It's been a while, first year at university was hectic and I wanted to wait until I had actually survived it before I start dishing out advice to those who are just about to start their journey at university so here goes nothing...
My tips and tricks for surviving freshers week
1. The first week will be very maniac, with events probably happening all day and night, now if you are someone like me who likes to go out and drink but cannot handle it every night then you should definitely pace yourself during this week and only go to the events which you would enjoy the most, trust me the world won't end if you miss that jungle themed party on Thursday!
If you do go to every event and go out every night trust me by the following week you be curled up in bed dying from freshers flu, and that week may be when your lectures start and a lot of useful information can be given out in these lectures which brings me onto my next point...
2. Try not to miss any important lectures, don't get me wrong I missed a lot of lectures in first year but I always turned up for those that were important or even graded, these are easy marks and there is no excuse for not getting them.
3. If you are a shy person who finds it hard to be yourself around complete strangers, like I am sometimes, try as hard as you can to put yourself out there in the first week. I promise you everyone wants to make friends and will be extremely nice for the first few weeks at uni, and this is the time where you will have the most friends you have ever had in your life.
4. If you immediately take a disliking to one of your new flatmates or roommates, try your hardest to find things you do like about them because you do not want to live with someone you hate for a year, trust me it is really not an ideal situation, just keep telling yourself it is only a temporary arrangement and you will soon be able to move on with people you do really like.
5. When that student loan hits your bank account it is really easy to start buying stupid things and thinking you have unlimited funds to use, last year one of my flatmates did this and by November when the accommodation rent was due he had to go running back to mummy and daddy for the rent money, which is fine if you don't mind doing that by personally I liked finally being able to support myself and budgeting is quite easy for me. ( A blog post on this will be coming soon).
6. This tip is really hard for a lot of people to follow, but try you damnedest to not sleep with any of your flatmates in week one when you are completely hammered, this could lead to some incredibly awkward moments in the following year. But there are obvious exceptions to this, if you both really like each other it can sometimes work it just depends on the type of people you both are.
7. During the first week you will have no time to even think about home but maybe in the second and third weeks when things settle down you may be suddenly hit with homesickness which is completely normal, just make sure you do ring home and visit whenever you need to. That way your parents and loved ones will be reassured that you are still alive at the same time!
8. Because you won't really know anyone in the first week before you go out and get drunk make sure you tell someone the rules to follow on the night, so for instance if you are the kind of girl that doesn't mind going off with a guy back to his place after a night out, make sure you tell your roommates its fine for them to leave, because in my social group we wouldn't leave the club until we had our whole group back together so just make sure everyone is on the same page before losing someone in the club which always happens!
9. Do sign up for new societies and clubs, because if you don't sign up now you probably never well, and just because you sign up it doesn't mean you have to join, but that way you will get all the information for the taster event and can go and see if it is really for you or not.
Hope these tips can help someone :)
Until next time....
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