The anxiety of starting university and freshers flu blues: Here's my advice for new students
The first week of university for most people is filled with too many late nights, overpriced club entry tickets - and a touch of homesickness.
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That is how it was for me in my first week at the University of Birmingham anyway – besides completing all of my essential reading ahead of my new modules starting, of course.
It is an unsettling feeling when your parents drop you off for 'freshers week' and leave you in halls of residence with a group of strangers, who you are suddenly forced to share a kitchen with – and in some cases a bathroom too.
On my first day, my mum scrubbed my new room to within an inch of its life before she was satisfied it was clean enough for me to live in, while I put pictures up everywhere, desperate to add a bit of character to the beige walls.
Suddenly, I was released from the care of my mum and dad and left to fend for myself, which at first I was elated with as a newly-turned 18-year-old - but the reality quickly sank in when I had to lug bags of food home in the rain from the nearest supermarket – a half-hour walk away.
And don't even get me started on navigating the student accommodation washing machines, with which I quickly began to eat into my student loan by paying £2 for each wash, and learnt that taking my dirty clothes home was probably a better idea.
