o.o.hedwig

I'm very vocal about how I feel about my education and going to University. Hands down, it has been the best experience of my short life so far. It did give me a sense of realisation that the world is bigger than the 40 x 40 mile area I call my hometown.

Now I experienced several things in my freshers first year, and i'm about to holla some of my top few tips if I was to redo not just freshers, but my entire first year of uni!

1) BE YOURSELF
Okay, it took me a while at uni, but I realised who my true friends were. I was social throughout university, and I actively tried making friends because why not? However, in doing so, I realised I was taking on personas that just did not match me. Have you ever met an Asian with the strongest failure of an Irish accent? Someone said people loves the Irish accent, maybe, but i'll never know because I couldn't pull it off! Needless to say it was a failure of an experiment. My friends played guitar, and granted it would have been an interesting skill to learn, I wanted to learn it to increase my social circle. Then I realised I actually preferred the Ukulele. When one door closes, another opens, am I right? xD

2) 8AM LECTURE
How bad do you want this degree? Really bad?
Well think again my friend, you have just been assigned an 8am mandatory lecture. Suddenly this degree is going to suck your life away. Good luck navigating rush hour to go to a lecture you will be too tired to remember. Oh...co-op do 50p Chocolate Twists...you'll thank me later.

3) You DON't have to drink to have fun 
Conversely, you can also drink to have fun! But the stigma attached with uni is that you must drink in order to make the most of your experience. This isn't true, a lot of T-Total students made the most of their experience and avoided the dreaded hangover, and if you do decide to hit the vodka redbull the night before, just remember that you don't have to drink every night...unless you want to.

4) Open up your doors to diversity
Your university experience will give you every opportunity to open up your taste palette to a variety of cultures, nationalities and traditions that you wouldn't have been aware of unless you already lived in the inner city. I come from a town, and i'm so glad I had an open mind to try new things, and talk to random people not caring about how they looked, even if it took a while.

5) Your first friends at uni, aren't necessarily your best ones.
Well...I thought i'd meet my best friends on the first day of drinking. How wrong I was. It took several different experiences to find out who was link minded, who was real, and who I could rely on. When you see other first years ridiculing another so cruelly on the basis of "banter", you really question whether or not you want to talk to this person all year.

Now really, there are way more tips that I could recommend, but these are just the first few that come to mind. Hopefully, you might read this in time for when you attend university! However, if you choose to ignore this, you probably will still have a kick ass experience, as everyone is different and even the worst parts of your degree can be an eye opener to the real world. Good luck, and all best!