Sleeeeeep zzzzzzzzzzz

It’s important.  Don’t listen to any of this “sleep when you’re dead” crap.  You need it to recharge, tackle the next day.  If needs be, get some ear plugs – I did!  You realise sleep is important because you get more out of the day and you don’t feel like you’ve wasted precious moments.  Trust me university life goes all too quickly!  Sometimes that will be great, sometimes that won’t. 

Be careful during freshers

Be careful during freshers week!  At first everyone may seem friendly, but overtime you’ll get to know people a lot better and they may not be as friednly as they first seemed.  Be careful about what information you give away about yourself.  Dont get drunk with complete strangers!  They dont know you  very well so they may decide not to look after you if you get into trouble.  You may have your wallet stolen, personal information, identity, anything!  Be careful but have fun!

Get to Lectures

Yes I know its a drag and mostly boring!  You won’t like all you’re modules – no chance so don’t kid yourself.  Make sure you have the bigger picture in mind though.  You’ll only be doing it for perhaps 12 weeks at maybe 2 hours a week so don’t let it get you down it’s not worth it. 

By attending, something must be going in.  If you can’t attend make sure you catch up or at least know what’s going on.  You don’t want to miss important coursework setting and deadlines.  I can honestly say I haven’t attended all my lecures.  Whooops!  But trust me, the ones I do attend, I feel sort of wiser and well, the exams are certainly easier.

Heckle the Landlord

For your second and third/final (hopefully not first) year heckle, but do it politely.  I am sure, unless you are very very very lucky you will at some point have a very annoying landlord!  The ones who are there to take money off you, who pretend to want to help you…yeh right!  If things aren’t right it’s up to you to sort it out, and it probably won’t happen over night! 

Always be polite, you don’t want to give them a reason not to do some work.  I have had work carried out which was completely wrong!  like knocking down the wrong wall!  That cost me 3 weeks of valuable uni time.  Don’t let it happen to you!  Haggle for rent reductions if work is done…we all like to save when we’re living off a loan.

Go into Halls

I can’t stress this enough.  Before going to my first uni I was adament that I would go into a nice house and make sure I didn’t end up living in some of the messes I had read about; some might call me a snob – I may agree!  The house was great but I learned quickly that it’s not necessarily where you live, but who you live with.  At my second uni I thought I had got into halls.  I soon realised yes I was, but because I was late applying they put 5 of us in this little “big” house out of the way as the other places were full.  We were also 3 miles out from the main uni and all of us had to get the bus each day (on tha campus).  Heck, what a way to meet people!  But it wasn’t halls with people above and people below.  Believe it or not you may need to know a few people when it comes to living arrangements in the third year. 

I am having difficulty now finding numbers for places because of missing the halls experience.  Crap really can be fun you know!!  Real fun!!  And my do I have some memories!  Unless asked I won’t tell you what we got up to!  I may get into trouble!

Choose Your University Carefully

Take the time and effort to look at university’s carefully.  The government is keen to try and get people in to university now, pretty much to make them look good so be mindful of good “marketing” by a university!  I spent a year at one university thinking it would get better.  It didn’t.  If I had stayed I have no idea what kind of person I would be.  Probably a loser.  I took the decision to move in the summer and it wasn’t until September that I had a place offered to me by the new choice.  The difference between the two universities was incredible.  One was offering 6 lectures a week and the other 22 – for the same course!  Big difference!  It always helps give you structure to your day.  Trust me, it’s good!  You feel like you’ll have achieved something. 

Why Blog University Life?

Hello to you all.  I am new to this blogging, though it seems a great way to get some views and experiences across.  I decided that whilst I am still at university I would keep a blog going for insight information about what university is really like from when I started to where I am now and beyond. 

The thought of going to university is daunting for all and I hope my blog can help offer advice and tips as well as get over those initial nerves.  I hope many will comment on the posts I make to get some good dicussions going on.  Feel free to ask any questions.

 So here’s to my blog “University Life”