University: My Experience // First year.

Hi! So after my long blogging leave, I'm back with a post I'm been meaning to write for quite some time. After ending my first year and being at home all summer I've had chance to reflect on the last year at university and memories I enjoyed and some I didn't so much. Maybe it will help some of you lovely freshers going off to university this year, what to prepare yourself for!

So firstly my university didn't have traditional halls last year, so as first years we had to go into a house straight away, which was extremely unnerving, and well super scary to think about. Unfortunately I didn't get my first choice at uni and so it was my second choice, although now I'm quite thankful as it isn't so far away from home, which I will write about later.

So meeting my housemates on Facebook, we got together and decided we should live together! (weird right..) So we all drove down and met up for the first time ever and went house hunting.. The only houses left, were well.. Pretty disgusting and gross. The house we ended up in, wasn't great. But it wasn't horrendous.. as far as student housing goes. But it was still pretty grim once you live in a house of 6 teenagers who have just left home.

My room was quite nice, it had big windows and it spacious enough to relax and chill. I spent most of my time... in my room. Which quite frankly I wish I hadn't. So anyway Fresher's started and we were out every night.. for 2 weeks. We did all the fancy events... All the clubs which brag about the great fresher crap they had going on and they were pants! One regret I did have was not looking out for all the special student union events they had on.. but for a small uni they obviously didn't have many.

House parties were a-plenty. We trashed our house most of the time, which isn't always the best thing to do when you have neighbors. But socially it's a good thing to get into.. being in clubs doesn't always give you the opportunity for conversation and I wish I spent more time doing that than being in the clubs for freshers. Not being in hall's didn't have its benefits.

I did become quite recluse after abit. I missed home more than I thought I would've. Which is why I was thankful for only being 2 hours away. I spent alot of time in my room, watching netflix and just generally being a slob. I wasn't enjoying my course, I wasn't really spending time with any of the people on my course and I became quite down and depressed.. and well, down in the dumps. I've learnt family are my rock and have really helped me through these times in particular.

This led me to become quite anxious about leaving the house, about meeting new people and creating opportunities, I stayed in bed and I was miserable all the time. It wasn't until I had to redo a failed unit plus all my new coursework that I stepped up my game and thought 'lets just get it over with'

At my lowest point I really considered leaving university, maybe it's not for me.. maybe I just can't get used to this whole new experience. Because it's not just leaving to study. It's a huge life change, you're plunged in with a bunch of people you don't know, so social skills play a huge part in student life. Using those nearly everyday, whilst trying to learn about living on your own and all these random new things that keep appearing, you're constantly learning. Although sometimes stressful, I believe that the whole experience of university is a huge life skill. Not just academically or slobbing around but, learning to live with new people, money management, time management. It's a huge step in growing up.

I think I've done quite a fair bit of growing up this last year, and although I'm nervous about returning back to my course and my new shiny house and friends, I'm really pumped to make the most of the 2 years I have left. I'm sure there will be ups and downs, but I'm looking forward to pushing myself.