If any of you follow my design Instagram you will have seen this over on my stories but I thought I would dedicate a blog post to it because I'm sure lots of my followers are just about to start 1st year at uni and it can be bloody scary! Some of these points are very art school based but hopefully most of them are relatable to anyone!
Don’t put pressure on it to live up to the expectations of what everyone says uni will be like.
Especially at a London university, it will be most likely be a different experience for you than the stories you have heard. It may be the best 3 years of your life when you make incredible friends for life and you may party 3 nights a week and spend every night socialising at the SU. But also it may not and thats ok. Don’t feel like you have to push yourself to fit in with this stereotype of the uni experience, keep hold of what you enjoy doing, time to yourself and time for your old friends and family and you will be just fine.
You get out of university what you put in.
No matter how amazing your course is, at the end of the day, the amount of effort that you put into your work will be reflected in how much you gain from those 3 years. Give every project and opportunity your best shot and it will be so much more worth the money!
If you can, DO WORK EXPERIENCE!
If you have spare time to do work experience atall, do it as much as you can too! These are the contacts that will help you get ahead once you have graduated because you have a strong relationship with them and they trust your work and work ethic.
Learn 5 recipes that you can make in 20 minutes or less.
When you are busy with work, staying late at the studio or even just rushing a quick meal before you go on a night out, the last thing you are going to want to do is cook or think of a meal to try and make. I kept a whole stock of curry sauces, pasta sauces etc that you can just stick on the hob with some sort of carbs for 15 minutes and fry up some chicken/ veg etc to put with it and you will save a whole load on ready meals!
Have a secret stash of cutlery
Sounds silly but I’m sure my flatmates ATE cutlery, it all seemed to go missing. Having a spare set in my room saved me having to eat all my meals with a spoon on many occasions.
Keep your uni room as a nice relaxing space to come home to.
This one will help with homesickness and general stress levels. I started to realise that I felt so much more stressed when my uni room was a mess and my bed wasn’t made and laundry wasn’t done. Try and make your room as homely as possibly with photos/ decoration that makes it feel like your space and somewhere that you look forward to coming home too.
Before you start uni, try and save up a bit of money to use as your freshers fund and overflow money.
From the date you move in in September, there is a while month until you get your first student loan instalment, which I didn’t realise! Your student loan is paid on the first week of your actual university course. So unless you want to go into your shiny new overdraft straight away, have some back up money ready.
Art supplies that you use regularly, buy in bulk online
For me things like sketchbooks, scalpel blades, mountboard and foamboard really started to add up when you buy them all singularly from the art shop and I found that buying them in bulk on ebay made such a difference, even if you buy them and split it between your mates!
Learn to budget very early on!
As soon as I got my first student loan payment, I worked out how many weeks I had until the next one and then divided how much money I had between those weeks. That was my budget for the week and if I went below that I put extra money into the ‘overflow pot’ I spoke about earlier and then took out of that if I needed it. It seems like a lot of faff but trust me you will thank me later when you need extra money for birthday presents or event tickets or christmas!
However you are feeling, someone else is feeling the exact same way.
It's a big change to begin with, give yourself a bit of slack and be kind to everyone. You are all a bit scared and anxious but just relax and know that - as cliché as it sounds - everyone is in the same boat, everyone is putting on a brave face and everyone is only putting the best bits on social media!
Tara-Jade x
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