Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog for another post. So as I am now in my second year of university. I thought I would share with you all the things I regretted about my first year of uni. There are several things I learned and hopefully this post could help someone avoid falling into the same traps I did. So keep reading to see my regrets and what I would change if I could. Going out. I have been out with people from uni a grand total of twice. Yep. Groundbreaking isn’t it. I just haven’t gone out. I went once in freshers week and then once at the end of the year to celebrate our new found summer freedom. But mainly due to the fact that 90% of the friends I have made this year didn’t live on campus so as soon as lectures were over they would go home and then I was by myself for the rest of night most of the time. That’s how the coffee dates and movie nights started. I needed something to do that I liked. And I was not prepared, and I’m still not, to go out on a night out in Birmingham by myself especially where the student nights happen. It’s just not safe. The gay village on the other hand, hell yes and I have done it like twice now and had the best time ever. But back then during the first term I was so anxious and hating everything that I just wanted to cuddle up in bed with my Mickey Mouse and not do anything or face anyone. So it’s partly circumstance and partly my own fault. But I do wish that i’d found more people that lived on campus sooner than I did, to go out with. I think doing that would have helped me to meet people quicker in a non uni environment which is less serious and more natural. I also could have let off more steam and release some stress.
Doing my own thing, it was the easy option. But I was an anxious / depressed wreck at first because I still wasn’t totally sure I wanted to be at uni in the first place. Not joking when I say that during first year I was adamant I was gonna drop out at Christmas and I was counting down the days to submitting a leave university application. I’m a creature of habit and once I know what I like and what I don’t, I stick to what I know. So I just carried on doing my thing: going to London to see people, going home for weekends (i missed my bed okay), Netflix, solo brunch dates, coffee dates and going to the gym. I really should have done more things with other people at uni especially in the first semester. But it’s worked out fine now because I have some great friends at uni who I love vv much. But as well, all thanks to this amazing platform I have so many more friends now that live in Birmingham, not necessarily at uni, who I can see regularly so I wont be on my own so much. But fortunately now I am pretty much recovered and healed from both my mental illnesses so second year should be better already in that sense. Taking the first term for granted. It was so much calmer and easier in the first semester because the university are trying to ease you into it and I didn’t realise it until the second term where the pace was ramped up by several notches. So if you have days off in your first term make the most of them because it might not be the same next semester. I didn’t and often slept in late or went home for the day or something. But I could have used a day to work, like at my job not just study or do other things that were productive. Like for me I had Wednesday’s and Friday’s off in the first semester and it was lushhh. Long weekends every weekend. But then in the second semester I had classes or a class every weekday. So I was busy everyday and had to be on campus every day sometime at really inconvenient times and I honestly missed the empty days or lecture free days so much. So don’t take them for granted. Coming home as often as I did. I was feeling really lonely and not talking to a single person for hours on end was really getting to me and I was starting to go a bit crazy. So if I felt crap I would just go home. It was worse in the first term but that was due to the fact that something happened on my campus to my dad at the end of freshers week. Basically he was robbed at gunpoint after walking me home. And since then I just haven’t felt safe in my halls at all. So I kept going home, especially the first few weeks and months after it happened because I was waking up in the middle of the night crying and panicking thinking that I was gonna get hurt and every time I heard a noise I would wake up and jolt awake suddenly. So I felt really unsafe and was struggling to sleep. So I would go home just so I could feel safe for a night and get a good night sleep. In hindsight I shouldn’t have done it and if I had toughed it out I would have adjusted back but because it was so easy to go home and because I had essentially been through a trauma I didn’t know what else to do or where else to go. Linked to the last point, maybe I shouldn’t have moved out at all. This is a complicated area and I have mulled it over so many times. I think I will always have the ‘what if’ question hanging over my head. I have learned a lot from moving out but then it has caused so much faffing around and I kept coming home anyway. But last summer was unbearable and all I wanted was my own freedom and my own space. I got that but I don’t think I’ve made the most out of it. Not getting involved with on campus activities and societies. But I have reasons for this. Joining societies. I tried to but they all seemed super bitchy and cliquey and I’ve had enough of people like that, well at least the ones that somewhat interested me in some way. Not getting into a productive routine like I have now as soon as I started uni. I got into a good routine in term 2 and it helped so much and I did better academically as a result, and if I had done that in term 1 I would have been so much more productive and probably would have achieved more. But it’s cool, even though this is a regret I have learnt from my mistakes and I am determined not to make the same ones in second year. It’s all a learning curve. Healthy eating. Or a lack of it. I slacked off in the first term and I felt terrible by the time the Christmas holidays arrived. Like I literally felt like a slug. It was so gross and it impacted me mentally a lot too as well as in my skin n stuff. In the second term I was much better at it. But the main issue was that I couldn’t keep fresh stuff, really, because I didn’t have enough fridge space and I had nowhere to keep it all. Whereas at home we have two sections in the fridge just for fruit and veg plus a whole fruit bowl full of goodies. Now i’m back at home it’s much better but I did miss just having healthy stuff there for the taking when I wanted it when I lived in halls and I wished I’d got my diet under control sooner instead of being lazy and using the treat yourself attitude so often. So there we have it those are some of my regrets about my first year of uni. I hope this was insightful in some way and for me writing this shows how much I’ve changed in a year and it feels good to see my mistakes and know what to do to avoid repeating them. I do like reflecting on things now an again. Thank you for reading if you got this far and if anyone reading this has just started uni I hope you’re enjoying it and it’s going well so far. But for now i’ll say bye and I’ll see you all soon for a brand new post. Love Jade xxx
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