7 Tips How to Survive First Term at Uni

By Student Cribs | June 16, 2022 | Reading Time: 6 minutes

Immersing yourself into a student life isn’t easy, especially after a summer chill and when your campus is so huge it seems more difficult to make friends. You may feel that you’re behind and can’t keep up with everything, but trust us – you’re not alone. No doubt, most of the other students that surround you feel the same way. That’s why it’s important to open up and calm down – everything is manageable, especially if you follow these 7 tips.

1. Manage time effectively

If you have days off during the week, consider completing an internship or get involved in volunteering. This will help a lot in a long run and will prepare you for the adult life quicker. If you have breaks between lectures, use this time wisely to do the readings, work out or chat with other students and meet new people at the uni.

2. Watch your budget

It can be tempting to spend your student loan on Amazon and food takeaways, but later on, you’ll have to survive on pasta with canned tuna and decline friends’ invites. Think ahead and be responsible with your finances. Use cash (we tend to spend more if we use card because we don’t feel how notes and coins in our pockets slowly disappear), and use apps to track your expenses.

3. Find balance between going out, resting and studying

Even though Fresher’s parties are all fun, make sure they don’t affect other important parts of your life. We don’t want to sound like your parents, but trust us – at the end of the day, a majority of people you’ll meet at those parties won’t stay in your life for a long time, so sometimes it’s not really worth it. The first year may not count, but your ability to keep up later does matter. Decide how often you’ll go out and stick to the plan. You might experience FOMO, but not all of the events and parties are as exciting as they’re being promoted.  

Sleep is also important because continuous skipping of morning lectures can really damage your reputation for lecturers.

4. Join societies

It’s a great way to meet like-minded people and take part in cool events. If your uni doesn’t have the society of your interest, launch one! It may seem challenging at first, but if you collaborate with your friends or someone who will be as dedicated to it, as you are, a society can grow into a very exciting project. The skills that you’ll learn will be very useful while internship/job hunting. And of course, it’s always great to meet people outside of your course. You never know who can be your next close friend.

Read our guide to societies you should join at the university.

5. Networking

By networking, we mean using all available options to meet new people – and it doesn’t have to involve drinking. For example, you can always contact someone from uni on Facebook, if you feel like you have something in common – there’s nothing to be worried about here, this is actually how many students became best friends. To make our point about going out straight – once you’ll meet the right people, you can hang out with them as often as you want, because a good company will keep you in a good mood instead of distracting from the studies.

6. Work out

Okay, this tale is old as time – the more active you are, the better you feel, sleep and study. Your university probably offers great discounts or memberships in the gym, so use this opportunity and start doing fitness! If you hate gyms, team sports are also an option. Football, badminton, rugby – there’s no way your student union doesn’t have these clubs! Not only working out will make you healthier, it will also improve your mood significantly by releasing endorphin. Best stress relief!

7. Explore your city

This tip will be more relevant to the freshers that moved to another city for studies. If you feel like spending so much time in a library, local pub and halls drives you crazy, get yourself out there and do some sightseeing on the weekends (Visit our blog for the things to do in major UK uni towns). Take your friends and hop on a bus tour, go to the hidden gems, explore cultural and historical parts of the city. 

Hopefully these tips will help you to get through the first term, share this post with friends if you liked it.

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