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Freshers guide to starting university

A guide to starting university for freshers by Ian Comerford. The guide covers money, loans, societies, accommodation and loads more. Visit Ian's website, or email him if you have any comments on it.

Surviving Freshers' Week
Managing Your Money
Grants and Loans
Coping with work
Joining Clubs and Societies
Finding a Place to Live
If All Goes Horribly Wrong

Surviving Freshers' Week

This is a task easier said than done. Many challenges lay ahead of you on your long journey through your first week at university. Not least of these are drinking ten pints of beer every night and then finding your way home in a city that no-one in your group of friends knows at all.

Many people are under the impression that life comes with no guarantees. If ever there were evidence to the contrary, it is the fresher's week at university. This week is practically guaranteed to be the most fun and the most expensive week of your life, the rest of your university career notwithstanding. You will meet countless new people (many of whom you will never see again after the first two weeks) and drink countless pints (many of which you will see again, the next morning).

The purpose of the freshers' week is, officially, to get all the new students registered on their courses, allow everyone to get settled into their accommodation, to get timetables sorted out and to receive an (extremely boring) introductory talk from the Chancellor of the university. Of course, the main reason for most people to attend freshers' week is to have a really good time.

Unfortunately, you do have to go through with the registration and boring talks business, otherwise you may find yourself not listed in course timetables, without a union card (essential to student life) and quite possibly with no grant cheque. It's painless really. For registration, you should find out where and when you are due to be registered. This information will probably have been sent to you in the post before you were due to go to the university. The time you register will probably depend upon which faculty you are in, and the initial letter of your surname. Those unfortunates with surnames A-H are usually stuck with hideously early morning registration sessions. Do not worry, however; all that is required of you during registration is that you queue up endlessly with thousands of other students, all equally hung over after the last night's various hall discos and union gigs. Occasionally, you will be asked to join another queue for no apparent reason, perhaps blindly sign a few documents here and there, and maybe, if you're really lucky, get sent to yet another queue because your options clash. A useful technique for dealing with such situations from within a beer-induced state of semi-consciousness is to nod intelligently, respond in the affirmative when questioned, and whatever happens, do try not to vomit.

It soon becomes clear at the end of registration that it was all worthwhile, when you are finally presented with the fruits of your labour—your passport to student life, your raison d'etre—the student union card. This small credit card size ID card will invariably sport the worst photograph ever taken of yourself (you remember that awful photo that you had to give the university at your interview—bored research students use state of the art, hi-tech equipment to make it look even worse before putting it on your card). This card will get you into many night-clubs cheaply, get you discounts at quite a few shops and fast food chains, and most importantly, will get you into the Students' Union.

The Students' Union is most likely where you will spend the majority of evenings in your fresher's week. It is characterised by having a hard-hitting, controversial and bang-up-to-date name—"The Nelson Mandela Building", usually. Inside, you will discover a plethora of useful amenities, such as a ten year old photocopier furiously groaning away in a corner, and a shop selling nothing but Mars bars and king size Rizlas. The unfeasibly large number of eating and drinking establishments present in most unions provides us with a small insight into the motivation of the common species studentus inebriatum.

Throughout freshers' week, though, remember the one golden rule—enjoy yourself. Don't go to the book shop and buy all the books on the reading list with the intention of finishing them before lectures start. True, you will have to get down to work once lectures start, but not during the freshers' week.

Managing Your Money

It is well known that grants for students are being reduced drastically every year, and the current level of grant, even when supplemented by the student loan, is barely sufficient to provide a satisfactory standard of living. Some say that's what student life is all about; learning to live cheaply, without all the comforts of most home environments. It is a sad fact, however, that an increasing number of students are quitting their courses for the simple reason that they cannot live on the money provided by the government.

For this reason, it is important to realise from the start that your funds are limited (unless of course your great aunt Mildred twice removed, and now sadly no longer of this world, left to you in her will three million pounds and a small dog named Harold). You must work out how much money you will have available to spend each term, taking into account how much you will be paying in rent and so on, and try not to spend more each week than you can really afford. Resist all temptation to spend your entire grant cheque as soon as you receive it. This is not always as great a problem as it may appear, as your rent for the term will most likely swallow the whole thing.

