because everyone is looking for a friend lol and everyone is really friendly at the beginning of the year. So I’d just say try to just be friendly towards everyone people to keep your options open. Have friends from different places it really just makes the whole experience a lot better.

First term for me was definitely a struggle because it took a long time for me to adjust to everything, the new university building ( I got lost a lot lol), the city, my accommodation, friends , everything. If you’re like me and not a big fan of change then you might hate uni for the first term, I know I did – I thought of commuting and moving back home ALOT however thank God I didn’t that would’ve been the worst mistake. Definitely stick through it, it does get better. It got a lot better for me in second term when I just started feeling more settled in, got closer to my group of friends and just felt happier and more independent than before.

I have the craziest group of friends that I looooooove. Our group dynamic is just soo weird because we’re all so different but it just works.

< This picture is literally how we spent most of our nights after our flat parties would flop (security was the worst) and we’d be left there tipsy and bored searching for a motive haha

I never thought I’d get this close to a group of people in just a year but you do really make good friends at university. It’s so funny looking back because when all initially met we were reserved and polite and soo drawn back now it’s literally the complete opposite. I’m also quite lucky because I really got on with people on my floor and in my block so I had the best of both worlds really.

                                    

Working - If I could go back I would definitely look for a permanent part time job during first year. I did have a job in first year but it was working for the university as an ambassador so I only worked now and again.  I decided not to get a proper job because I just wanted to settle in and tbh I couldn't really be bothered but having that extra income would've been good and I actually had the spare time which I wasted doing nothing and watching series lol.

 University Workload - I found the workload we had to do in first year quite shocking mainly because I was expecting it to be chilled out. However, doing a-levels worked in my favour because I found exam prep and essay writing easier. Don’t let your work pile up !!!! January exams came waay too quickly and I’d realised I really hadn’t been on job.  However I turned that around and worked hard coming up to my exams and actually did really well but decided I wasn't gunna put myself through that stress for my summer exams. 

I know alot of people aren't too fussed about first year grades because it doesn't count towards your final grade however if you’re doing a placement year it does count towards that and also it's always good to do well so definitely put in the work.

Social Life - I definitely made up for term 1 in term 2 and 3 howeverrrr if I could go back I would travel more and do things out of my university city, go to more events ( I was very picky about what events i went to ), go out more - cinema, meals out because looking back I actually had a lot of free time.

& lasty... ENJOY IT! first year goes sooo quick it's so sad when it's over so definitely enjoy it while it lasts.

There’s soo much to look forward to I really feel like by end of first year I was definitely so much more independent. I felt like I was in a better place because I’d learnt how to manage my own time, money, life basically. Living away from home forced me to become an adult and not so reliant on my parents which I was guilty of being prior to uni. 

          

Anyways I hope I haven’t bored you too much during that post. It turned out triple the length I'd intended lol ;) 

x