First year is great and you’re going to have loads of fun but, if you’re anything like me, and you’re starting first year you’re going to be scouring these blogs for advice and reassurance! I’ll try!
Social
You will make friends. They might be you’re hallmates, coursemates, in the club you joined, met them at a club (most likely on the way back) or you decided to crash their table one night (yes, don’t judge me, it worked!). Wherever. You will make friends and you’ll probably find it a lot easier than in school, you’ll always have science in common!
Make it easier on yourself though! If someone invites you to something, go! (Unless you think they’re a psycho – use your judgement…). Trust me, you have time in first year! Go to your hall events, no one knows anyone anyway, they’ll never know if you came alone. Talk to people on the tube (if they go here, but you can talk to other people too 😉 ). Sit next to people in lectures, don’t be the person who leaves the space. This all sounds really obvious but sometimes you just need someone to remind you. Everyone’s in the same boat! Also try and make friends outside your course, it’ll be a life saver next year when your course is hectic and you have less time to socialise!
Academic
Henry’s done great posts on this! You should check out his stuff for revision and how to take notes. If I’m going to say anything it’ll be don’t worry. You probably got straight A/A*s and were at the top of your year in school and I know I got to first term and panicked. I wasn’t on top of notes and people could think of questions to ask in lectures, whilst I was trying to understand their question! It was also the first time I hadn’t felt on top of everything for exams. It’ll work out okay when exams come around. Just make sure you keep up to date with writing up your lectures, think of extra reading as helping you understand and email lecturers with questions, it doesn’t have to be immediately after the lecture either.
Careers
I know leaving university seems far away but make sure you start thinking about what you want to do. Go to the careers service for help with your CV and think about a UROP, even if you are only first year. If you’re applying to a Year in Industry/Research an internship will be invaluable!
Societies
Please join one! Even if you stop going after first term at least you’ll know what they are J. It doesn’t have to be sport either! Look around Freshers Fair, get a whole load of leaflets, join loads of mailing lists, spend the next 9 months unsubscribing and develop that passion to be a magician or knit a hat or play lacrosse. You’ll meet loads of people along the way. Ethos also has a swimming pool which you don’t have to pay the gym membership for, just so you know.
2 comments for “First Year Reassurance”
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Hello! Is there any restaurant in the campus for the students of Imperial? Where there is probably a discount for them or something? And secondly, it would be really kind of you if you could tell me whether there are special offers for students to by laptops etc.
Hey! There are loads of places to eat on campus/buy lunch type food (you can’t miss them) and they have student rates on food. They also use a kind of loyalty app called yoyo wallet which gives the occasional freebee. As for the laptops, I’m not too sure other than the generic student discount stuff, but I know Imperial gives you free microsoft packages and if you go on the link you can get some free antivirus/other software. Hope that helps!
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/ict/store/software/more-free-software-students/