year 1 at university

University is tough, both workload and mentally. Moving to university was stressful to say the least!

I moved in to halls of residence in September 2016 and what made it worse, I moved in on my mum’s birthday! I chose to move in to halls that had a shared bathroom, because those halls had a catered option.

My room was huge! It has everything I needed. A bed, sink, wardrobe, book case and a desk. However, the one thing I needed did not work. WIFI! How was I meant to study when the wifi didn’t work in my room?! As soon as you stepped foot in my room, the wifi mysteriously cut off. This made me very stressed and homesick! Not even phone signal could save me as there were specific parts of my room which could get it. 

After countless emails and phone calls to the technicians, I managed to swap my room to an upstairs room in the same hall! The room had a different lay out, less storage but other than that, it was pretty much the same.

The catered option enabled myself to get hot and cold meals every day. It worked by adding £45 on to my uni-card so I could spend that money on food in the university’s food stalls. This was a beneficial decision as the food was incredible!! Especially the chicken nuggets! I ended up spending over £1000 on food in my first year so that was a great choice!

Midway through semester one, I chose to go home every weekend to see my family as I was struggling mentally with being away. This meant, I had 4 days to use £45 worth of food. This was easy!! Chicken nuggets every day for tea, and crates of Dr Pepper zero to use the remaining money up. I finished the first semester for Christmas and had 40 bottles of pop left over! It’s safe to say, I had great revision motivation!

Coming back after Christmas was difficult. I did not want to come back at all!!!

I came back into 2 weeks where I had exams on random days, and nothing else!

I WAS BORED SENSELESS!

I would spend my days crying on the phone to my parents/boyfriend. I wasn’t upset about the exams, I was just very homesick! I got so down that in the second semester I was researching apprenticeships in physiotherapy. I wanted to jack the whole university degree in. I was done. I was depressed and now, almost a year on, is the first time I’ve been able to talk about it without crying.

Without my friends, Jenna and Becca, my councillor, Alex, and my parents I would not have been able to carry on. I went in to second semester feeling negative about university, with only 2 people I trust. Fortunately, I wasn’t going through it alone, my councillor was great. She gave me lots of coping mechanisms and we discovered I felt my worst when I was bored. I was fine doing my work however I got upset when I stopped my work. I was very thankful for my boyfriend’s Netflix subscription. That saved me!! I watched series repeatedly to get me through it again, with the chicken nuggets!

In the February of my second semester, I received my DSA (disabled student allowance) technology to assist me with my dyslexia.

As it got to the end of the semester, I was getting excited to go home for 3 weeks. All I thought about was 3 weeks at home! (I neglected the thought that I had to go back for 2 weeks for exams, but hey ho, I did it)

My university first year university experience is one that I’d like to forget.

In 2 years’ time I can hopefully call myself a graduate sports therapist. That’s my goal.