How to prepare for university
Ryan Griffiths
First Year - Graphic Design and Animation BA(Hons)
Hi, my name is Ryan Griffiths and I am a first-year student studying Graphic Design and Animation. I am a very creative and outgoing person, always seeking out new experiences in life.
How I prepared myself for university
Hello everyone! My name is Ryan Griffiths and I’m a second year BA(Hons) Graphic Design and Animation student, and I am going to be talking about how I prepared for my first year of university.
If you’re reading this and your place has been accepted and you’re starting at Huddersfield soon – congratulations! I hope you have an amazing experience as I’ve had so far.
If you are a prospective student looking to apply to the University, still come along for the journey as it’ll give you a heads-up on what you need to prepare for when it is your turn.
So, to start this blog I am going to tell you how I prepared for my first year of university and explain the steps that I took, so that I was ready for anything that uni life was going to throw at me.
One of the first ways I prepared was learning about the area itself and see what Huddersfield had in store for me. I learnt about what shops were available, what social and retail places I could go to if I wanted to do something fun, as well as any other areas that I would possibly need, such as finding the best place to get a haircut.
This allowed me to effectively plan my budget and make sure I didn’t get lost if there was anything that I needed.
Truthfully, this part did make me feel a little nervous as I hadn’t done this before but I found it to be worth it as it gave me an idea on what I was doing, meaning I didn’t need to worry about it as much when I got to Huddersfield.
Managing your money at university
Budgeting is quite important, particularly if you are moving away to a new place and really managing your money for the first time. I started this process by working out how much rent I would be paying for my student accommodation, this allowed me to see how much I would have left from my maintenance loan for food, social etc.
This preparation helped me create the best budget I could. I do have to admit I didn’t find this part easy as I didn’t have much experience in this area, and I honestly didn’t know what I was doing.
However, I wasn’t alone and there are people out there who can support you, such as your parents, older friends, or the Students' Union. I found my parents’ years of experience and advice on how to budget useful, so perhaps asking them would be a good idea.
Meeting people
Another good way that I found to prepare for university is to try and connect with your course mates before the academic year starts. Thanks to the power of social media I was able to find several of my course mates through the Students’ Union Facebook page and this allowed me to build up friendships before starting.
My first year at university was during the 20/21 academic year and as we all know there were certain limitations on what I could and couldn’t do socially. However, despite the restrictions I was still able to make new friends through the various societies
available to me as a student. I highly recommend that you do join them as it is a great opportunity for you to meet people who are not on your course and have similar interests to you.
Accommodation
So, coming from another part of the United Kingdom I thought moving away into student accommodation would be a great idea as it would allow me to develop all the skills that I would need to be fully independent, and I would meet even more people.
The same way I found my course mates, finding the people who will be spending the next year with before you start your contract, through social media, is a smart move.
It allows you to get to know people before you start living with them so when you do move in, it isn’t so nerve racking. I found this to be useful as it allowed me to be calmer and less stressed about my new accommodation in September.
Plan your time
If there was one thing that I would go back in time and tell my younger self to do differently, it would be to try and plan how much time I would spend on my university work each day.
This is something I didn’t figure out until the second term and would’ve helped me to be more organised and feel less anxious during the first term.
Now, I won’t tell you exactly on how you should plan out your week (I have learnt through experience that everyone has their own individual way of achieving this), but if you can figure this out, I can assure you, it will help you in the long run.
So, this just about wraps up this blog. I hope you have found it to be very interesting, and I hope that reading about my experiences has given you plenty of tips and advice for your own university journey.
If you have any questions about coming to university, student life, or Huddersfield in general, you can chat with current students on UniBuddy. They're happy to help wherever they can.
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