Should I go to an Applicant Day?

After you’ve been to an open day, maybe around the time you go for a university course interview you may be invited to an applicant day – to get a taste of your course and the kind of things you’ll be doing once you go to university (if you choose to go to that university that is).

But while you’re still deliberating your offers and waiting for other interviews, here are some reasons you should make the most of an applicant day!

• An applicant day gives you the opportunity to see the university again.
• Take a campus tour to get a feel for the university, especially if you’ve not been to the university before you can have a look around!
• You can see the facilities in your department and what you’ll get to work with if you decide to go to that uni.
• You can see the accommodation – if you like the course, halls shouldn’t necessarily be a deciding factor but it’s nice to have a little look around where you might be living.
• Ask questions whilst there are lecturers and other tutors actually around – a lot of faculty won’t be around on open days, so make the most while people are actually there!
• Talk to students who are already on the course – applicant days are a chance to talk to students who have been in your position and decided to do the course you’re interested in, so if there’s anything you need to ask that you don’t want to ask a lecturer, make the most of asking other students!
• Just ask a lot of questions. Questions are good.

Essentially; see everything, ask about the units you’ll be doing when you start the course and ask about employability because mums like it when you tell them how employable you’ll be when you graduate.

Applicant days are really useful and you get out of them what you put into them, so make the most of the opportunity to find out more about where you might be living.

 

In The Student Seat: Sophie
blog: SophieCountsClouds

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New Year, New Plan -The Student Seat in 2017

I wanted to write a more person, kind of admin post today to talk about what I have in mind for The Student Seat this year! ‘I’ being Sophie, hi.

The Student Seat has been a real passion project of mine since I came up with the idea in August – I love talking about and sharing the student experience and seeing it come this far has been so rewarding.

In just four months I’ve had some incredible guest writers writing about a huge variety of topics, I’ve been in contact with an awesome social media company to work with them and I can’t wait to see The Student Seat grow even more in 2017.

I really want this blog to succeed and I’m hoping to have more contributors and post a lot more in the coming year – so far I’ve been writing a post every other week around guest writers and I’m planning to not write as much next year, hopefully we’ll have even more guest writers posting about an even bigger variety of topics. We might even start posting more than once a week but all of this depends on having enough guest writers for now.

Talking and writing and encouraging other people to talk and write about student life and the student experience means a lot to me – as a student, I know lots of other students and I know lots of people who are about to leave for university who have no understanding of what university life is like and I want to give them somewhere to read about student life from the perspective of students.

If you, the one reading this blog post right now, could share this blog, tell people who might be interested in writing that this blog exists and share our Facebook and Twitter pages for people to get in contact! Even just reading this blog is helpful, so thank you for letting The Student Seat be part of your 2016, here’s the 2017!

 

In The Student Seat: Sophie
blog: SophieCountsClouds

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Taking a Leave of Absence from Uni

Committing to a university degree is daunting, let’s be honest. You literally have to decide, yes I’m going to spend around 4 years studying this one thing (while having no money, just saying). There will be points when you think “No I really can’t do this, I’ve got 20 assignments due and 5 exams tomorrow and I REALLY WANT TO GO OUT”. That is so normal and you’ll get over it, knuckle down and TADA you’re out with all your friends.  But what happens when you really and truly realise you’re way over your head and stop coping?

This is exactly what happened to me.

I started my third year of university and the proverbial hit the fan. Everything suffered… my work, mental health and relationships all plummeted. For the first five months of my third year I was a wreck and being completely frank, I barely remember them. Between the depression and binge drinking there’s a lot of memories missing for me.  Some days I don’t think I got out of my bed, depression was that debilitating.

One morning, after a particularly heavy night of boozing, being carried home by my friends (and the odd security guard) anxiety and depression making their presence know, enough was enough. Not only were my course, relationships, physical and mental wellbeing at risk; I was 100% on the path to destruction. We’ve all heard horror stories of students committing suicide or dropping off the radar completely and it all makes sense to me now.

So I left. Packed my bags, talked to my tutor, who genuinely deserves a medal for putting up with my issues that year, rang my long suffering Mum and left. It took me about a week at home to get everything sorted out, just a week to put my BSc Physiotherapy on hold, stop my accommodation and slip back into my pre-uni life. Genuinely the best decision ever made!

You might think that just upping and leaving is cheating, or taking the easy option, or quitting… but honestly it just isn’t. One of the most important things about university is learning to look after yourself and knowing your limits.

After a few months of R&R, CBT and support, I’m re-enrolled, back on track and even job hunting for my graduate job. What I’m trying to say is…don’t kill yourself to get a diploma because it’ll be no use if you’ve self-destructed into a quivering wreck. The advice I offer is to find yourself a good university contact, like a tutor or lecturer and let them help you and familiarise yourself with the counselling service that your uni offers.  Work hard, play hard but look after your well-being, and don’t be afraid to say you’re not coping.

Taking a leave of absence or abeyance isn’t quitting or leaving for good, it’s simply saying “I want to do this, but right now it’s not the right place for me”.

In The Student Seat: Sarah

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Doing Christmas on a budget!

Christmas at uni can be a little bit difficult – being a student, you have a lot more responsibility and buying Christmas presents isn’t always cheap so here are some ideas for getting presents on a budget and celebrating the holiday without breaking the bank.

Charity shops – charity shop products are often associated with being grotty and second hand but you can find some real gems, even if it’s just little stocking fillers, it can be an easy way to get some nice things and cheap. Or if you want more of a main present than a filler, you can use charity shops are a platform for making some really sweet, personal presents – you can buy photo frames and put pictures of you and your sibling or your partner or your pet in and give it to your parents or grandparents.

Plan! After Bonfire Night a lot of stores and TV ads go intensely Christmassy, so at that point it’s a good idea to jot down all the names of people you want to buy presents for and having a think about what you want to get them. Planning ahead means you can buy what you want all in one go and you also don’t miss some good deals that the shops have, particularly with it being Black Friday this weekend, Amazon has loads of deals and I’ve been getting spam emails from every website I’ve ever bought something from with cyber weekend sales – it’s the perfect weekend to buy all of your presents if you’re organised enough to plan it all in advance.

Decorations aren’t expensive – in my first year, I bought a three-foot tree for £8 and a bunch of decorations, tinsel and fairy lights from Poundland – it came to less than £15 total and you could ask other people your living with to contribute if you’re wanting to do it for less. The only thing I forgot was a star but that led to a fun afternoon of my friends making stars out of paper and making a top hat? It was so silly. The point is – it’s not expensive to make your house have that little bit of Christmas sparkle.

Personal presents – having touched on this already with photo frames, making something that has a more personal touch than economic value can save your bank balance and actually be received better than a more expensive present. Photo albums, collages, scrapbooks, promise of a day out or a night in, IOUs like a massage after a long day or a nice bath after work – I have had a few friends where we wrote stories for each other for Christmas, whether it included characters we loved from our own stories or other stories, it was so much fun. I bought little notebooks and printed pictures and stuck them all in and made a little photo book and it was so much fun, I loved making it and the friend I gave it to really loved it too, she might even still have it.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year and whilst it can be difficult to not be able to give your family and friends what they really deserve when you don’t have the money for it, but that doesn’t mean Christmas can’t be as good as any other Christmas.

Happy holidays!

 

In The Student Seat: Sophie
blog: SophieCountsClouds

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