GOING TO UNIVERSITY: YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
(from 'The Driffield Leader,' September 2008)
So it’s September already, and your younger brothers and sisters (and any teachers you might know) have already started back at school. You, meanwhile, are left at home, making a vain attempt to pack – but putting it off for another half hour by reading the local free newspaper. This is because you’re starting university this year, and as a university veteran, I’ve written this article to answer a few questions you might have.
What do I need to take?
When I asked an actual new student what questions they had, they replied ‘I’ve no idea! I don’t even know what I need to know!’ Having said that, however, they came up with this question – so if not the most important, it must be at least the most pressing.
A good idea is to start packing a few weeks before you go. Every time you use something in your home, you can pack it, or at least put it in an area with other things you are going to take. This will ensure you don’t forget anything really important. But you should also take a few things that mean something to you, to ‘personalise’ your room, and make it feel a bit more homely.
You might be tempted to stock up on food, and things such as loo rolls. I was, but this is probably a bad idea. As early as day two, the people ‘off my floor’ (in the halls of residence) organised an en-masse trip to the shops, in two cars, during which I managed to pick up anything I was still missing. They were a bizarre gang, a group of people who would never hang about together in real life, and who were all at each other’s throats by the end of week one. As we were told during our first lecture: ‘you’ll probably not even be speaking to your current friends by the end of year three.’ (It was quite a straight-talking place.)
What sort of people will there be?
The answer is, every sort. There will be darkly mysterious teenagers from Russia, and there will be frighteningly intelligent executives, who (after a mid-life crisis) have abandoned their lucrative jobs ‘in the city’ to make a fresh start of things. Mostly, however, there will be eighteen-year-olds who’ve never lived on their own before, and are just as concerned and nervous as you. In fact, the executives will be concerned and nervous too – they have simply learned to hide it through years of board meetings.
Either way, you will never again have the chance to meet such a wide variety of people, so you should try and make the most of it. (Once you’ve settled in!)
Will I make friends?
The refreshingly definite answer here is – yes. I go to the smallest campus in the country, and even there, every misfit and reprobate has found plenty of people to hang about with. You’ll probably be going to a massive place, where people will be literally queuing up to be your friend. You might think that queue is to collect student loan payments - but no! It’s to be your friend!
What will the work be like? How is it all marked?
There will almost certainly be lots of essays, but don’t worry if that’s a weakness of yours – everyone’s in the same boat, and the university will offer lots of help. Also, on a lot of courses, your marks in the first year don’t actually count towards your final grade (you just have to pass), which gives you a bit of time to ‘beef up’ your academic skills.
Your marks will be in percentages – anything over seventy is known as a ‘first,’ which is very good indeed. In the sixties is a ‘two-one,’ the fifties is a ‘two-two,’ in the forties is a ‘third’ (or just a pass), and anything below that is a sad case of failure. But whatever you get, you can still walk out (with your academic gown and scroll) and tell everyone you’ve got a degree, and are therefore a genius.
Will I have enough money?
Being in further/higher education at the moment is a strange situation, where the less money your parents have, the richer you will be personally (due to grants and so on.) However, you will definitely have enough money to get by, as the government calculate the loans to make sure you do. Though if you’ve got rich parents (and therefore, a small grant) you may have to tighten your belt a bit, but will still be easily able to afford rent.
The difference can be expressed like this. If you’re the only son of two affluent doctors, any pizzas you buy will be the ‘value’ variety – just a bit of stale bread, with a half-hearted sprinkling of cheese and some red paint. If you’re one of several children, ruled over by a hard-working librarian, you’ll probably be able to stretch to the ‘own brand’ pizzas. And if you’re one of a dozen kids, with a single parent busking for a living, you’ll be able to hire an Italian chef to work round-the-clock with the best ingredients money can buy. It’s a funny old world.
What will the accommodation be like?
This is a tricky one for me to answer. It’s different everywhere, and you’ll just have to make a judgement based on what you saw on the ‘open day.’ (You did go to the open day, didn’t you? Oh dear.) What I do know is that your accommodation will be either ‘catered’ or ‘self-catered,’ with catered involving the university cooking all your food for you, and you paying them.
Self-catered is the opposite way round – where you cook all the food for the university, and they pay you? Or is that being a dinner lady? I think I need to do more research. But either way, I’d like to wish you the very best of luck...and I’m sure wherever you go, you will have the time of your life.
