By Marianne Calnan

3rd year BU student, BA (Hons) English

University can be an intimidating, daunting step to take in a young person’s life to say the least. Once you’ve narrowed down your university choice, accommodation selection and packed your bags, there’s nothing left to do but travel to your home for the next three or four years and grab the experience with both hands.

The best advice I can provide for any new student is to get involved- with everything! No matter whether you’re mildly interested in a club or society or positively nuts about it, each new place you go and new activity you embrace gives you a chance to meet new people and grow, independently as a person.

Moving away from home, getting used to lectures, the uni itself and a new town can be overwhelming- it certainly was for me. But funnily enough, I was so busy during the fresher’s period that I barely gave a second thought to the academic side of my new life. There were so many events in the evenings and during the day that the first few weeks were so hectic, I barely had time to unpack!

Club events included club nights and promotions at the SU club The Old Fire Station; everything from a School Disco theme, to a Pirate theme and a beach party completed with an ice cream van parked in the club’s car park. Although these events were enjoyable, they were not always ideal to really get to know people and start to make friends.  However, events during the hours with sunlight provide an opportunity to learn something new and get to know people properly.

One experience that still stands out for me was joining the dance society, because by collaborating cerographical ideas and rehearsing, members were able to relax around one another and become acquainted. Competitions and performances also added some acceleration into the experience. On fresher’s week itself, there were also tours around the local area lead by volunteers in their second, third and fourth years of study, cooking tutorials and health and safety style lectures.

Over my time at university, the main thing I have picked up, as a person, is to be more selective about the friends and acquaintances I make. I’m sure you can imagine how overly eager and enthused everyone is to meet you during fresher’s week, but as time goes on, you get to know people better and better, and may discover you simply do not gel as people.

Although I am luckily enough to have an incredible set of friends based back home in London, which I have retained for my time in Bournemouth, and hope to for years to come, the friends I did make at uni made my experience unique and maturing. Housemates who were more capable at cooking than myself passed some of their skills and expertise onto me, and those who were better at managing money took charge of the bills.

However, although my three years in Bournemouth have (hopefully) delivered me a BA in English, I have also really matured and grown as a person. I can now manage my own finances better than ever before I know how to budget and, more importantly how to restrain myself when shopping! I am also safe in the knowledge that I can take care of myself overall- from cooking, to cleaning to managing my time.

University is the best and sometimes most difficult time in a young person’s life. Because you’re not just getting to know hundreds of new people and a new hometown, but you’re also getting to know yourself as you develop and progress as an academic and a personality.

Good luck and have fun!