University advice

Judgeneo said:
This is good advice. :cool:


When in your room in the first week or so, leave your door wide open. Its a easy way to meet the people you will be living with
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Except when you're beating the one eyed goafer. Close it then for sure.

On a serious note, try and be as sociable as you can, Nitefly's "yes man" term covers it quite well. Don't worry about not drinking either.
 
Nitefly said:
Seriously, my advice would be to play 'yes man' and experience as much of everything and everyone as you can :)
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i would agree with this statement, you only get one life so live it. and there is no better place to live a good bit of life and make some good friends than a university.
 
Get drunk or go do something else.

No matter how much work you might have piled up, you wont remain productive if you dont like it.

As much as the work load might be stressful and you might feel guilty for walking away from it, you will be more productive after you remember your human and not just destined to sit in front of papers all the time.
 
Like many things in life what you get out of university tends to be proportionate to what you put in so if you are open to trying out opportunities offered to you then you're much more likely to enjoy it than if you just shut yourself away all the time. There will no doubt be times when you simply won't want to go out or meet people and that's fine but try to make sure that's the exception rather than the rule. I would suggest you try to be friendly and approachable but it's always worth remembering that you don't have to make all your friends in the first week, in fact there's a good chance you'll not see many of the people you meet then again (and perhaps won't want to).

The going may get tough, it may not but you'd cope in much the same way as you'd cope anywhere - speak to your friends, your family and also at university there tends to be additional services dedicated to student support because most universities are aware that it's not always an easy time for the students who may never have stayed away from home before.

As for the not drinking - that's entirely up to you, there'll be others who don't drink for whatever reason and it's not a problem. You need to be polite but firm about it if that's what you choose - if people can't/won't accept that then it's their problem but please for the sake of any chance you have of making friends don't be sanctimonious or preach about it.
 
Many a night I have spent thinking "I can't ****ing do this" at university.

I'm still here and making top grades, the key thing is to just keep going and keep going, eventually those 3 years will be up.

Uni doesn't have to be about going out every night and getting ****ed, I did that at college. And for one, I couldn't afford that, I work plenty but I couldn't afford to go out every night and get smashed.
At uni I go out every so often and have a skinful at a pub but rarely go out on weekdays. Most of the time it'll be cheese tasting parties or gigs/ live music (playing or watching).

Was never a fan of this "I am a uni student, I must act like a uni student" thing, **** that, been to one or two student nights and they were ****ing rubbish, don't even bother with freshers fairs or any of this nonsense. Most of the time I go to a quiet pub, the pool club or theres an underground jazz club I frequent.
It just annoys me whenever I start a new job "Oh you're a uni student, all this getting ****ed, waking up at 2pm and living on beans" well no actually, I drink in moderation, get up at 6-7am every morning and eat a healthy balanced diet. And spend a lot of time studying, that is what I am paying for.

One major tip. Bring a good coffee machine, you'll need it.
 
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Stop worrying and you'll be fine. As long as you're capable of doing the basics like eating and clothing yourself you won't die or anything like that.
 
Please don't try and prove people right about students, Uni is not about getting drunk all the time in your first year, the first year may not matter as much but without it you wont be able to do the 2nd or 3rd very well at all.

Guess the amount of times i went out drinking.. 0 times, that's right 0.
I spend my time with the wife or studying.
 
Diagro said:
Please don't try and prove people right about students, Uni is not about getting drunk all the time in your first year, the first year may not matter as much but without it you wont be able to do the 2nd or 3rd very well at all.

Guess the amount of times i went out drinking.. 0 times, that's right 0.
I spend my time with the wife or studying.
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It's not all about drinking. Did you go out with coursemates, other people from university? Or did you go in each day, do your work and then go home? If it's the latter then you missed out on a big part of university.
 
pitchfork said:
Many a night I have spent thinking "I can't ****ing do this" at university.

I'm still here and making top grades, the key thing is to just keep going and keep going, eventually those 3 years will be up.

Uni doesn't have to be about going out every night and getting ****ed, I did that at college. And for one, I couldn't afford that, I work plenty but I couldn't afford to go out every night and get smashed.
At uni I go out every so often and have a skinful at a pub but rarely go out on weekdays. Most of the time it'll be cheese tasting parties or gigs/ live music (playing or watching).

Was never a fan of this "I am a uni student, I must act like a uni student" thing, **** that, been to one or two student nights and they were ****ing rubbish, don't even bother with freshers fairs or any of this nonsense. Most of the time I go to a quiet pub, the pool club or theres an underground jazz club I frequent.
It just annoys me whenever I start a new job "Oh you're a uni student, all this getting ****ed, waking up at 2pm and living on beans" well no actually, I drink in moderation, get up at 6-7am every morning and eat a healthy balanced diet. And spend a lot of time studying, that is what I am paying for.