When applying for your student loan (which you should do as soon as possible, as it can take up to five weeks to process), you can specify whether you wish to receive the whole amount immediately, or to have it divided up and given to you in three payments, one each term. If you think you are likely to spend too much money in the first term, you should seriously consider the payment in instalments option, since spending the third term without any money is no fun at all, especially when the end of exams celebrations come around.

Most banks now offer interest-free overdrafts of up to a few hundred pounds to all students. Try to think of this option only as a last resort if you are really short of cash. Obviously the overdraft needs to be paid back at some stage, which can be difficult if you have no other source of finance other than your grant and student loan, and the banks tend to hassle you about your plans for repaying the money every month or so whilst you are in the red.

You will, no doubt, have been bombarded by many wonderful offers from various banks, trying to get you to open a new student bank account with them. Try to ignore the tempting offers of ten pounds worth of record vouchers, or as many odour eaters as you can get through in one year, that the banks use as a hook to get you to open the account. Look instead at the services that bank provides—do they have a cash machine near your university, or near where you will be living? Will the staff at the bank be prepared to discuss your money matters with you free of charge if you run into difficulties? These things are much more important than the silly free offers, as your account will most likely be with you throughout your student life. If, when you have had your account for some time, you are at all unhappy with the way your bank is treating you or if they do not provide for you the services that you think they should—then you can always change your account to a different bank, who will be happy to take your custom from the offending bank. Do this only if absolutely necessary, as you should try to build up a good record with a single bank. This will help the bank make more positive decisions in the future, regarding any applications for loans or overdrafts you may make.

The main thing to remember throughout higher education, and indeed throughout your life, is that if you are having any problems with money, go and see your bank manager. He or she will be able to talk through with you ways that you could budget better and may arrange a short-term extension to your overdraft to get you out of an immediate money problem. If you do not speak to you bank when you are having problems balancing your account, you may easily find yourself having cheques returned unpaid and going above your overdraft limit. Doing either of these things at most banks will inevitably incur an unreasonably large 'administrative charge'.

Grants & Loans

[At the moment this section is somewhat out of date - I'm working on obtaining current information from the LEA's, so watch this space. If you require detailed information on current grant levels please contact your Local Education Authortiy, whose number will be in your Yellow Pages.]

The amount of Local Education Authority (LEA) award that you will be entitled to is dependent upon a few different factors. For most, the main factors will be the combined income of their parents, whether or not they are studying in London, and whether they will be living at their parents' home whilst studying.

Table 1--Student Grants & Loans for 1996/1997
                           Basic Grant    Full Loan
Living at parental home      £1,400        £1,260
Living in London             £2,105        £2,035
Living elsewhere             £1,710        £1,645

Table 1, above, shows the maximum amount of grant to which you may be entitled, according to where you will be studying. Due to higher living costs in London, the grant is slightly higher than elsewhere, and if you are living at home you receive less as it is assumed your living costs will be lower. To work out approximately how much of this you will actually be entitled to, taking into account your parents' income, consult table 2, below.

Table 2--Parental Contribution Scale
Your Parents' Income       Their Contribution
below £16,050                  £0
£16,050                        £45
£20,000                        £348

£25,000                        £875
£30,000                        £1,418
£38,000                        £2,481
£45,000                        £3,414
£50,000                        £4,081
£55,000                        £4,748

£62,890 or above               £5,800

Work out your parents' combined gross income (the LEA may take into account some other factors at this stage, such as loan payments and other dependants), and the approximate amount that they will be expected to contribute to grant payments will be given by the chart. The maximum amount that they should contribute to each dependant in higher education is limited to the maximum grant level shown in table 1; if they earn £38,000 and have only one dependant at university, they do not pay him/her £2,281—they need only supply the £1,710, or whatever the grant level is. However, if they have two dependants in higher education, they will need to contribute £2,281 to the total grant level of £3,420. Thus, the total award paid by the LEA to the two students in this case would be £1,139; with the remainder made up by the parents.

