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12 Mistakes That ALL ‘Freshers’ Make…

Updated: Apr 28, 2023

I thought I’d try and post some more ‘relatable’ blog posts, for people who are already studying at University or for prospective students. There are a lot of problems that I faced at the beginning of first year and it left me asking a LOT of questions. Here’s some factors that you might want to note down to ensure that you don’t forget anything when you begin University. Moving into your University accommodation or a shared flat is supposed to be the most exciting experience you will ever have, so you want to at least start off the right way…



(1) FORGETTING THE ESSENTIALS

When moving to University, there are going to be a LOT of things you might want to bring with you, but it’s not really an essential. Your favourite pair of jeans or your massive box of makeup may not be the items you prioritise when moving into University…(you can always make a second trip and have those valuables later).


Here’s a list of the types of things you should plan on taking to University:

Important Documents (including ID which could be a passport or driving license).

**International students may also need to bring visa documentation, travel insurance, proof of funding, pound sterling cash, English translation book**

Electrical items (including phones/laptops/cameras and the neccessary chargers/batteries)

For the Kitchen (essentials such as plates, bowls, mugs, curtley, sauce pans/frying pans and some cleaning products such as washing up liquid, some cleaning sponges/brushes and bin bags).

For the Bedroom (essentials such as duvet with spare covers, pillow with spare cases, bed sheets, coat hangers, mirrors, laundy basket, wall clock, desk fan, ear plugs/headphones, photos of family and friends etc)

For the Bathroom (essentials such as a bath towl/hand towel, soaps, toothbruth and toothpaste, showergel, shampoo, toilet roll, hair brush/dryer, makeup and/or makeup removes/cleansing wipes, nail cutters, tweezers, plasters (or a personal med kid), razors/shaving cream, sanitary products, contraceptives; or other medication etc)

Clothing (t shirts, shirts, tops, dresses/skirts, jumpers, sweaters, smart trousers, jeans, tights, rain coats/winter coats, underwear, socks, gloves, hats, trainers, boots, slippers, flip flops, smart shoes/heels, suit jacket, cardigans, ties, watch, handbag, sunglasses, gym kit, swimming wear, fancy dress etc)

Stationary (essentials including pens/pencils, rubbers, ruler, pencil case, scissors and staples, highlighters, writing pads, student planner, document storage folders/boxes, ring binders, white/blue tack, post-it notes, calculator, coursebooks etc

Miscellaneous/Other (could include items such as a rucksack, weekend bag, umbrella, padlock, extra money, water bottles, thermoflasks, lighter/cigarettes, hot water bottle, bicycle, iron and ironing board, instruments, religious books, deck of playing cards/UNO, beer/spirits, tea, coffee and milk, house keys, budgeting app etc)

Think about cheap retailers (this includes ALDI, Amazon Student, Argos, ASOS, Apple Edcuation Store, Currys PC World, eBay, LIDL, Sainsburys, Schuh, Superdrug, Tesco’s, Wilko etc)


(2) BRINGING THINGS YOU DON’T NEED

You don’t need to pack EVERY single item from your home in order to be able to move into University successfully. Remember, your home is your home and you’re only going to be staying in accomodation for one year. There are also going to be a lot of student friendly shops around, so if you do forget something, there’s always somewhere nearby to collect it from…


(3) FORGETTING TO REPORT ANY FAULTS/DAMAGE

When you first move into your accomodation, it’s going to be stressful for you and you’re probably going to want to start putting things away in cupboards and drawers etc, but before you do all of that, ALL students are recommended to take pictures and note any damage in your room before you’ve stepped foot inside. If you fail to note any faults or damages, you could get the blame and either not receive back your full deposit or be asked to pay a fine…And you wouldn’t want that on top of all your other stress now would you? So, just a few pictures or a little video showing where there is damage.


(4) HIDING IN YOUR ROOM

Yes, moving into University is daunting especially when you have lots of strange new people wandering around the corridor or in the building you’re going to be calling ‘home’  for the year. The worst thing to do is to not say ‘Hi’. Remember, you’re going to be living with these people for a year so you need to try and ‘bite the bullet’ as soon as possible, and face your fears of meeting new people! You could even just leave your door open a bit if you’re too nervous to start conversation, and wait for someone to come and talk to you. That worked for me!


(5) THROWING AWAY YOUR MOVING BOXES

It can seem very tempting to full move into your University and throw away all of your ‘move in boxes’ but chances are you’ll be moving house/flat/accomodation at least once before you finish University, and you don’t want to keep searching for new boxes every year. Just leave a few flattened boxes or bags under your bed, so that when your time is up, you can easily transport it to your new place. You’ll thank me on this one, as this was one of the mistakes I personally made when I was in student halls and had to go looking for more storage bags in order to move myself out at the end of the year!


(6) SECOND YEAR HOUSING

Most people stay in student halls/accomodation or a shared flat for their first year, so they don’t really need to think about ‘housing specifications’, but once you move into your second or third year, housing is really important. As a first year, it’s often one of those things that students will stress about, but DO NOT PANIC, YOU WILL NOT BE HOMELESS IN THE COMING YEARS…and you’ll probably be sick and tired of the random alarms going off by then anyway, so obviously you’ll want to move out.


