Preparing for your first week on campus is an intimidating thing. It goes without saying that high school is completely different from college and university, and more often than not university and college isn’t always what you think it’ll be. So, you never really know what to expect during your first week. But don’t worry! Here are some tips on how to prepare for your first week on campus, so you know what you’re doing when you enter university.
You’ve probably been told this more times than you can count, but I can’t stress this enough- University and/or college is not like High School. AT ALL. Teachers won’t hound at you to hand in your work, nor will you be given a time table with compulsory subjects by the school that you have to follow throughout the year. In university, you’re expected to plan out and enroll in your subjects on your own, and nobody’s going to remind you to hand in your work in time- it’s all counting on you now.
Expect independent learning, and don’t be surprised when lectures leave you out to die when you don’t understand a big chunk of your syllabus. Go out of your way to ask questions and do your own research, otherwise, you aren’t going to learn much anyway.
Look up your course and major requirements before your first week on campus- trust me, you’ll thank me later. As mentioned before, nobody’s going to hound at you to make sure you’re doing everything right unless you go out of your way to ask. So if you end up missing a core subject for your degree or major, nobody’s going to help you out and before you know it you’re repeating a semester and wasting money you could’ve saved.
Also, note that certain subjects have hurdle requirements regarding tutorial and class attendance, so make sure you know what’s up so you don’t skip one too many classes and fail a subject unit, you would’ve otherwise aced. Do yourself a favour and plan your subjects beforehand, so you won’t have to scratch your head and worry about it later. Feeling more prepares will also help with any anxiety you might have entering university- even more reason to do it sooner than later.
Knowing where your classes are and where the campus library is a good head start to have during your first week on campus in order to survive University. Coming late to class is the worst thing possible, so avoiding that should be on the top of your list. If possible, visit your campus before the first week of your semester to really take in your surroundings and understand where everything is. If you’re unable to do this, you can try going through your university’s campus map (which you might be able to find on their website) in order to gauge the distance between buildings and classes, etc.
All in all, don’t stress out about it. University is meant to be one of the best experiences of your life, so don’t worry too much about whether or not it’ll work out. You’ll just end up stressing yourself out. Sometimes you can’t ensure everything will go perfectly- and that’s okay. Just go with the flow, and face whatever life throws at you when it comes.
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