There are many different way to enjoy Uni. It took me quite a while to be comfortable with who I am here because I don’t really do the ‘normal’ student things. I’ve posted before about being yourself and to all of you guys reading I’m going to be honest, this is a tricky one. It seems so cliché for me to do the whole ‘who am I?’ thing, I know you don’t want to read it, so I wont.   What I am going to do right now is be brutally honest about what I enjoy about uni at the moment (it may change) and be totally honest.

Going to the pub

 

This week I went on a spontaneous trip to the pub, it was the most comfortable I’d felt in town in a while. The best thing? There was no pressure to get drunk, we sat, chatted and laughed oh and we ate,  that’s always a good thing. I love my friends and these guys in particular know me well enough to respect my choices

Eating out!

These are a few of my Kingston Hill friends on a trip to Frankie and Benny’s, I’ve started to love eating out although maybe that’s because I’m hopeless at cooking…

Changing things for other students

So there isn’t a picture for this one but I’ve started trying to get involved with helping other students, the blog was just the start! I’m in talks with the Student Union about Mental Health and I will be applying to be a Student Ambassador to hopefully work with potential students and be as good to them as our student ambassadors were to me.

Film nights with the girls 

Ok so this picture was from army night but you get the jist. Christie and I love film nights when we’re both here, Dream Girls is next on the list!

Making music

This one hasn’t change and I hope it never does, this photo is from the SU website after we played in there a week or two ago, I met some really great people there too 🙂

Getting involved in what I want to study

I get really excited about having options of what I can study. There are so many possibilities within Literature! I may sound like a geek but in a way I am so glad because that means I chose the right thing to study, bring on second year options!!

Being a part of ‘Amy moments’ 

This girl makes me laugh so much! There are things that just seems to be classic ‘Amy moments’ for example dancing around the Spoons toilets and triumphing over the Henry Hoover….as I said ‘Amy moment’s

Cuddling up with the best guy in the world

We might act old but I love this guy and cuddles are THE best thing in the world after a long day.

BLOGGING! 

Well this one is fairly obvious isn’t it 🙂

Slightly worse for ware after all the rain…..

Last night I was excited beyond belief, my Mum was finally coming to properly visit Kingston! Despite not sleeping through the night and feeling awful when I got up we both got the the station at the same time for a very lovely cuddle. I love it when my Mum is here, although I have to admit it is a bit weird! This is going to be a brief post as I’m heading up to Kingston Hill tonight to help some lovely boys with their essays.

Although it wasn’t for long, having Mum up here made me realise that I’m actually pretty settled now. I loved showing her around, taking her on the bus (while she was very pleased she could pretend to be a student) and just generally telling her everything about uni. The best thing though was how much we laughed today, I’ve missed just laughing with my Mum and our silly sense of humour. After out christmassy hot drinks it was time for her to go though but I’ll be seeing her again this weekend along with the rest of my family!!

I’m sorry in advance for this post being short but as you can tell from the title I didn’t get much done today. After staying up talking to my flatmate Jamie (and then my very drunk flat mate Jay) until 4am I did intend to get up. I actually did get up at 11.30 and had a shower, then I got up again at 2.00 and again at 4.00, this is definitely not like me but now my headaches gone and I’ve had a lazy student day! 

Tomorrow I have my Mum coming to visit so hopefully there will be more to write about! 

Ok so there comes time where certain students *cough,cough* end up changing their minds about what course they want to do. Now when I was at college I thought this was crazy, how hard is it to choose a course? Here’s the answer, very and a lot of people change their minds along the way. As we all know you don’t get that much time between finishing your first year at college and having to know what you want to study. Here are a few tips for you, yes you sitting there thinking you have all the time in the world. You don’t.

1. Do you have any idea what you want to do? 

If you do that’s fantastic and you are one of the very few lucky ones who has a clear goal in mind, skip ahead. For those of you who are like me and have no idea what you want to be when you grow up here’s the plan. Ask yourself 3 questions..

– What do I like to do?

– Is there anything I’m interested in that I could study?

– Is Uni the only option for this? (I added this one as uni doesn’t suit everyone and for over £8000 you don’t want to be forced into going)

2. Why do I want to go to Uni? 

There are so many reasons people go to Uni but let me put this simply it’s not all parties. We all hear tales of the freshers that come back in the summer months claiming to be drunk every night and asleep all day, I’ll tell you now that rarely happens. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but if that is why you’re coming to uni then you will have a rude awakening. You are encouraged to meet friends and have fun but at the end of the day you are at uni to work, that’s what you’re PAYING for! Make sure you’re applying with some motivation to actually do the work when you get there because no one wants to repeat first year.

