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What was the biggest shock to you when you got to uni?

I'm doing my AS' at the moment but I am keen to find out more about uni life. What was the biggest shock to you once you got there? Was there anything that you didn't expect? Did you get stuck using anything(e.g the shower). Also is Uni as exciting as we make it seem?

Thanks

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Reply 1
Stuck using a shower?! That's a new one...

I was just surprised at the absence of supervision for almost everything. But my course was Problem Based Learning, not taught for the first two years, so unsurprising really. You really have to know where to be and when, nobody will chase you up until you miss it by which time it's too late.
(edited 9 years ago)
That some people will wear the same clothes for 4 weeks in a row.
Literally shocked me when he wore a different jumper.
how hard 3 hours of lectures a day is,even though I did full 8:30-3:30 at school and college


and the lack of guidance. At the beginning of my first year I just got given a booklet with all my essay deadlines and bibliographies in for that year and some links to to write academically and reference, that was a shock.
Sleep gets less and less and I end up sleeping during lectures...
That I had diarrhoea the first night and had to leave because of medical reasons after 4 days. Pissed me off majorly. Lucky I still have a place for me when I go back in 2015
The biggest was how little I actually had lessons for, you look at your timetable and it says you'rein 8 hours a week or what-have-you, and you think "whoa wtf is this true?"
Reply 7
Little guidance, no one chases you up
hard to do readings on your own
How much I wanted to sleep with one of my tutors - over it now though.
Stuck using the shower? Who doesn't know how to turn a shower on? Even if you did I'm not sure it would be a 'shock.'

There is nothing about Uni (in my opinion) that is different to school/college apart from the focus on independent learning.

So for me I would not say there has been any shocks...yet!

Also, I don't even want to ruin it for you, but don't believe any over-hyped things you hear about Uni. Get excited, yes, but it is not what most people try and make it out to be!
Reply 10
someone ****ting in an oven then cooking it
Reply 11
The fact that I have to read around 60 pages of seminar reading in 5 days whilst having to work around tight deadlines, and the fact that you're not forced to go to any lectures or seminars if you don't want to, but I wouldn't recommend it lol
How thin the accommodation walls were and just how load some people can be just talking and giggling.
people stealing my work.
Original post by Sir Isaac Newton
people stealing my work.


Hope you're not still going on about Leibniz after all of these years ffs.
For me the biggest shock was the amount of posh people there lol
Original post by rosebud114
I'm doing my AS' at the moment but I am keen to find out more about uni life. What was the biggest shock to you once you got there? Was there anything that you didn't expect? Did you get stuck using anything(e.g the shower). Also is Uni as exciting as we make it seem?

Thanks


Freshers Week is a big shock but is quite different from the rest of uni. In fact the whole first 3 to 4 weeks of first year is very different and I think this gives some students a misleading impression of uni for good and bad.

For the quieter students, Freshers Week can be intimidating especially if you go to a big city because everything is busy, noisy, people just go out like sheep to the chain clubs which isn't everybody's thing, the noisy 18-30s style students are in their element in this type of environment so they will feel comfortable and come hollering around knocking on peoples doors in halls in the middle of the night and generally attention seeking, and the quieter students just think, this isn't me, everybody is the same and everybody is the type of person I don't fit in with, I am not going to like this. When they post threads on TSR saying stuff like I am not enjoying freshers week, the standard advice will be "well join in just get wasted and you will enjoy it LOL".

However providing they don't drop out, things will improve for them over time. The early madness settles down, people start focusing on their course more and finding their own friendship groups and start doing their own type of things with their own type of people.

For the noisier, rowdier students, Freshers Week seems amazing, it's all their dreams come true, basically going to Magaluf or Kavos without having to leave the country, and some of them will think amazing we are going to have three years of this. Now in practice some students DO have three years of this but it's only really the first 2-3 weeks of uni where everybody on campus will be with them in the same mood. After a few weeks they will start to find that other students find them a bit irritating if they are attention seeking and being noisy at night when the others are trying to sleep, they will find fewer students are "up for it" when they are trying to get people to go and get hammered at a cheesy club, because people have found their own friendship groups and are doing different things. So in practice the rowdier students end up finding a handful of others that are like them, they just get smashed all the time and then sit around complaining "why is everyone at uni so boring, I thought people would be up for it!!". The other problem for these students is that the ones they will gravitate towards who are up for a lifestyle of hedonism are likely to be students that fail or get bad degrees, and so they are probably going to do the same themselves.
(edited 9 years ago)
That there were people in league with me, in terms of intelligence of course.
The biggest shock is probably lack of guidance and independence. "No one's going to chase you up if you don't attend lectures. Here's a list of **** you need to do this term, do it or don't I don't care lol. Oh you have january exams too, need help? Figure it out by yourself *******."

Seriously though you can go a full term without appearing at a lecture and no one will care. I don't recommend it though.

Also it's difficult making friends if you live off campus. Only acquaintances really.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by MagicNMedicine
For the quieter students, Freshers Week can be intimidating especially if you go to a big city because everything is busy, noisy, people just go out like sheep to the chain clubs which isn't everybody's thing, the noisy 18-30s style students are in their element in this type of environment so they will feel comfortable and come hollering around knocking on peoples doors in halls in the middle of the night and generally attention seeking, and the quieter students just think, this isn't me, everybody is the same and everybody is the type of person I don't fit in with, I am not going to like this. When they post threads on TSR saying stuff like I am not enjoying freshers week, the standard advice will be "well join in just get wasted and you will enjoy it LOL".

However providing they don't drop out, things will improve for them over time. The early madness settles down, people start focusing on their course more and finding their own friendship groups and start doing their own type of things with their own type of people.


Totally agree with you!! I absolutely hated freshers week - everything at my uni revolved around getting drunk in freshers week, so it was incredibly hard to meet any like-minded people when you don't like that sort of thing. I didn't make any friends until I started my course, but tbh my first year was the least enjoyable because of the people I was in halls with. Things picked up in second year when I was away from the loud, obnoxious drunks, and I met my boyfriend who I have now been with for 6 years :biggrin:

Aside from that, I guess my biggest "shock" was having to cook for myself. I was in self-catered halls which suited my lifestyle better. I needed the flexibility of meal times because I worked part time and volunteered with Brownies once a week. I did practice cooking all through the summer before uni, but it is really different when you have to do it at uni! It doesn't help that people steal your food and leave the kitchen in a mess (not that I was great at clearing up, but it is different to cooking at home where you are likely to have everything clean at the start!).

For me, the actual studying part of uni was fine. My subject was mainly maths based, so it was very similar to my A levels in terms of studying. I didn't have any essays to write until my dissertation in final year. I guess the key for me was to learn how I study best. I have to have some noise around me when studying, so I never worked in the library. I found it best to study at home with the TV on or music playing. I also made sure I had a good system set up for filing my notes so that it made revision easier later on.

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