Education Uni survival kit!

Get load of cold and flu cure, painkillers, People form all over the country bring in all there diffrent version of different virus nad you will get sick(If doint get sick then iam sure you could sell it one of the halls drugies lol).
make sure youve had all your injection done recently expically MMR, mumps is geting realy common and much worse for lads than girls.
Endsligh do could student contents insurance.
Uni usally dont like people to bringing minifridges(bring on anyway else youll lose food all the time).
Other peeps have given some sound advice. Oh yeh leave your bedroom door proped opne when you move in.

 

first 3 months are hard? What the hell! Are you guys pansies? They're the best 3 months of your life!

Ignore the 'dish out beer' thing as somebody else allready mentioned everyone will think you're generous n take advantage. Just leave your door open whilst unpacking yer room and for the rest of freshers week (whilst you're in, obviously) as this is the best method of meeting your new flat mates

Washing bag thing is good idea, or do what most folk do - buy one of those fold out mesh baskets, that way you can dump your mucky pants in as you go and then just pick it up n take it down the laundrette

And contrary to whats been said, if you do watch a fair amount of TV anyways then take a tv. You won't be party'ing non-stop all year, during the daytime it's reet nice to relax in your room and do the newsround - neighbours - simpsons - hollyoaks run.

 

Webcam bah. You want a 3 or 4 year railcard!

Catered is crap, honestly. They serve at only certain times and mostly you'll probably want to be social and eat out or cook at all times of the day/night.

Yea, leave your door open and have everyone walk in. It's the easiest way to find out how easy it is to get stuff nicked: after all you are living with people you don't even know.

 

Oh yeah, not really related to what to bring, but join all the societies that you have even the slightest interest in, so long as they're not too expensive of course. It a great way of picking up new hobbies and meeting new people, I didn't join any societies in my first year which was a big mistake (missed the fair somehow).

 

The webcam's alongside the railcard bindi . I'll probably get a TV license- as I said, I shouldn't be too strapped for cash and my laptop's got a tuner anyway so I'll have media center attending to all my PVR duties. Just pray I don't get sucked into the Neighbours addiction.

<A88>

 

Get a N64 with Mario Cart. LORD the ammount of time spent playing Mario cart in the first year when no one could arsed to revise for exams.
learn to LOVE XXXX or white cider (frosty Jack) perfect for a firday night.
Get your arse out with the rest of the people in your flat for drinks on a friday. This can evolve but I always got out of lectures at 5pm and wandered over to the campus bar for Happy hour to drink with the housemates. Drinking with the course mates can happen any other evening of the week (or lunchtime) but a set date with the house mates cements things a little. I was lucky and ended up living with the guys i was put with in halls for the rest of my time at uni. CLASS blokes! And if you dont live with the guys/girls on your course you dont have to talk shop about your degree all the time, gives you a little break from the daily grind when your housemates are playing mario cart in the front room (and have been there ALL DAY!!)

Also i would reomend searching for your next flat just after Xmas or preferiably just before. Decent accomodation gets snapped up very quickly.

And yep, once a semester for me as well with the bedsheets

 

Just so you freshers don't get paranoid about the stuff being stolen thing, leave the door open when you are in, but when you are out make sure it is locked. This even goes for when you are going to the loo or for a shower, you are not in your room, even for a short period so it must be locked. It's better to be safer than sorry.

The first 3 weeks are harder, but they aren't that bad, the first trip home is brilliant and then you are more than happy being at uni.

Freshers fair is the time to meet loadsa people, you tend to go everywhere with your hall mates tbh, on my course there was rarely course nights out (disaster management on the other hand, should be disaster recovery the way they drank).

I'll say it again, people won't expect you to give out booze all the time if you do it on the first day, just do it with people on your corridor though

 

Cup noodles. A 40 of vodka.

 

I won't need food because my girlfriend got me a cool lava lamp so I will be speanding all my time staring at that!

<A88>

n.b never give your girlfriend your account details if you don't want them to post on your behalf

 

Told you, lava lamp is the business!!! I almost wasted my disertation because of them, I got a new one each year lol

 

heh, my uni days were just a drunken blur in all honesty.

Luckily I got in at the local Uni so stayed at home but spent most nights at various ladies dorms

 

Remember if you get a TV/tuner card you'll probably have to get a license, they do check and they do fine you. That said some unis pay for it for you, you'll have to check that. I watched maybe 5 hours of TV in the whole of my first year and so did most others so its probably not a good investment especially with 4OD and stuff (*cough* torrents) and a 100MBit symmetric internet connection.

The first year is the best ever as long as you're overly social and outgoing in the first couple of weeks.

