“Dear Rachel. What is your advice for a first year student? I am starting this year and I am particularly worried about making friends and moving to a new city.”
Starting your first year of university is a terrifying jump for anyone. Glasgow University is especially irritating because they leave you in the dark about your flatmates until the day you move in. It’s the age of social media, we should be allowed to do some precursory stalking!
Despite that, the first bit of advice I’d give you is to not assume that you and your flatmates will immediately hit it off. When you transition from secondary school to university (especially if you come from a small town) you might assume everyone will be just like you. Most of the time that isn’t the case. Yet, an amazing part of uni life is that you meet so many people with so many different life experiences. Even if your flatmates aren’t people that you’d normally be friends with, give them a chance. If they’re not horrible, it can make a world of difference living with people that you get along with when you’re feeling homesick.
That leads me onto my next point: you will, eventually, feel homesick. Whether it hits you on the first day or weeks after you moved in, you’ll find yourself missing the steadiness of home life. Everybody has a different perspective on what to do when you first start at university and want more than anything to go home. I had some friends who stuck it out from September to December who say it was the best way to settle in, which I could never do. Definitely don’t go home after the first week or two, because the clash between university life and home might hit you a bit too hard and set you back. Otherwise, just take each day as it comes and do what you need to do.
Lastly, try not to worry about the “progress” that you’re making, and whether you have enough friends or have achieved enough during Fresher’s Week. This feeling of inferiority is largely pushed by social media, and most of the photos of other people’s lives online sell a bit of a fallacy. Try to focus on your own experience. Push yourself to join societies if you can, since they can add a real sense of structure to what can otherwise be a pretty monotonous week. And don’t give up with them too early on. I think you’ll find that the best friends you make will come from the absolute randomest places.
Unfortunately, the anxiety that you feel will likely not go away straight away, but don’t let that deter you. Sometimes the things that make you happiest are what require the greatest sacrifice.
“I am having a difficult time adjusting to university because of a very bad case of imposter syndrome. In my lectures I feel like I am the only one that can’t type fast enough, while everyone speeds ahead around me. Seminars are even worse, the feeling of inferiority that grows from being surrounded by people who seem to always know more than me. What can I do to stop feeling this way?”
The “imposter syndrome” that you describe is completely normal, you’re definitely not the only person who feels this way. It can be hard to adjust to the shift from secondary school, where there is a diverse group of students with different attributes, to a university setting where each of your peers is pursuing the same subject. This sense of anonymity is something that every student goes through when they step into a lecture theatre packed with hundreds of people, all as enthusiastic as you, for the first time.
Seminars, in particular, can be very intimidating given the limited contact time and the fact that you don’t know your peers very well. The university system suits more extroverted people best. In school, I was always comfortable speaking up in class, but at university I’m one of the quieter people in the room. Despite this, I know that I’m more than capable of writing a decent essay when I put my mind to it. Just because you struggle to verbalise your thoughts doesn’t mean that you are any less worthy of having a place at university than someone else.
What you say you admire about other students is all the ways that they are different from you. So, it’s likely that they view you in the same light. You bring much more to the table than you think. Also, if every student has a different perspective in any given seminar, then I’m sure that makes for some much more interesting essays and presentations at the end of the semester. Besides, it would be boring if we all thought about things in the exact same way.
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