University. It can be quite daunting for those who are shy but for those who enjoy a good party, itâs the perfect place. They say university is the best three years of your life and theyâre probably right. That said, every student will undoubtedly encounter those down days. As a first year, adjusting to university life can be quite difficult and every first year will probably make these mistakes. Some maybe more than once! Here are 20 mistakes every first year makes at Swansea University!
Seriously, this is a big one. When I received my offer for accommodation, I automatically went to Facebook, requested to join the housing page and attempted to find my flatmates. I was placed in a flat of seven and I managed to find five of them beforehand. Let me tell you now, this helped me a lot. When we all moved up there, it was so easy to speak to everyone and now we all get a long like weâve known each other more than three months. Also, finding your flatmates early can help save you some money as you can split communal items such as kettle, toaster etc. You donât need everyone bringing one!
Packing for university can be difficult. Do I need all my clothes? Shall I leave some behind? Do I take clothes for all seasons? These are questions I asked myself when I was packing and I thought I was taking way too much. I was embarrassed to turn up with about 10 bags and a massive suitcase. My advice is make sure you take a variety so you have appropriate clothing for university, going out, job interviews etc. Thereâs nothing worse than attending a job interview in your going out clothes!
People say that university is the time where you meet the people you will know for the rest of your life and you will become lifelong friends. Personally, I think this is true as I have become so close to my flatmates that I feel like we will keep in touch after we graduate and do our own thing. You do not want to arrive and keep yourself locked away in your room, especially when youâre going through probably the hardest time of your life. Everyone is going through the same transition and it makes it much easier if you speak to your flatmates and get involved with everyone. Drinking games are usually the trick here!
So youâve managed to get everything up to your new flat for the next year. You canât wait to unpack and throw away all the rubbish. DO NOT DO THIS. When I moved in, I made my parents take the boxes and bags of rubbish with them because I wanted my room to fresh and clean. It turns out this was a bad mistake. When I decided to come home for some weekends and when I came home for the Christmas holidays, it was very, very difficult  to squeeze all my clothes and dirty washing into my suitcase. Luckily, my parents came down to get me and they helped carry some stuff but if I were travelling by train or coach, it wouldâve been a struggle.
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Cannot emphasise this enough. Fresherâs week will probably turn out to be one of the best week or two of your life. It has everything a student needs â loads of parties and a lot of alcohol. Itâs what every student wants and with the events that are on offer, the temptation and urge to attend everything is strong. However, from personal experience, you do not have to attend everything. I attended maybe one or two events. For the rest of my time, I either spent it in the flat with my flatmates where we got to know each other more or we went out to clubs and pubs in the city. With majority of events charging money for ticket fees, it can also save you a lot of money.
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Youâve probably heard it before â âmy advice for a first year, try and sign up to anything you can.â Is it really the best thing to do though? Yes, through societies you meet more people and you make new friends, some whom you may become friends with for a long time or maybe even a couple of minutes. Whatever the case, you do not need to sign up to anything. Itâs completely up to you. Signing up to societies will help you get involved more with the university itself but you can make the same number of friends on nights out and through your course.
Everyone has been a victim of this. You say as soon as you get handed a piece of work that youâll do it straight away to get it over and done with but before you know it, itâs the deadline and you havenât even looked at the assignment. Trust me when I say this, you do not want to leave university work until the last minute. 1,000 â 2,000 word essays arenât going to be as good when they are being written at 2am. When you get your assignment, do small pieces each day. Aim for 200 â 300 words and before you know it, you wouldâve reached the word count and you wonât be stressed the night before.
I cannot emphasise how important this is. You think that because all your lecture and seminar notes and assignments are done on your personal laptop that the need for a memory stick to back up work isnât needed anymore. Youâre wrong. At important times for me when doing my assignments, Iâve had to start work again, sometimes even twice as my laptop decided to not save my work. Back up your work and your notes just to be safe. You could lose important information!
At university, there is nothing more important that referencing. Seriously, do not forget to reference anything you use from the internet, library books etc. Even if you come up with a master plan to get away with it, trust me, you wonât. You do not want to be caught plagiarising in your first year, thereâs nothing worse than giving off a bad impression of yourself and making them think that youâre incapable of completing assignments yourself. Reference anything you copy from the internet and save yourself the trouble.