One of the first things I would say when looking for second year housing is you need to fully decide who you’re going to be living with. Over the course of the year, you’ll probably make friends on your course, in your block and maybe even people you walk past on your way to and from lectures, so just try and be as positive and lively as you can, and find a little group of people (minimum 4, maximum 8, I would say), and start draft planning for the next year.

Try not to stress about housing if you can’t find anything straightaway, and if anything, make sure you’ll gone to several house visits and called up various agencies comparing prices, areas, sustainability and most importantly, distance from your University campus! Once you have made your minds up, make sure you all pay your deposits within the required time in order to secure the place you’re interested in, and make sure to read the tenancy agreement (as to what is included, what happens if you fail to pay rent for one month etc).


Here’s a link to a blog post by Jake Butler, talking about 8 things to check before signing a tenancy agreement:


(7)  FRESHERS WEEK & NO ATTENDANCE TO NON DRINKING EVENTS???

 Don’t get me wrong, you’ve moved out from your family home and have all the freedom in the world. Why wouldn’t you attend EVERY SINGLE event during freshers week. I’m not being funny, but when I had my freshers week, I went out 6/7 times within the first week and I instantly regretted it. FIRSTLY, think about how much money you’re going to be spending (I mean, wasting…) and coming up with a new outfit every single day?? I can’t even take care of myself every day let alone choose clothes. Well, if like me you are a little bit sceptical about what freshers week is, it’s basically a week filled with club nights, social events and a lot of alcohol, and in order to survive you could do several things.


Here’s a link to a blog post by Dannielle Noonan about 10 ways in which you can survive Fresher’s week!


Along with the socials and drinking events, there are also a lot of fun activities and games that DON’T require the need to have alcohol before, during or even after. Freshers is sort of a ‘go out or go home’ game, but for those who maybe prefer a night in; SO DO I, AND I WOULD 100% RECOMMEND SOME QUIET NIGHTS IN! University host lots of events, from sightseeing opportunities, events and projects that you could help with around the inversity, IKEA trips, film marathons…and obviously there’s A LOT of societies to join as well throughout the year.


So, another blog post below from Jessica Murray, with a list of 43 fun activities you can do, all under £20, AND WITHOUT THE NEED FOR ALCOHOL!


(8) SHOPPING SHOPPING SHOPPING!!!

It doesn’t matter how young or old you are, what background you come from or how much money you have; if there is an opportunity to buy things, most people do. It may seem like a ‘money savvy’ idea to not buy any foods until your cupboards are fully empty…but then you’re relying on yourself to remember to go and buy good. I would recommend that at the beginning of the year, if you haven’t already brought some food with you, that you hit the shops; whether it be ALDI, LidL, Tesco’s, Sainsburys…or even schedule an ASDA delivery to your accomodation so your food arrives once you’ve moved in. This way, you know that you’ve got some stock to last 2-3 weeks before you need to go out shopping again.


Below, I’ll just put a link to another blog post by Katie Paterson, on the 57 potential ways you can save money on food!


(9) CLEANING DISHES & LAUNDRY

I thought I’d just put these two points together as they’re both about cleaning…(or the lack of). Nobody likes cleaning their dishes, but from personal experience and other student stories that I have heard, ‘things’ may start growing on your kitchen utensils and you’ll only have yourself to blame! Personally, I am a germ freak, and when there was a sink full of dirty bowls, plates, mugs etc, I would often just wash them up myself to stop the kitchen from smelling and give myself some space to wash my own items! I would recommend cleaning your utensils either the day of or no more than the day after, because they will slowly start to smell and you may not see any dirt or think anything of it, but TRUST ME, until you clean it properly with hot water and some sort of soap, they’re still going to be dirty…


With laundry, it’s pretty much the same procedure, but you can allow stuff to pile up for a week before watching it (just so, if you do have to pay for the washing, it’s actually good value for money, rather than washing a simple pair of pants which is a bit pointless). When I was in student halls, we had to pay £2 to wash and £1 to dry which is reasonable (and you could only pay with cash, which was annoying…), but I washed my clothes every Saturday or Sunday, as I didn’t have lectures on these days, (duhhh); and surprisingly the cleaning stations weren’t busy, as a lot of people went home to see their family over the weekends. This includes bed sheets as well, because students are going to get stuff on their sheets, and even thought you may not see dirt, as with the plates…’things’ could start to grow and it needs to have a good wash every few weeks; (THIS IS WHY YOU BRING SPARES, SO YOU CAN JUST SWITCH THEM LOL. WHO CAME UP WITH THAT GENIUS IDEA!!).


Here’s a helpful blog from Owen Burek about ‘How to survive shared living’. To be honest, me and my flat handled our cleaning responsibilities quite well, so take a read of this if you’re interested to find out more!


