Studies

Do get a grip of your studies. Your going to enter a strange world. At school, for the most part, at GCSE level your teachers told you what to do and closely directed your work.

At A level things were a bit looser, you were perhaps given more freedom, you will have seen many go off the rails and "forget" to do their work on time or at all or turn up ridiculously late with poor excuses asking for more time etc.

At Uni you're going to be left on your own for much of your time. There are constant complaints of the low levels of contact time with the lecturers, although this differs from course to course. Students and Parents don't realise that Uni is organised for motivated and self sufficient students who are prepared to educate themselves largely - the Uni provides guidance and facilities but not day to day prodding and encouragement and monitoring - That's for YOU to do.

Your lecturers have a job and for the most part they will do it but you have to take responsibility for your own efforts to support them.

Get to know them, (the lecturers), find out your lecture schedule and assuming your course leader has a meeting during freshers week, (most will), make sure you go to meet them.

Once your settled in a bit and have been given an outline of what your course covers and a time table, make a copy and put it where you can see it. Mark up important dates. Do this NOW whilst your keen and before too much starts to take up your time.

MOST successful students are not swots, often not brilliant BUT what they almost always are is organised and determined. If this is not natural to you, make an extra effort, it will pay back.

Don't leave course work to the last minute, you will never do your best work at 4 am the day before the deadline. You need time to research, consider your work, do it and then review what you have done and make any modifications that come to mind.

Make sure you allocate time to do that. It's not all beer and crisps. If your not prepared to work then you may as well not be there.

Books

You will be given a reading list - DON'T go out and buy all the books they will cost you a fortune and you don't need many of them. Your uni library will have copies of all the course books BUT they get taken out quickly and some mean people will hog them so popular books can be a rarity in the library. There may be a second hand shop on campus - get in earl;y but think before you spend. I bought very few books and mostly used the library, even selecting older books rather than the most up-to-date and popular.

Get to know your library - Walk round the shelves to see what books there are. Go outside your area of interest. Pull books down and flick though - When you use information out of a book you will be expected to reference that book in your work - make a note of the title and author and page the information came from.

Copying is plagiarism and illegal. Most Unis now have various systems to catch this, even sophisticated software to check your work is original. 

Reading and rewriting information and crediting the source is research and legal and expected.

Get your library access, ( and internet), sorted out at an early point - Lots of books may be on line as E books and so give you better access. Anyway you want Email and Facebook access anyway don't you?

Get your Student union card sorted out as this will give you discounts in many places as well as access to the union (bar) with cheap beer etc.

TRY not to swill in alcohol every night (day) - Surprisingly you will find lots of opportunity to get free alcohol, try to exhibit some restraint. I am not a stuffy old fossil, just practical - It's hard to work and sit though lectures if your permanently hung over. (Don't ask how I know).

I would recommend you try to avoid getting pulled into smoking cigarettes, (or anything else for that matter). It only takes a few and your addicted, really!. Once addicted your into a VERY expensive problem that will be hard to loose and will simply eat money. That alone should be incentive even without the health warnings.

It's just easier to keep off them. No one will look at you as if you have 2 head's, it never bothered me. You just don't smoke. Its easier now you can't smoke in public buildings as standing in the cold September rain and wind isn't a great incentive to smoke.

Dropping out

It happens. Official figures say 9% to 10% of students drop out in the first 2 years, I believe overall the figure is much higher than that, Most reported, in a student union survey, that their problems were in order of priority:

1. Not being able to cope with not being directed all the time.
2. Not been able to cope with their own finances.
3. Not doing any work - fun took up the time needed to work.
4. Homesick.
5. Not making friends.

Don't fall into these traps.

BUT don't give up at the end of freshers week because it all seems strange, your homesick and friendless. Give it a chance, these problems are real but are normally overcome if you follow at least some the advice given so far.

A few students will realise they have enrolled on the wrong course - some sooner than others. If this is the case talk to your course leader and see the Uni admin - it is often possible to change course to a more suitable one for your future intentions but don't give in too easily because it seem hard. Things get easier the more you learn.