Hi everyone, my name is Ellie and I'm a final year law student at UCL.
I already finished all of my exams, so this means that I'll be graduating!
I learned a lot by trial and error throughout the past three years of my degree...
and there are certainly things that I wish I'd known as a first year which would have made my
life a lot easier. So I thought, hey, why not make a video about these tips and share them with you
all so that you'll just be vibing throughout your degree? The first thing is you have to adopt a
growth mindset. This is so important. So let's use a very personal and practical example which
happened to me. I remember when I was going to the first UCL Law Society event, I was literally on
the steps of Bentham House which is the Faculty of Laws, and I started panicking, thinking "Oh
my god, what if I don't make a single friend and I'm going to be alone for the next three years???"
and I was just having a lot of these irrational thoughts. Then I just sat down at the lecture hall
and suddenly, I remember seeing this girl that was late and she decided to sit down next to me and we
started talking. And guess what, she turned out to be one of my best friends from law until now
and I'm incredibly grateful for that. What is the point of the story here? The point is, I shouldn't
have been panicking and I should have adopted a growth mindset instead. A lot of unexpected
things will happen to you at uni and what you need to do is to be open-minded and view events in the
grand scheme of things. You never know, something very positive might happen to you and you just
need to sort of like open yourself to that kind of opportunity. This advice also applies to negative
events in your life. What you need to do is take a step back and reflect on the event's significance.
For instance, maybe you had a very intense tutorial experience where you felt very inadequate
or maybe you received a really bad grade for an essay that you worked hard on. What is important
here is to not be too flustered or irritated about it but rather take a step back and figure out how
you can use this as an opportunity for learning and for growth. So yeah, if I could go back in
time, I'd definitely pass on this message to myself. (Advice) number two, don't compare
yourself to your peers. This is so important, oh my god. I think what is very important is that
when you come to uni, you need a reality check and that is just like you, everyone else had amazing
achievements and did very impressive things in their lives and there's nothing wrong with that.
In this kind of competitive environment, you might feel pressured to kind of think very highly of
your peers while putting yourself down, but that should never be the case. It is very easy to feel
daunted and have insecurities about yourself and your skills, but think about it this way - the
energy you expend on other people is something you could have used towards working on yourself.
So for example, if you are worried about your career prospects and you think "wow, person X
is absolutely amazing, they have secured so many internships, they are so ahead of me"... that
is not something you should be thinking! Instead, you should change your mindset and be like "Okay,
what is it I need right now to become a better candidate? What are my weaknesses that I can work
on, and what are my strengths? How can I highlight my strengths to the prospective employer?" These
are the relevant considerations you should have in mind. Adopting this mindset will help you realise
what it is exactly that you need to do next rather than just sulking and thinking about other people.
So definitely do not compare yourself to your peers and learn to work on yourself instead.
Thirdly, choose your friends and the people you surround yourself with carefully.
Sometimes I think about why people say that university years are the best years of our lives,
and I actually think it boils down to the amount of control you have over your social circle,
as well as the level of autonomy that you get to enjoy. University is not like high school anymore,
you have to realise that you are the one with the power to choose the people that you want to
surround yourself with and you are in charge of finding out what kind of social circle you would
want and what kind of people give you good vibes. You know the people that would make
you feel comfortable just the way you are and the people that make the 2 a.m study sessions
at the Student Centre a lot more bearable. That is exactly what you are looking for.
Fourthly, communication is key. Here's the thing, the level of academic supervision that you receive
at university is very different from high school. The difference between high school and uni lies in
you needing to reach out for help in the first place. If you are in a tutorial and you don't
really understand what the professor is talking about, just directly ask in class for them to
clarify that point or if you find that a bit more intimidating, maybe note it down
and then write an email to the professor asking for more clarification. Lastly, the importance
of work-life balance. This is also incredibly important. Speaking from personal experience, when
I was writing my essays for this final exam season we had, students often struggle with three things
and that is: 1. Procrastination, 2. Feeling burnt out and 3. Feeling guilty when they are resting.
The thing is, you need to learn to take care of yourself and treat yourself well
because that is the core of maintaining work-life balance and maintaining your mental wellbeing.
I actually found out that once you take those breaks, your brain is more refreshed and more
recharged and it's ready to be grinding again, whereas if you keep going this entire time,
your productivity is actually going to be quite low. You need to tell yourself that
it's okay to relax! You need to tell yourself that you deserve the break.
So that is everything I wanted to cover, I just wanted to add that making these videos for UCL
was very fun and a very enjoyable experience. I'm very, very grateful and I hope that I was able to
help you all with the tips that I covered not only in this video, but in my previous ones as well.
So yeah, best of luck for your studies and thank you again for watching this video! Bye!