Moving to university – excitement and challenges
This guest blog post from Freya tells the story of her move from home to university and how she tackled the tricky times.
I recently moved from home to university during term time. I was excited for the parts like decorating a blank room, living in a city and hopefully getting stuck into that typical uni life of fun societies, good friends and enjoying my degree.
However, I was also really nervous that I would find it very lonely or that I would not be able to do it, particularly as I am not a big drinker and like going to bed before midnight! It was particularly hard because I had been quite unwell over the summer and was unsure about how moving away and different foods and routines would impact this. My mum really helped me with this by being very encouraging the whole time and reminding me that I could do this.
Lots of people sent me messages to check in and I actually found this overwhelming on top of everything else in the first few days, and I appreciated it more when people waited a few weeks and then sent me a message and actually followed up, rather than it just feeling perfunctory. It just added to the chaos at the beginning which wasn’t anyone’s intention but was still hard.
Trying new things
I also found it helpful to do some research beforehand to know what to expect: the wild swimming society was something I really wanted to join and I looked forward to this. I had to remind myself when I was feeling anxious about the transition that there were parts I was very excited for!
I think this experience has made me more independent and open to trying new things. Any transition I have ever done has always renewed my confidence in my ability to assimilate into a team of new people – every time I join an expedition group I am reminded of this and I had to use this to give me confidence this time too.
Whenever I am faced by something I am nervous about, I draw on a wealth of different memories that show me I can do this (or I have done something worse). It has also made me remember that I have faced and overcome every challenge in my life so far and, as my mum always likes to remind me, I can do hard things.
Positive mantras
These positive mantras are very bolstering to me when I am overwhelmed or anxious. I am really enjoying university, and I think it is important to consider that transitions take longer than just a few days at the beginning – I would say the process was my entire first term. I had to actually go back home to realise this and see that I had done it.
