Here is a guide to prevent you from being hit with the reality of university, warning you of the chaos, crumbs, essays and all.
Reading, reading and more reading…
Reading is something you hear about all the time, whether it’s at school, a hobby or casually mentioned whenever someone wants to sound intellectual. But let me tell you, reading at university is not what you think it is.
As a former A-level English Literature students, I just assumed that it would be picking up the occasional novel or maybe a 10-page chapter to analyse in class. Little did I know, I would be drowning in academic texts – the kind you reread five times and still have no idea what you’ve just read. There’s one (or two, if your lecturer is feeling particularly bold) for every module, plus a generous two separate weeks “off” each year to catch up on it all (which, let’s be honest, absolutely no one does)
Somehow, it’s always essay season…
I expected the assignments to be hard – that part didn’t surprise me. What I wasn’t prepared for, was the sheer number of essays. They casually mention the first one in week one, and before you’ve even processed that information, you’re somehow already behind, pulling together a completely underprepared essay just to get something submitted.
And once that one’s done? Here’s another.
Essays are somehow both crammed together and spread out at the same time, making a never-ending cycle of word counts and bibliographies. I’ve watched my housemates come home from an exam and immediately have to start their next essay, no time to relax. You’ll finish a module, move on to the next semester, and still be submitting assignments from the last one.
It’s just common sense…
Following on from an endless stream of essays, you quickly realise the amount of help you receive is… non-existent. You are expected to already understand everything, whether it’s: know exactly how to write an academic essay, a literature review or even merely answer questions on the impossible reading from that week.
You’ll sit in the lecture hall looking around, convinced everyone else is perfectly fine, nodding along as if the lecturer is just stating common sense. Trust me, no one knows what’s going on. Well… except maybe that one person who always has to raise their hand and add a pointless comment just to say something.
Freshers was the easy part…
Everyone always talks about the awkwardness of making new friends during freshers’ week, but why does no one ever mention how hard it is the make friends after that? Once you’ve got your group or bonded with flatmates, it’s like entering a relationship. You can’t cheat on them by suddenly having other friends. Everyone sticks to what they know.
Occasionally, a new friend might pop up in your course, or you’ll join a society and briefly believe you’ve expanded your social circle. But for the most part, people already seem to know each other and once they do, introductions stop happening. This might have something to wo with the fact that you’re expected to plan who you’re living with in second year within a month of meeting people. Suddenly, friendships feel less casual and more like long-term commitments. Because there’s nothing like the thought of sharing a toilet with someone for a year to make you cling tightly to whoever you’ve already got.
Kitchen horror stories…
There will always going to be horror stories about uni halls and houses, mostly because it turns out a shocking amount of people aren’t house trained. Honestly, no matter how much you think you’ve been warned, nothing prepares you for the stress caused by the kitchen.
The constant crumbs or flecks of food spread across the floor or carefully pushed up against the skirting board at a tragic attempt to hide them. A permanently damp, overcrowded draining board. Mystery liquid and unexpected stickiness living rent-free in the fridge. And then there’s the bins, slowly developing a personality because everyone except you seems to be on strike.
All you want to do is clean, but you begin to question the point when it becomes a waste of time and you’re the imaginary cleaner your housemates seem to believe in.
The weekly food shop from hell…
Everyone should immediately go and thank their parents for doing the food shop and planning meals for the week, even if you didn’t like them. Because the bane of every uni student’s existence is the weekly food shop.
First of all, I simply can’t justify walking 30 minutes home with an overflowing bag-for-life, watching all the frozen bits slowly defrost before you can even get to the freezer. I was fortunate to bring my car, but the walking isn’t the worst part.
Trying to plan decent meals on a budget but the budget ends up being £40 and your foods already gone off or ran out before you get to Wednesday. You’ll also realise you forgot to buy anything for lunch and will end up spending a fortune on meals in the student union between lecturers because campus apparently makes you ravenous.
The University plague…
Freshers’ flu is very much a thing and if you thought it ended after the first few weeks, think again. The university air has a sneaky way of attacking your immune system in all seasons of the year. The moment you come back from Christmas break you’ll develop a scratchy cough and sniffly nose. Just in time to fend for yourself because it’s not like you were home for a month and your mum could take of you.
Then, just when you think you’re better, the universe will trick you. One day you’re fine and the next you’re completely written off again. That cough? It’s basically a part of university culture that no one warns you about.
Seriously though, freshers’ flu is no joke. It will absolutely wipe you out so, start building your immune system now and stock up on cold and flu tablets.
From freshers to freak-outs…
I never thought the transition from first to second year would be difficult, but it’s a whole new level of chaos. Suddenly, your course work doubles, the pressure skyrockets because these grades actually count, you somehow have significantly less money than you did in first year, and you’re living in a horrifically built uni house, where the landlords ignore your emails. Oh, and you also realise you can’t live with your friends.
What I mean by that, is friendships completely shift and become extremely intense when you move in together. You’ll quickly realise you are absolutely not built to be around each other 24/7 and your group dynamic is completely different.
Second year is a never-ending cycle of intense changes. Don’t be discouraged if it’s not your best year of despite what everyone makes it out to be.
These surprises aren’t meant to scare you – they’re just reality and that can sometimes be shocking. Now that you know what’s coming, you’re officially prepared to endure the weirdest yet most wonderful experience of your life.
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