3. Where do I want to be? 

Location,location, location. When I started looking at Uni’s the most important thing was where I felt at home at my first open day at Kingston I didn’t think it would win at all. It felt busy and crowded and ugly, something I really didn’t want. My heart was set on the beach and I actually told someone at Kingston this on my first visit then I visited again…and again. I fell in love with it and now I’m here Kingston Hill is one of my favourite places (and I don’t even study there). My main advice for this is don’t just look at the Uni itself go and look at the surrounding areas, I’m sure I would have fallen in love with Kingston the first time had I done that.

4. Visit as many Open Days as possible…and try and see through the free sweets

 Every University you visit are trying to pull you in, remember that. Some give away prizes, sweets,chocolate,pen etc. in order to try and persuade you but really think about what you want to know (plus you get all this in freshers week anyway). You’ll be paying off the debt for a very long time so you need to be sure of the University and what it stands for. One of the reasons I liked Kingston and decided to apply was because I really felt like there were no stupid questions ( I still feel like that now actually) and that I would be taken on as a person, not a statistic. Don’t be scared to talk about yourself and what you need either, if you have a worry or an issue be open with them, see what they say.

5. Talk to people who have studied your subject

My boyfriends cousin was so helpful with this. She was finishing her final year at Uni when I was applying so any questions I had she could tell me the truth. Don’t always trust forums though because some people will try to scare you, especially if you’re moving to London. Not everyone has a helpful family member so try talking to your subject teachers, ask your uni if they have any way you can talk to students (Kingston have a whole blog set up where current students can answer any questions you have).

6. If you make the wrong decision don’t panic! 

 So I’ve done the UCAS, the exams, freshers week, THE LOT. Guess what? I chose the wrong damn course. Although these are tips people get to uni and realise that they were wrong and that’s ok. It took me a while to admit that I didn’t like my Creative Writing course but now I have things are being sorted out. I can sleep knowing that next year I’ll be full field Literature and it wont make a difference to my overall degree. So if you get a bit stuck go and talk to someone, everyone can make a mistake the important part is to fix it.

Claire and I at Ali’s birthday dinner 

Ali’s birthday was made extra special this year, with a visit from his big sister! This meant I had a visitor for the night. Now I’ve already spoken about Ali’s surprise party and everything that happened yesterday so I won’t remind you again. Today I had Claire all to myself and it was time to show her around Kingston, shopping style. Having said that I was quite lucky have Claire as a guest, she generally knows where she wants to shop so we didn’t spend hours being indecisive.

In fact the best thing about today was where we found our ideal buys (well Claire did, I didn’t buy much today). I’m a big fan of charity shops and apparently so is Claire. After out last shop in Kingston (a vintage shop on Old London Road) we decided to head back to Surbiton and see what we could find, the result was just short of beautiful. Claire found lots of beautiful designer clothes for a fraction of the price, I think it’s safe to say she went home with lighter pockets but a bigger smile.

It was so great having Claire here because she is a hub of uni advice. Although some things have changed since she graduated (although not much, she only graduated a year or two ago!) the best thing she’s taught me is that you don’t have to know what you want to be when you leave Uni. She’s still searching and she’s happy, so it gives me hope. I’m back at the flat alone now and it’s a little too quiet and a little lonely after it being the first night back by myself but alas the essays are calling me….

 

Just after midnight on November 2nd you could hear the excited sequels of a new box of Lego being opened. You may assume this was a pair of naughty children who had waited till midnight to open their birthday presents, that wasn’t the case Ali and ben got very excited by The Hobbit Lego Ali got for his 20th birthday. As you can see above no time was wasted, we sat and watched Ali put it together until about 1am while I was secretly ecstatic that Ali still wasn’t a grown up haha!  I’d casually joked to him that once he turned 20 I would leave him for a younger model, I didn’t you’ll be pleased to know. I don’t know why but I find 20 a really big deal and I dread that in 10 months time I’ll have to face being in my twenties…your twenties is where your supposed to figure things out! Uh-oh!

The next day Ali had no idea what was in store and he stayed in bed while I went to pick up his sister from the station. She knew what was going on and I filled her in on the final details as we dropped her stuff at mine. Meanwhile the party was being prepared and I was stuck on a bus 20 minutes away, luckily we managed to get back in time. This was the result…

 A cake made of doughnuts 

A brilliant table decoration thanks to Amy, Alexia and Ben 

 

And a happy Ali after we ended up in Pizza Hut (despite me getting the wrong present oops!). After that he got to also spend some time with his sister, I’d call it a success 🙂 Happy 20th Ali, I’ll forgive you for getting old.