One major tip. Bring a good coffee machine, you'll need it.
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You don't make it sound like you're having much fun...
 
Ignore what everyone here has said about drinking and partying or not drinking and partying.

Work hard, and when you can, play hard.
How you do either is completely up to you, university life gives you the flexibility to live almost however you like.
 
Moses said:
You make that sound as if it's an awful chore :confused:. University's fantastic, and should be immensely enjoyable... even for people who are striving for the best grades. Are you D.P in disguise?!
I'm there to study, my family, friends and basically anything which matters to me is back home. Now thats not to say I don't enjoy uni, I have a good set of friends down there, played with some great musicians and what have you, it's not bad. I'd prefer to be at home though with the people who I've known for most of my life.

Every night's fairly excessive, and most people I know aren't like that... but going out and getting drunk a fair bit isn't terribly expensive, imo. Cost shouldn't be a realistic factor in people not drinking, most of the time (I don't care if people choose not to drink, if that matters). I lol'd at the skinful comment, btw.
Before I got my job there it'd be difficult to get drunk once a term because at some points I was selling my dvds to buy food I had such little money. Even with my job, I couldn't go out and blow £50 a night drinking down the pub, unlike most students I'm not an 8 stone lightweight, I'm a 6'6" 20 stone seasoned drinker (or I was before uni, still kept the tolerance) and I can't stand cheap drinks (cider, cheap wine, vodka etc.) and it's not like that didn't pay well, with overtime I could take home £1200 a month for working nights in the library, more like £600 though

What does 'acting like a student' entail? It's not a binary choice between being studious and 'acting like a student' (which I presume means getting hammered/living off pizza/being a **** 24/7).
Like I said, getting drunk all the time, sleeping in, basically never studying and living on a diet of crap seems to be the stereotype.

Which student nights did you go to? It's pretty ridiculous to try a couple and then paint them all with the same brush. I remember going to my union's Monday night club night and thinking it was terrible - it was the only time I ever went - but the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday club nights are utterly fantastic!
I've been to a few, they're full of 18 year old kids getting drunk off daddys money with their jack wills snapbacks and hipster "yolo" ****
It's rubbish, I prefer to have a few mates round or drink with the locals

So you start a job, someone makes an idiotic comment, and suddenly that idiotic comment's reality?! Students don't have to wake up at 2pm and live off beans - the fact some people, detached from the student lifestyle, believe that doesn't make it true :confused:.
It seems to be everyones idea of being a student, which really ****es me off because some of us work hard.


Lol. J'adore false dichotomies :|.
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Nitefly said:
You don't make it sound like you're having much fun...
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I enjoy it, I'd just prefer to get the degree so I can get my foot in the door and once again have some true financial freedom.
 
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You have absolutely nothing to worry about in your first year. If you put even a moderate amount of effort into it, you will easily pass. One word of warning though, I wished that I had paid more attention the "easier" lectures of the first year as it helps the understanding so much more in the second and third years when it really starts to ramp up. I carried on into my second year pretty much like my first, which meant that it was bloody hard work in the third year! I came out with a 2.1 to show for it which I was pretty damned pleased about for a Physics degree!

As for the first few days, just meet as many people as you can, don't try to cluster with the same "group" for too long on the first few days, mix it about a bit and eventually you will settle with the people you actually like.
 
Nitefly said:
Seriously, my advice would be to play 'yes man' and experience as much of everything and everyone as you can :)
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+1.

I spent most of my time alone in my Final year. My friends all took the gap year, I stayed on. It really sucked. Having friends and a laugh is the best thing about Uni.
 
pitchfork said:
I enjoy it, I'd just prefer to get the degree so I can get my foot in the door and once again have some true financial freedom.
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Students have a LOT of financial freedom. If you're working part time around your job you can be absolutely minted, relatively. I have approx £160 a week disposable income after all bills, food, rent, running a car etc. I am working 40 hours a week over summer and will be doing 24ish on top of my studies every week during term time, mind.

That's not silly crazy thousands a week sorta money, but to have over £500 a month to just throw at what you like, it's nice!
 
Hxc said:
Students have a LOT of financial freedom. If you're working part time around your job you can be absolutely minted, relatively. I have approx £160 a week disposable income after all bills, food, rent, running a car etc. I am working 40 hours a week over summer and will be doing 24ish on top of my studies every week during term time, mind.

That's not silly crazy thousands a week sorta money, but to have over £500 a month to just throw at what you like, it's nice!
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You doing a masters at the moment then?

pitchfork said:
Like I said, getting drunk all the time, sleeping in, basically never studying and living on a diet of crap seems to be the stereotype.

I've been to a few, they're full of 18 year old kids getting drunk off daddys money with their jack wills snapbacks and hipster "yolo" ****.
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Sounds awesome, I'm a hipster kid yo'!
 
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