Hey! Congratulations to those starting university very soon! The last few months have been filled with such uncertainty and the aftermath of the results day, I can imagine has been very stressful to go through. Here’s just a little reminder that you’ve got this! There are so many different paths to the destination that you want to go, the future can still be amazing, exciting and wonderful!

The future can be beautiful even if it looks different that what you were expecting!

In this post I’ll share a guide to what you need to know before starting – everything I wish I knew before starting university!

Sort Out Your Finances

Open a student bank account as soon as possible, look into all banks and see which features of each account will be best for you. I opened mine with Nationwide because of their overdraft limit; when I started uni I didn’t have a job yet so the overdraft was an absolute lifesaver! Make sure you keep on track of when the student loans come into your account and how much you’ll receive – knowing this will allow you to budget and you’ll know how much you have left after paying your bills, rent and essentials.

Learn How To Look After Yourself

For many starting university means moving out of home and living by themselves for the first time, when living alone you need to be able to do everything by yourself! Learning how to cook, doing your own laundry and doing your own grocery shopping will become a necessity – there will be no one there to remind you that you need to things. Following on from the finances point, if you plan and budget your shopping trips weekly you’ll save a lot of stress and money if you can find the cheapest stores to find what you want. Once you learn how to cook simple meals, you’ll be able to save the money that you would have spent on takeaways. Plus when you do have good meals you’ll see a positive difference in your mood and energy levels!

Friendships Will Come…And Go!

BE YOURSELF! You will find people to form friendships with; your flatmates, people on your course, people you can meet through the student union and societies. Everyone will be in the same situation as you, nervous to meet people and wanting to make friends. Obviously you won’t like everyone so don’t have the expectation that you need to keep up friendships with people that you don’t like. Uni is stressful enough as it is to have to add the extra stress of toxic friendships – nope nope nope honestly don’t bother, you don’t need the drama!

Take Advantage Of Student Discounts

Unidays, Student Beans, Student Oyster Cards, 16-25 Rail Cards – Sign up for them all! Make the most of all the discounts that they offer, you can get deals on clothes, food, technology. Some of the deals that I miss the most are Spotify (discount on the premium membership), National Express (discount on my coach trips to visit my home friends at other unis) and literally every stores down the high street and online give at least 10% discount off your purchases.

Know That There Are Student Services To Help You

You are not alone, there are free services to help you; personal tutors, student mentors, careers advice, student union and counselling and mental health services. Take the time out to take care of your mental health, as I’ve mentioned before university is a stressful place in all aspects – socially, academically, emotionally etc. Take care of yourself and look out for your friends who are going through the same things you are, checking in on your friends from home with texts or phone calls can go a long way and mean a lot to them.

Use A Checklist To Be Organised During The Move

Make a checklist on what you need to pack and sign up for when you get to university and your accommodation. Having a list on what to pack so you don’t overpack – remember that you will most probably buy more things like clothes, home decorations, books, shoes throughout your years at uni that you’ll have to bring back home. When I moved back home officially after my third year I had so many things I had to do multiple trips back and forth just to get everything! In terms of things that you need to sign up for when you first get to uni – find your local GP near your accommodation to register to, so you’ll have somewhere close by if you get sick or need to make an appointment.

For some more tips check out my previous post on How To Survive University that I wrote whilst I was in my third year.

Another post that you should check out on some helpful tips I wrote to help with University Stress – tips that I followed myself to decrease my stress levels and avoid triggering my anxiety and panic attacks.

Good Luck to you all starting University!

If you have any questions about anything to do with Uni please feel free to comment here or send me a message! I’m happy to help!

Thank you for reading

Antonia

xoxo