So my first year here at Staffordshire University is almost over with only coursework to submit and exams to complete and I’ll be on my way to my second year. I’ve learnt and experienced so much this year, knowledge I’ll take forward, experiences I’ve learnt from and mistakes to build upon. I’m not going say I’m an expert on how to survive your first year but I’d like to think I’ve made mistakes and learnt things that had someone told me (they did but I just shrugged it off) then maybe I’d have been a bit more successful.
Any advice I give I’m sure you reading it will have perhaps heard it all before but please I’ve been through it all this year so I really am speaking from experience don’t be sat in the same place next year thinking oh damn wish I’d have listened! Now I’m not in a terrible place but looking back I could have made life easier for myself. So I’ll start from the beginning…
Before you come to university make sure you have everything you need, there’s nothing worse than missing things when you arrive. When I arrived I realised that I hadn’t got a pizza cutter or anything to scoop my walls ice cream out with, so I made an emergency trip to Tesco for that ice cream scooper! Another thing I mentioned in a previous post about budgeting, but try to work out what your weekly budget will be before coming to University and if it’s less than what you think you’d need to have an enjoyable time then contemplate a job. I knew I needed to get a job but left it until I arrived to even start looking for possible jobs and by the time I’d applied, had interviews and got a job it was mid-December which left me struggling for money at Christmas for presents.
At University never miss a lecture it might seem like one but then one becomes two and then it becomes “easy” to miss a few, but that one you miss you may miss something hugely important or a coursework deadline. Then you’re playing catch up and that’s not something you want to do, at times University can be stressful enough without you adding extra pressure yourself because you fancied a day out instead of that lecture that was dead boring last week. Get in good habits early you will thank yourself at the end of the year and feel a lot more relaxed about exams than I do now.
Finally have fun! It’s clichéd to say a person’s years at University are to be some of the best in their life but they can be so don’t pass up any opportunities thrown your way, fresher’s fair, joining societies, sports clubs or even when your mates ask you on a night out, to steal a line from Nike “Just Do It” because you don’t want to be sat at the end of your first year regretting that you didn’t do something!
Sound Advice