Living on your own

When you get to University you will quickly realise that it is totally different from living at home.  Some people say that living at home has fewer restrictions than living at University and visa versa but from experience I have found things to be more relaxed on campus.  At home I am sure you have experienced the wrath of your parents for not tidying your room or for staying out late or even playing music loudly. All this changes at University. I found that I could keep my room as I wanted, I could play music as loud as I wanted (That is until the porters come to tell you to turn it down),  but by far the best part for me is that you can come and go as you please without being questioned by parents every two minutes. Those are the best parts of living on your own at University.
  On the flip side there are some bad points. These include possibly having to share your space with another room mate or two, you do occasionally need to be respectful of others and be quiet when people need to study. However, the biggest difficulty for me was waking myself up in a morning and making my own meals. You will quickly realise that you relied on your parents for some things much more than you may have originally thought.

Another thing which you will have to get used to doing is acting like an adult. For some of you this may be more difficult than others but it is just something you will have to face head on. You will have to manage your own schedule, do your own washing, decide when to tidy your room, decide when to eat and you will also have to figure out how to get around everywhere if you do not have access to a car.

One of the major things which you should avoid at University is missing classes. There are a million and one excuses that you could use, believe me I’ve used them all, but there is nothing worse than missing a day of lectures solely because of the catch up work you will have to do. Many a time I have gone to a lecture with the biggest hang over known to man only to take down the most basic notes possible. You will find this is much better than not going at all because for the one or two hours of lectures that you may miss it will take you four times as long to do the reading and find which notes you need to catch up. You will also have explaining to do if your lecturer is mean – if you miss too many you will risk getting kicked off your course...you don’t want that do you. A further thing which you will find different from school/college is that there are no bells between lectures so you will have to make sure you are on time for getting between lectures – you should also take into account that two consecutive lectures may well be in totally different buildings at opposite sides of the campus.

You will not get everything you are meant to do to start with, I know I didn’t but you will eventually. Make sure you make plenty of friends and you will be just fine. You can rely on each other and help each other out and you will find that you will be adjusted in no time. Make sure you take part in everything you can in freshers week (not only because it is the best bit) but because you will find there are lots of helpful hints and tips along the way.