Advice for Starting University in 2022!

Hey guys, it’s Rhys again! And today I’m writing a bit of advice about starting University in 2022 for any prospective students. By now, there have been two lots of students with a completely different first year experience than most alumni, so we’re pretty used to a different kind of university experience. But as we’re heading into the rest of 2022 it seems like things are finally getting back to normal. Hopefully this thread can give a good idea of what to expect in 2022 and how you can start preparing to start University in September!

For starters, if you haven’t already come along to an Open Day event! There’s still a big chunk of time before September and it’s a great opportunity to come and get used to the Campus. You can explore, meet some of your future lecturers as well as look in at the different Student Union venues. Moreover, I found it particularly helpful for deciding which accommodation I wanted to live in. It gave me the chance to properly see the room sizes, the location around it and whether or not I liked the vibe!

Secondly, join some online groups and find some friends! In the next few months there will be lots of students just like yourself who will want to make new friends and talk about your course. So, find them! There are usually Facebook groups set up by the university where people will post and make other groups as well as some societies having Discords and other Facebook groups so you can try and speak to people with the same interests as you early. If you’re going to university without knowing anyone this can make it seem a lot less scary and possibly help you meet people who you’ll be friends with when you start!

For practical preparations, it’s a good idea to look on your course page on the Universities website as well as other sites you’ll be given access to, like Evision. They will usually tell you what your modules are going to be or what you can choose from as well as sometimes giving you information about them! If it’s applicable, you may also be given some reading lists. Reading through all these different information sources can help you prepare for what you’ll need and what you should be reading if its something you want to do to prepare in advance. Similarly, keep an eye on your emails as the closer you get to September the more information you’ll be given to help you prepare. I also enjoyed looking at the Student Union a lot to see what clubs and societies were offered as well as the events that were being ran throughout the year.

I think one of the most important pieces of advice I can give around starting University is to appreciate and enjoy where you are now! University is a very different experience and it comes with a lot of different emotions and a lot of being very busy a lot of the time. So whether you’re t college, on a gap year or working it can be good to enjoy that moment. Enjoy spending time with your friends and family and make memories you can take with you to university! It can help if you start feeling homesick or missing people to know that you made the most of your time before starting this new journey in your life. I hope that this advice is helpful and can give you some ideas about how to spend the next months preparing! This September should hopefully be a lot similar to years before Covid but either way a lot of the advice is very applicable! I hope to speak to you guys soon!

Rhys (He/Him)