I wish someone told me this as a uni freshmen…

Hello Zesties! University’s starting – I’m personally writing this as the first day of the academic year comes to a close. I know how it feels to be a freshman, being nervous about the upcoming 3-4 years of your life in terms of commitments, academics and friends. Here are some things I wish someone told me when I was a Year 1!

DON’T FALL BEHIND ON YOUR READINGS 👎

This is especially so if you are from a Humanities/Social Science/Law related degree. I’m personally in English, meaning that there are many things to read. In Year 1, I procrastinated and ended up dealing with a backlog of texts to skim through two days before the exam… While I managed to pull through in the end, the resulting stress from needing to cover 13 weeks worth of readings in two days was soo not worth it as I suffered from severe burn out during the winter holidays :(

My recommendation is to set aside some time each week to do your readings for a particular module and STICK TO IT. This will help you create a routine that ensures that you keep up to date with what needs to be prepared! This feels like a very cliche thing to advice on, but I kid you not, when readings snowball, it becomes a full fledged avalanche!

DON’T OVERCOMMIT (at least, from the get-go)

I love university because of the flexibility that I have in planning my schedule. Unfortunately, this creates the tendency for people to overcommit. I think it’s really tempting to do so since university is a time when people get their first taste of independence and freedom. However, at the end of the day, being a student is your first priority… you are paying A LOT to get a university degree, after all.

In the first semester of my first year, I only took up one CCA that had sessions once every two weeks so that I could get a feel of how to juggle my time in university. It was only from my second semester when I slowly began increasing the number of commitments that I had.

UTILISE YOUR UNIVERSITY’S RESOURCES 💻

The vast amount of resources that your university has is part of the reason why you are paying so much in the first place! Therefore, you should utilise them! I’m unsure of how this works for other universities, but for NTU, the school has a robust library system that allows students to gain access to so many journal articles and useful materials to support their learning. In addition, NTU gives students access to online courses on platforms like COURSERA and EDX, which sometimes gives you swanky certificates to flex on your Linkedin. There are also other student-exclusive services like very subsidised doctor consultations and mental wellness services. Thus, play around with your school websites – you may find hidden tools that will make your life easier.

There you have it! I hope that everyone has a lovely first week of school :)

#universitytips #universitystudent #universitylife #freshmentips #ntusg #nanyangtechnologicaluniversity #RealTalk