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Itâs been heard before from probably every student in every hall â âLeave it in the sink, Iâll wash it later.â You probably know for a fact that it will not get done and then all of a sudden, the sink is overflowing with dishes. Even worse, the cleaners have threatened you with a fining if it isnât cleared. Try and avoid this problem at all costs and even if you must shout and scream at your flatmates to clear their mess, itâs better than paying an expensive fine!
Itâs time for the weekly food shop consisting of a bus journey and a bit of time. You make a note of the things you need, not what you want and as you enter the vast supermarket and make your way down the long isles, your eye catches something you want and before you realise, itâs already in the basket ready for checkout. From personal experience, only get what you intended to buy. Lugging three heavy bags from the supermarket onto the bus and then into your flat isnât as easy as it sounds.
BUDGET!! You will save yourself a lot of money if you budget your money efficiently. Every student has probably found themselves dipping into their student loan for things they want or have wanted for ages. Then, before they know it theyâve struck their overdraft before the first term has finished. Set yourself a limit every week and try and stick to it. When the term finishes and itâs time for you next bulk of student loan, youâll  come to realise that you have a lot left over!
As soon as you begin your course, your lecturer or seminar leader tells you about what the module consists of and what books you will need. You do not need to buy new ones. There are plenty of students selling old books or textbooks for all courses and they are much cheaper than purchasing new ones. Yes, some may be annotated and filled with notes but itâs better than paying a ridiculous amount for a book which in some cases, you might not even use all the time.
I am ashamed to say that I have done this and it was the most unpleasant thing Iâve encountered. Being in a flat of seven means the fridges are always full of different foods and drinks but it is vital that you check use by dates. Thereâs nothing worse than opening the fridge to be welcomed by an ungodly smell of gone off food or finding out that your flatmate has been eating a certain food which has been out of date for over a month. Disgusting, I know.
Again, I fall into this very well. Fresherâs week I basically spent my loan on alcohol and I must admit, when Iâve had a few, Iâm just excited to the point where I want everyone else to have a good time. So, I just spend my money on rounds for everyone. It was devastating to wake up the next morning, hungover, discovering that I spent about ÂŁ40 to ÂŁ50 the previous evening. To stop yourself from throwing your money around, take between ÂŁ10 and ÂŁ20. Do not take your card, the temptation to draw money out or spend it in the clubs is too real.
Universities have much more resources and facilities than your high school. Even though that might mean itâs harder to use everything, try to. The wider resources that universities offer means that itâs easier to construct a well written assignment. When youâre struggling on something, there are plenty of services and people to help you. Not everyone manages with university and what it asks of you and thatâs okay. You just need to attempt to find yourself and find your answers there.
I cannot stress the importance of organising your time effectively. For example, youâve been given your first assignment and you discover that it isnât due for another couple of weeks. This does not mean that you leave it until the very last minute, as we have already covered. Organise your time efficiently and you can still have a good time going out with friends while completing your assignments on time and to a standard in which you feel is good enough.
They say that the first year in university doesnât count towards your degree and it is more of a formative year to see if you can handle what it has to offer. The temptation to miss lectures and seminars after hearing this is strong for some students. However, missing important lectures and seminars can impact the way you work independently, and it will be clear to the lecturers that you have been missing lectures as your work probably wonât be as strong against those who have been attending. Also, in future jobs, if youâre against someone who had firsts and 2:1âs in their first-year assignments and you were getting (just about) 2:2âs, they probably wonât even look at you. Attend everything as it will probably have an effect on you in some way.
Like the point above, all the lecture and seminar materials are available online but again, this doesnât mean you skip everything. Checking lectures online isnât the same as attending them as it is highly likely that the lecturer has mentioned important points that arenât on the PowerPoint or word document. To get the full picture, youâll need to attend everything. Think about it like this, youâre paying thousands of pounds to study this course material, you probably should be there.
When you first arrive at university, youâre probably already worrying about making friends or being able to cope with what it expects of you. Itâs normal to worry about this stuff as university is a big change for some people but what you donât want to end up doing is worrying every moment of every day. Enjoy yourself! Itâs all about meeting new people and the experiences youâll have will probably turn into the best times of your life. Take me for example. Iâve only been there for a term and I had the best three months. I met new people and Iâm enjoying my course. It does take time, but in the end, it will all be worth it.
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