First year university tips

These tips may not apply to all because everyone has a different university experience but I know it would have done myself and others well to have known these:

• Have an awesome time in freshers and go wild, meet as many lovely people as you can – these will be some of the best memories of university life and once it’s over and you’re bombarded with work you will miss it. You’re only really a fresher once so grab every opportunity that comes your way.

  

  Wine window in my flat

• You can never go out too many times as a first year and it’s perfectly fine to drink a whole bottle of wine, you’re just having a good time and anyone else who tells you otherwise doesn’t know what they’re missing out on. Just make sure the night before that you’re prepped with all the hangover essentials – Lucozade and Oasis are lifesavers.

• Some boys (and some girls) are definitely not the be all and end of all in life, don’t waste time crying and stressing over the silly ones, just have fun with your friends and all the other brilliant people around you!

• It’s okay to live on a diet for a while consisting of pasta and chicken dippers, we can’t all be extravagant cooks and on a budget you got to do what you

  

  Pasta, pesto, chicken & broccoli = one of my favourite meals.

  can. And I’d say it really doesn’t hurt to have a few takeaways when cooking seems like too much effort.

• You’ll meet people who you become close friends with quite fast, treasure these people as they’ll be the ones around at the end when you need people the most.

• Don’t regret any of your experiences and cherish all your memories. Yes, you may make mistakes – wrong friendship, wrong course – but you’ll learn from them (hopefully haha) and come back a better person.

• To be homesick is completely okay and it’s pretty natural for everyone to feel this way, you’re not on your own! So frequent trips home and covering your room with homely things is something most of us will do.

 

University is a rollercoaster of emotions but it’s a pretty good one that hopefully you’ll love and never want it to end! I already miss first year and I’m not even done yet, your time will go so fast so just make the most of everything and enjoy it.

 

1. Exams 2. Summer

Well I’m in my last term of my first year at university and I seriously cannot get over how fast it’s gone, feels like yesterday I was just moving in here! I am going to miss halls and being an innocent fresher too much next year.. Can already feel my emotion coming in for how sad I’m going to get when it’s time to move out 😦 but before all the end of term blues and parties comes the favourite time of term (of course) the dreaded exam period. I will not lie I am not looking forward to my life for the next month and a half with 4 assignments to do and 5 exams before I can take a break!

Wish I could skip to the part when it’s all done so I don’t have too go through all the ultimate stress and all nighters of revision sessions. Replacing 2/3 nights out a week for 1 or 0 instead and spending my life inside revising about the law and how to report in a court (loving life while I do this) – though when it’s sunny I will likely take frequent trips to the beach instead. Even though I hate this part, I know deep deep down that this is all worth it in the end and then I can chill and have a lovely summer.

Boardmasters festival last summer: Photo by Ellen Walapu

Summer, summer, summer, how do I begin to say how much I enjoy this period, fingers crossed for endless days of sun but in the UK we can’t hope for much! Summer is the time for late nights at the beach, it’s festival season, endless days sunbathing in the garden and holidays (Budapest for me and hopefully Hawaii) and of course the end of term summerball at university which I am so excited for with all my favourite people.

Summer I am so buzzing for you to come so I can relax but first it’s time for me to find some motivation to do all this work and revision that’s been handed too me, got too love a Journalism degree.

 

Life decisions

Deciding what to do with your life at the age of 17/18 or any age for that matter is a hard choice for many and there can be a lot of pressure at a young age to decide on a life path. Some choose to go to university whilst others decide to go straight into work and some take a gap year to have a break and decide on what to do next.

My home at uni – Cranborne House. Photo by: Ellen Walapu

I chose the path to go to university and even when seeing friends out travelling in Thailand and Australia, I do get extremely jealous of the beautiful places they are in but at the same don’t regret the choice I made. Yes I would love to go travelling and can’t wait to explore the world we live in, but for now that’s on hold and I’m perfectly fine with it, because at the moment I’m somewhere doing something I particularly enjoy a lot.

Studying journalism is so much fun even if it is tough at times (shorthand being the most of it), I have so much to choose from. What do I want to be – a radio presenter, a television host, a feature writer or do I want to work on a newspaper? The opportunities are endless and every step is so exciting.

Figuring out your career path, your passion and even your purpose is no way an easy process but just one that includes a lot thinking until you figure out exactly what it is you’ve been looking for. I thought about it from a young age and I can’t lie my mind changed so many times – social worker, nurse, barrister – before I finally found the one.

We all want to do and be something different, which is what makes this world so interesting. Deciding what you want to do is a difficult decision and it’s okay to be unsure or have no idea at all what that is. Who knows what my life will be like in 10 years? For now I’m just living in the moment, taking every day as it comes and very much enjoying the decisions I’ve made so far.

It’s all natural

Best friends in the flat Becca (middle) & Salma (right): Photo by Ellen Walapu

When being away from home and loved ones, it’s natural to feel homesick. I went from living in a small place in Wales my whole life, being surrounded by the same people in a life I was so comfortable in to moving into halls with 6 other people who 5 months ago I didn’t even know, and now they’re some of my best friends.

I never thought I would get homesick but even so, we all have our down days. University is a place where you’re surrounded by people most of the time and yet its so easy to feel alone and miss the simple comforts of being at home. Right now, all I want to do is lie in a nice warm bath and eat one of my mum’s roast dinners, is that too hard to ask for? This is such a natural feeling which everyone feels at some point and when that happens a trip home is needed, to get some decent food and actually have a good nights sleep. I’ve learnt it’s okay to have down days, and feel the urge to go home every once in a while, everyone else around you is in the same position and we all experience it.

Living 5 hours away from university makes it more difficult/expensive to leave when I want too, but I know that a loved one is a phone call away or some family in London if I need them, and this makes it all the more worth it when I do get to go home for a break and I’m already so excited to get back to the beauty, peace and comfort of home again in 3 weeks.

Home village Saundersfoot in Wales: Photo by Ellen Walapu

 

Time is going too fast

I sit and write this as I think about all my upcoming deadlines and all the work I haven’t done whilst trying to decide what to eat for dinner tonight or when I need to do a wash next. Am I really already in my last year of being a teenager? A life of responsibilities and big decisions is looming upon me and I don’t think I’m ready for it.

Time needs to slow down.

I have nearly already done 2 terms of my first year at uni, though it feels like yesterday it was freshers and that last week I was in Year 11 messing round thinking of the universities to apply for. Now I am actually finally here, living my own independent life, already learning so much to prepare me for the life ahead of me. I miss being young and having no cares in the world when the hardest thing to do was to learn my times tables for the week ahead in school. If only we could go back to the start and do it all over again. Now it feels as if all I think about is assignments and deadlines and trying (but not succeeding very well) to handle my finances. I am pretty sure we all go through these feelings at this point when our teenage years are coming to an end?

I am so excited to see what the rest of life has in store for me but it just feels as if time is going way too fast, everyday certainly should be cherished as we unfortunately can’t get time back. So at the moment I am just taking every day as it comes on the path to the dreaded life of adulthood, if only time would slow down and we could be young forever.