Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and welcome all our new first years to UL! Trust me when I say that the people who use the saying “the time you spend in school are the best years of your life,” never went to university, because honestly the best is yet to come!
Whether you are commuting or moving away from home, you will still have a great college experience. A lot of the students who commute are afraid they’ll miss out on the full college experience – but this is not the case. There are several people in my course who commute, either driving or using public transport and the only thing they might have missed is a 9am lecture if the bus times don’t suit- but who’s really complaining about that?
As for nights’ out, once you make friends, you can just stay at your friend’s houses. After a tipsy night, you will sleep anywhere and there’s always a spare bed, couch, chair, or piece of floor that someone is willing to lend to you for the night. On the other hand, people who move away from home have completely different things to worry about. You could fear you’ll hate your housemates- or that your housemates will hate you. I personally got very lucky with my First Year housemates. Obviously we had our disagreements (sometimes big ones) but at the end of the day, we all got on well and I’m happy to have shared that experience with them.
Some people do get housemates who they don’t get along with all that well, but even that isn’t the worst. This isn’t like secondary school, where you’re stuck with bunch of people you may not have much in common with but are obliged to befriend. You don’t have to hang out with anyone you don’t want to in college, even your housemates. However, if you are finding particular housemates difficult, just remember that many colleges offer options to transfer accomodation if needs be, and at the end of the day it’s only for a year. After that, you can find a house to rent with the friends you’ve made in your first year and things will only get better from there! My best advice to give you is to be yourself but also respect that other people do things differently, and you might have to make sacrifices.
Be open to new ideas, like joining a club or society. You might want to join something that you already participate in at home or you might want to be crazy and spontaneous and try something you’ve never done before- don’t forget, you can always write for us here at Her Campus too! Her Campus is the number one new-media brand for the empowered college women and provides internationally recognized work experience and whether you’re a Journalism student or a business student, everyone needs to express themselves and if you have a creative passion, you’re more than welcome to get in touch!