Honest Truths About University

Hey Guys!

University has been honestly the best decision I have ever made and I'm enjoying every minute of it! Uni has both good and bad parts throughout your experience but there are also some honest truths that you should know! Here are six honest truths for university students ♡ 

#1 You Have To Make Effort To Make Friends 

When your in secondary school and further education a lot of the time you already know the majority of people because you have moved up with them and they have always been there through your lower education, however when you get to university you won't know anybody and everyone will be from other parts of the UK or international students, so you have to make effort to get to know people and talk to people. Even if it is just introducing yourself to people in your accommodation or while your around university, once you start to make the effort to meet people you'll make friends. Also, university is the perfect opportunity to not just make friends within your accommodation but also with people who have the same interests as you through societies! 

#2 You Don't Need To Buy a 100 Books For Your Course

You might get carried away when you go to the uni book shop and end up buying book after book when in reality you wont need 75% of them! For my course I don't buy any books whatsoever! All of the teaching materials I have to read are online or in the library! I'm sure your university library will have the majority of books you need for your modules and if not a lot of libraries have the ability to order them in if they are requested enough. In reality all those books you buy you will not use and will be put in a pile of unwanted books. Instead research what materials you can read online and what you can get from your university's library! 

#3 You Will Always Be Tired 

I always wonder how I coped going to secondary school and sixth-form because I go to a two hour lecture now and I'm already exhausted and feel like I need a nap! I don't know whether its because of the amount of information you have to retain or if I'm unable to function for long periods of time but I honestly find it hard to stay awake after half a day of university. You will honestly nap so much, especially if you know your going out that night and have been at uni since 9am! I'd say about three of my housemates and myself always nap, whether its been a long day or not! A night out also messes your sleep pattern up loads so you'll always be catching up on sleep!

#4 You Will Not Dress Glamorous For a 9am Lecture 

The first couple of months you try to make effort to look good when you go to your lectures; you'll dress nicely, wear make up, do your hair, but by semester 2 that will not be happening! You'll turn up to your 9am with last nights hair, a bare face and in your most comfiest clothes. It is such an achievement even getting out of bed that when it comes to getting ready there is minimal effort so just put on your comfiest and effortless clothes and head to uni!

#5 You Will End Up Getting An Overdraft

You will 100% run out of money, whether its because of buying too many takeaways, too many nights out or just buying pointless crap your bank balance will become negative, so you will end up getting an overdraft to help pay for your necessities like food to survive and toilet roll. I'm so far into my overdraft that I doubt I'll ever have a positive bank balance again! But in all honesty it does help you out loads to cover costs, but don't just go with any bank look around first to see what they can give you and what deals there are for students! 

#6 You Don't Need To Read Absolutely Everything 

The reading list will look huge and there will be so many chapters of so many books that will be listed, but you don't need to read absolutely everything on the reading list! Most of the time each of your modules will have an essential readings section and then the rest will just be readings that will help you out with essays and for further understanding. I'd suggest definetley reading your essential reading as they tend to outline everything and give you the best understanding of your subject, but if the essential reading is ten articles and a novel of 300 pages don't feel stressed or overwhelmed! Pick at least a few different ones to read and write down the most important points! If you attempt to read every single reading you'll be there are ages and won't get any other work done for any of your other modules. It is all about choosing specific readings and learning to scan read for the most important points. 

If there are any honest truths about university you can think of comment below!

See you soon! ♡ 

Amy xx 

First Week Back At Uni: Second Year and New House

Hey Guys!

So I've officially had my first academic week back at university and wanted to reflect and talk about how second year seems to be so far. I did have an induction the week before but that was just an introduction lecture discussing our third year options and to ensure our module credits were all correct. Unlucky for me I made a mistake with my module credits and had to change a few things but I'm just glad it wasn't really complicated to fix. 

My First Week Back

So this week I only had three lectures and one seminar, a pretty broken down week having two lectures on a Monday, one lecture and seminar on Tuesday and then I had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off! It won't be like that every week though, I just had two seminars cancelled as we didn't need to discuss anything. I'm a media, communication and cultural studies student so our contact and in uni hours aren't much compared to other courses like Chemistry and Engineering but we do have to do a lot of independent studying and rely on ourselves a lot. 

In respect to my first official week it was pretty good! I feel like when your a fresher the first week doesn't seem too overwhelming or pressured as you slowly move into all the work and then you realise later on how much work you have to do, where as now I'm in second year I already know how much work to expect and what my lectures expect from me, so for our first week we cut all the introductions and instead got straight into our topics. Our lecturer was already talking about our research proposal for our dissertation which was pretty stressful to think about as I've barely thought about what I'm going to base my dissertation paper on. But it was exciting to think about what potential ideas we can propose and in what areas. As we are media students there are endless topics of discussion we can do for our paper, it can be anything from how violence in the media affects children, to public mourning and grime music. 

The modules I've taken for semester one are Advertising and Consumption, Research Methods and Representations: Identity, Culture & Society. It is quite a variety and I haven't taken too many credits to overwhelm me in the first stages of second year, I feel its easier for me to take more credits in semester 2 as I will have got back into the habit to be productive and focus! 

New House

My new house is great! It is so much better than what we were all expecting. When we viewed the house back in January we had to be really quick and brief as another group of students were coming to view the property too, so we were thankful it looked as good as we remembered! 

I live with five other people who I met from my flat and university accommodation in first year and through my university course. At first we had a few problems with the house appliances like the boiler and broken doors but now that we have been in the house for three weeks we are all settled and comfy! I definitely prefer living in a house with my closest friends than being in university accommodation. It is so nice just having our own place, it feels more cosy and our rooms are a lot more personal. University accommodation is great for first year as that is where you meet everyone and make your friends but after that stage having a house is so much better! At some point I'll do a room tour to show you all what my new room looks like compared to what my old room in my uni halls looked like ♡ 

Considering we live in a six bedroom house the space is great! Most rooms are pretty big and we only really have one tiny bedroom and that is an extension on the back of the house! The location of our house is gold! We are right opposite the metro which is so convenient when getting to uni and the rent we pay is amazing!

All in all we made a great choice when deciding on this house! 

If any of you are second year students how was your first week?

Let me know in the comments below :)

See you on Wednesday my lovelies!

Amy xx