Take a PSP or something for those rare times you're alone, a comfortable chair/pillows because the furnature they supply is probably basic and pillows are good for lots of friends sitting in your room. People tend to cluster in the most easily accessible room/most comfortable room/room with the biggest screen.

If you're anything like most of the people I know you'll fill 500gb easily in a year, possibly lots more.

Be careful not to get a loud compressor fridge cos it'll ruin your sleep/movies/romantic moments.

Also you may not be able to cook in your room, I couldnt in mine and the smoke alarms were quite sensitive and they knew if you opened them up and disconnected them .

 

Viking do a beasty desk chair for £45, it may not be the best but it's just what you need as you spend most of your time infront of the PC, either gaming/working/wan....you get the idea.

Just go with an open attitude and remember, it's the first time you really get to be yourself, so just be yourself, the real you, you make much better friends that way.

 

i totally agree with alpha112. Although the first year IS important. You can give you studies a little bit of a beating and survive. So as long as you dont miss the lectures you can do what ever the hell you like. Besides, your young so go out and get hammered. just turn up to the lectures even if your still pissed.
thats what i did

 

Like bindi said, the most important thing is to know it starts off uch harder than it ends up. You're used to living and being looked after by your parents and unless you have an especially bad relationship with them, by christmas you will want the familiar surroundings back. Just don't freak out too much, and if you live closeish to home dont try and go back too often, you have to learn to live off your own two legs

As for stuff. Going into my 4th year at uni now I would consider myself an old hand, so when I say this dont think of any student steriotypes. Your favorite booze/liquer. Its a social icebreaker, even if not to get drunk it lightens the mood and makes everything much easier. If you get offered a drink, "take it", people wont offer what they dont really want to give and it will make them feel pretty good about it too.

- Your mobile phone - and if you dont have one GET ONE. Youll be meeting alot of lazy lazy people at uni and phones are your freind.
- Self Catering? Kitchenwear, VERY USEFUL. Dont get too attached to pot noodles and learn a few recipes as quickly as you can! (I lived my first year quite synonymously off plates of one type of probalbly crap food - now I can make lasagne and I dont look back ).
- All your uni paperwork and as much info as you can gather on freshers week and enrolment etc. You dont need to be getting stressed out over things which can be trivialities.

And make your room your home as quick as you can. Everybody needs to feel like they have a home and however you look at it, from now on your roomies. Its fantastic having communal areas with freinds, much better than family - but like with a family you need your own space and somewhere to relax in your own way.

edit: Oh yeah, and mumps vaccine.

 

Gotta agree with this too I can't say I was homesick in any way, shape or form

 

Wasn't that because you're a hobo?

 

I remember you saying the same thing this time last year... and I wasn't used to living alone but for me it only took about 2 weeks to settle in and realise I was having the best time of my life

Sam

 

Oh, and some advice from someone who's just finished their first year:

First few days for me seemed... weird. Living with people I didn't know, making loads of effort socialising with people I couldn't see myself ever being proper friends with, suddenly not having parents to cook, clean and do laundry for me. It was such an anticlimax for me: I'd been looking forward to it for so long and seeing my parents drive away while I was on my own in my room made me wonder whether I really wanted to be there. The first few days there I hated and just wanted to go home. I knew to ride it out and stay there and I'm so glad I did, like I said in my above post it only took a couple of weeks before learning to love it. The first year has been the best year of my life. I've made such good friends who right now I don't know how I ever lived without.

There's no use making lists of what to take. You'll still forget loads. At least that was the case for me. After a day or two you'll have loads of stuff left that you've got to take (for me it was coathangers, toilet roll, drawing pins and ring binders, YMMV). Supermarkets are best for this sort of thing, but I probably didn't need to tell you that.

When you first go into your room you'll think it's a bare lonely ****hole, so take plenty of stuff and make it your own. Posters, ornaments, travel souvenirs - you can never take too many. Most unis say you can't put posters up on your walls, but take no notice. I put up loads and they didn't bat an eyelid when they inspected my room. Oh, and they'll give you plenty of notice before room inspections so you can remove any naughty stuff you don't want them to see.

Remember though, the most basic bit of advice is, don't be scared of talking to people when you're there! EVERYONE there is in the same boat as you. Nobody knows anyone else. Nobody will mind if you go and start talking to them. People did it to me and I loved it. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Just to reiterate the most important point though, your first impressions of uni might confuse and disappoint you, but don't for one second think of packing up and going back home. Give it a chance, and you definitely won't regret going

Good luck!

Sam

 

Definitely. Take the UCAS acceptance, accomodation acceptance and uni acceptance and anything like that, and some sort of ID (although you need that for drinking too), without it they likely wont let you enroll/register.

Just had to bold that because pretty much everything else you can buy/get later but if you forget all that it'll be a mess.