(10) PRETENDING YOU’RE NOT HOME SICK

For a lot of people, going to University means getting away from friends and family in their ‘normal’ environment and giving themselves that opportunity to meet different types of people and experience a new way of life. At the beginning of the year, you’re so focused on making new friends, going to events and studying for your course that you forget about your home and the way you were living before University started. It’s alright to feel sad, and there were times where I would just cry myself to sleep and want to be alone in my room, and that’s natural. The worst thing to do if you’re feeling upset is to stay quiet. You’re going to make friends with people who are also going to go through similar problems, so you could help eachother out; I had that during my first year and some of my friendships are even stronger with these people now, since having those conversations and discussions.


If you are struggling, there is going to be a lot of student support on the University campus, or there are several phone lines which you can use, in order to talk to people who would be willing to listen to your situation and try doing the best things in order to help you progress forward with your University life.


If you are feeling a little down, or feel that it could be difficult to study for a degree whilst being at home, check out this little blog post written by Kea Kgomongwe, on the multiple ways to deal with homesickness.


(11) LEAVING EVERYTHING TO THE NIGHT BEFORE & NOT BACKING UP YOUR WORK

University life is a lot more intense than Secondary school (just my opinion, and others say it’s easier…); but the difference is the work load and the actual lectures. With school, you would be shouted at and given detentions for not attending class, but at University they treat you like adults. If you don’t turn up, it’s your own problem and there’s nothing they can do to force you to come to class if you’re not even interested in turning upto lectures.


Although there are some people who are good at working under pressure; and I can admit I am one of those people, with University work, it’s not as easy. I remember during first year, we would be given essays to write and readings to analyse, and I get through it, but several months after the task had been set. Bare in mind, you’re going to be constantly going to lectures, and being given readings to scan/analyse and then more essays; so if you leave one thing for a few months, not only will you have to catch up on that, but also any new stuff that you’re tasked to do in addition to that. There was one essay I wrote the night before, and it was lucky that I actually had some background knowledge about the topic, but writing essays in the evening with a banging headache and loud flatmates was NOT the way to write essays. Thankfully I passed my first year due to my essays being decently written, but the one massive change I have made for second year, is that if I am given any essays, group work or coursework, that I begin researching straightaway, so at least I have a vague idea what I am actually supposed to be writing about.


For those people who are still stuck in the mindset of completing things at the last minute, it does work for some people; (hence the essay I wrote with hours to go until the deadline), so here’s two blog posts with some extra tips for those of you who like to be challenged by time as well as work..


This first blog post is by Dannielle Noonan on ‘How to write a 3,000 word essay in a day’


AND


this second blog post is also by Dannielle Noonan, on ‘How to revise in one day and ace it’


So, as well as students leaving essays till the last minute, there are high chances of you losing your work IF you don’t save it properly. I wouldn’t recommend saving any of your University related work to the computers in the student library or around campus, because there could potentially be hundres of students using the same computer as you, and they could either accidentally delete it, your account could get hacked, or for some reason the system may go down and delete any documents that have been saved within the server.

I would 100% recommend you buying yourself a USB (or two, or three, if you think you’re going to need a lot of storage space)… or invest in a flashdrive which has LOTS of storage on them…probably a lot more than you need, but you’d rather be safe than sorry, right? You could also think about making yourself a Dropbox account or a Google Drive account which only allow you to save a limited amount of documents until your storage is full, but at least that’s another option if you are just wanting to store items somewhere temporarily.


(12) JOB HUNTING

So, before I started my first day at University, there were a lot of people telling me that I had to get a job, and that I wouldn’t have enough money to pay for my accomodation because student loan is incredibly low…and I started stressing out and trying to find a job almost instantly. Turns out, I didn’t need to stress out at all, because I was spending quite a lot of money on food, alcohol, shopping, presents etc, and I was nowhere near my overdraft, nor did I ever go under £500 in my bank account. Statistics say that 61% of students don’t think that the initial maintenance loan they receive, gives them enough freedom at University or covers the cost for their accomodation; (University funded or not); and 76% of students turn to getting themselves a part time job in order to have some extra money in their account throughout the year.


If you were looking for a job and thought you were going to be financially unstable, there are always jobs on campus that they are looking to fill; whether it’s in the cafeteria/dining area, showing prospective students around the University, library helps etc, so go and speak with someone in the jobs or student service team and they should be able to sign post you the right way!


Interested in finding a part time job when you head to University? Click the link below and start typing in your hobbies and interests….


OR


Take a look at this blog post by Owen Burek on ’40 easy ways to make money quickly’ if you are struggling for ideas or want to try something new!


That’s it for this blog post and I hope you enjoyed reading it! For more information and help with University choices or whether you’re looking for information about a specific topic, head over to https://www.savethestudent.org to find out more information!


**They cover lots of ‘student friendly’ topics including how to Make & Save money, How to look for jobs and ways of budgeting when it comes to shopping among many other topics. So head over there and have a read! But for those of you who do decided to go to University, message me on social media and let me know if these tips helped you at all, or whether my knowledge has changed your perceptions on University and University life.


My Social Media:


Hope this little blog post helped you think about what sorts of thing you need for University, and if you’re able to share it with other potential University students then hopefully this will be able to benefit someone else today! 

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