This post is mostly for those of you who have just recently started University. Those of you who’ve been in your dorm room a month now, but also for those in their 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th years, because it’s never to late to make tomorrow the beginning of a whole new chapter in your life.
You might be wondering why I’m so late to the party? Bloggers around the UK, and even the world, have already put in their two cents as to what you should be considering at the start of your University life. Considerations as to what to wear, what journals are best, how to make friends, how to stay organised, how to make that room feel like home, etc, etc.
But honestly, this post had to wait. If I’d tried to tell any of you this a month ago, well you had all the other advice going round your heads. Add to that the fact that you were probably worried about missing home or missing boyfriends/girlfriends – well then you wouldn’t have listened. So as I’ve been patient and waited a month to press the publish button on this, just do me a favour and scroll down. Heck, why not share it with your friends as well?
Note to Readers: Let’s face it, this is based on my personal experiences as a graduate and some (parents, probably) may find offence. Don’t. It’s all true.
Focus On Studying… So That You Can Focus On What Matters.
I’ll be honest, it’s hard to relax and enjoy life when you’re getting emails about attendance and your tutor wants to see you regarding the long list of coursework you handed in late. So, as Nike would say, just do it. An essay may be hard to start, but once it’s done it’s done and you can do whatever the hell you like until the next one.
The Rugby team at my uni were a tricky bunch. I liked half and the other half I thought were just lads trying to prove they were lads. But, they loved to play, so they were the ones I would see in the library the most. Practice took up so much of their spare time, they just had to study and get on with it.
So you don’t like rugby? Drama, Cheerleading, Football, Politics, Music, Gymnastics, the Uni Newspaper. Whatever you’re in to there is a club for it. So study, and make sure you have the spare time to focus on what you really enjoy.
Be Messy, Get Things Wrong, Wear The Wrong Outfit… Just. Be. Creative.
Universities are full of hundreds of thousands of students and you will see less than 1% after you graduate. Truth. In fact, my Uni boasted 13000 students in my final year – no way do I still see 130 of them. So spend less time worrying about what you’re wearing and more time doing stuff you want to do.
In my final year I decided to make and sell meditation beads. To do this I created a blog where I wrote about yoga and meditation, and I further tried to promote the business by photographing myself in some very bad yoga poses. Probably a few people laughed, but I earned £200 through Instagram sales so the joke was on them… whoever they might have been.
Explore Every Passion Inside Out.
I don’t know about you guys, but at 18 I wasn’t quite ready to choose what I wanted to be. Until 17 I was set to study maths at Uni (I blame Good Will Hunting for that), until I started further maths at college and couldn’t get my head round statistics for the life of me! So I chose English, because I enjoyed reading. That was the only reason.
I got a first in my first year of English & American Literature and realised reading books & writing about them wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Plus I thought Psychology sounded pretty cool by then, so I switched. Back to statistics…woop!
The point is, I came to realise after that last change of mind, that I could pretty much choose to do whatever I wanted. Yes, it cost me an extra year in student loan fees. But when I started an internship in Business Psychology, despite the fact that in three years of psychology I only studied one module on it, I decided that that mattered more. I fought tooth and nail to do a dissertation on motivation & business psychology to professors who only ever had students focus on child development, PTSD, and various other therapy-related topics. I got a 2:1 and it meant more than any 1st I’d got in four years…because it was all me.
Despite my love for business psychology and the incredible year-long internship with an awesome company, after Uni I couldn’t bare the thought of going back in to an office. I decided to learn to surf, which inadvertently led me to my current passion…hostels.
If I had been a different girl, one who prioritised getting a 1st over working overtime at the internship, then I would still be stuck in the rat race today – aiming for the next goal. Or if I had stuck with English and not had the experience to explore how a business psychologist conference works, then I might not be flying off to Athens alone for a blogging conference on Monday. If I hadn’t decided to make and sell meditation beads, I wouldn’t have realised how much fun I had blogging about them and being part of the blogging community.
So if you do anything with your time at University – Use & Abuse it. You will never be surrounded by so many like-minded creative free-thinkers as you will in your Uni library, and you will never get as much free time to spend being truly creative and testing the waters of all your various passions. We are not made of our success but of the lessons we learn through our failed attempts.
So go to uni, try everything, and fail.
P.s… it’s also very useful to have your own laptop at Uni! Write a post like this on your blog and you might win a laptop with Curry’s & PC World!
Lots of love,
