Hey guys, welcome to my messy room! I just wanted to film a quick video
telling you about seven things that I wish I knew before starting uni.
Obviously it's such a huge jump and you're not expected to know everything off
the cuff, so I'm just gonna tell you the things that I wish I knew just to help
you to avoid making the mindset mistakes and practical mistakes I made. So I'm
gonna just whizz through them all and give you an overview and there'll be
more detail in the blog post that I'll link below but yeah number one is that
settling in takes time and if you're like me, my biggest insecurity is
feeling that I don't belong and therefore being at uni I was scared
that I wasn't gonna make friends and the reality of it is that it's hard
to come to terms with, but obviously it takes time to find friends and now that
I'm at the end of my first year I can firmly say that I have found my
friends and throughout the year made connections and found people that I
really have a deep connection with. Number two is that freshers flu is real
guys! I can't tell you how ill I was, I mean, it's not as bad as some people were
but in lectures I just felt I was coughing for ages, so be prepared for
that, and bring your meds, make sure you're all that wrapped up, you've got good supply
of strepsils, because I'm telling you you're gonna need it. Number three
is that you will over pack and I am so guilty of this. I'm dreading
moving out just because I've accumulated so much stuff, and I've also brought so
many clothes for example I don't wear at all. So I would say think about it and
only bring the stuff that you know you're going to need don't just
keep saying "oh you know, just in case like I'll bring this pair of
shorts that I might wear in the depths of winter" - you know you're not going
to wear it so leave it at home. Save yourself the pain. Number four
is don't buy books and textbooks straight away because honestly, I don't
use my books at all and, as bad as it sounds,
I don't really go to the library, confessions, but I usually just go
online, go on Scopus, go on the online library, and I find that I get all the
books I need from there. So yeah think about books before you buy them and only buy the
essential reading ones. Number 5 is plan your budget because, I like to
think that I'm good with my money, but the beginning of the year I wasn't really
thinking about how much I was spending so you know take your loan or you know
the money that your parents are giving you, divide it by every week, allocate the amount of money you
are you gonna spend every week, and keep track of that. The easiest thing is
just to go over budget and before long you're in your overdraft which is
very bad, you don't wanna go there. Number six is that you don't need to fit
into the student stereotype. If you're anything like me, I'm not too much of a
party person like I do enjoy going out once in a while for special
occasions, birthdays and things like that, but on the regular I like just stay in
chill out with my friends, movie night, you know, with a cup of tea -
I sound so old! At uni there is seriously no
pressure to do anything, everyone respects you because everyone's just out
to do what they want right? And if partying is not what you want,
that's absolutely fine, and if it is, that's fine go for as well. My
final point is just to enjoy yourself, like uni is such an amazing experience
and living out, especially if you're living out, just gives you so much
independence that I wouldn't trade for anything. So there's my seven
things I wish I knew before uni.