The student loan, however, is not means tested in this way. You need only have been a resident of the British Isles for the past three years to qualify for the full amount shown in table 1. Your college will decide if you meet this requirement when you make your application for the loan.

Course fees—the money that is required by the university to pay for your tuition and equipment—are provided by your Local Education Authority for all British nationals. Even if you are sure that you will not be awarded any grant, considering your parents' income, you still must complete an award application form so that your course fees will be paid.

You may apply for the grant any time from the January before your course is due to start, until three months after your course has started. It is essential, in practice, to apply at least three months before your course starts to ensure that your grant cheque arrives at the college for you to pick up in time for the start of the first term. Your loan should be applied for as soon as possible after the start of the term; details on how to apply should be posted on most halls of residence and college building notice boards.

Coping With Work

Some students employ a strategy at university for coping with work that allows them maximum free time for sleeping until 'Neighbours' comes on, watching television and drinking beer at the students' union. This technique, known as work avoidance was conceived shortly after history's first university took in its students, and has been diligently developed to its modern state of perfection by students across the ages. It is worth noting that those students incorporating this tactic into their life at university are invariably those found sadly bereft of degree certificate after three years; such is the efficiency of the technique.

The approach to work at university is very different from that which you are used to at a school sixth form or a college. Undoubtedly, the emphasis is much more upon self-motivation. You are expected to do a great deal of work outside lectures, without having to be asked to do so. Quite often, work will be given out by lecturers and not expected to be handed in for marking. It is essential to realise from the start that the work still must be done it order to gain a thorough understanding of the subject being studied. Comparatively little time at university is devoted to tutorials and suchlike, the majority of the time being consumed by lectures consisting of large groups of students simply listening to a lecturer talking for an hour or two. Very little input is expected by most lecturers from their students.

The whole idea of this takes quite a lot of getting used to, but you will get used to it and should learn to use what little tutorial time you have to your best advantage. Most degree courses have at least some tutorial time set aside for small groups of students to get together with a tutor to discuss any problems they may be having with their work, and also to go over problem sheets. It is essential to prepare for these sessions beforehand. You should, throughout each week, make a note of any problems you have had understanding work in lectures, and mention these in your tutorial. Your tutor should be able to clarify most points in the tutorial, but if there is anything he or she is unable to discuss there and then, they can always help you by referring you to one of their colleagues who may be able to help, or arranging to see you individually another day.

The amount of work that is expected of you in higher education is obviously greater than that expected at 'A' level standard. The exact amount depends a lot upon which course you are doing, but generally, you should aim to be working approximately these hours:

About one hour for each lecture you have had during the day, to go over and clarify your notes.
A couple of hours each week to prepare for tutorials.
A minimum of five hours should be set aside at the week-end to do problems sheets and various homeworks that have been set for you during the week.
Finally, don't forget to set aside some (but not too much) time to relax. A high stress level rarely induces good work.

Try to take advantage of what free time you do have to the full. Using your free Wednesday afternoon (set aside by most universities as an afternoon off, for sporting activities) to play your favourite sport is a great way to relax and relieve tension.

Do not let things get on top of you. If neglected, work in higher education can very easily pile up to the point that you never get some things done; you may have left an essay until a couple of days before it is due in, and then suddenly find you have two problem sheets to complete for the same deadline. In this case, you just become needlessly over-stressed and end up only handing in two of the three pieces of work, or handing in three poorly done pieces. Always complete work that needs to be printed on the computers well before its deadline, as it is extremely likely that others will be working to the same deadline, and it can take up to six hours (sometimes longer) to get it printed.

Finding a Place to Live

If you are moving to a different part of the country to study, one essential is of course to find somewhere to live. Usually, when you are going to university or college for the first time, you will be given a lot of help with this. You will almost certainly be sent, after your application has been accepted, a pack detailing all of the university's own accommodation and possibly also a list of university-approved accommodation for you to investigate.

Most people in their first year will want to live in university-owned halls or self-catering flats. The advantages of this are numerous, especially in your first year. Since you are living with hundreds of other students, many of them also in their first year, you will have a great opportunity to get to know others from a wide variety of subject backgrounds. In most halls of residence, some meals (usually breakfast and evening meals on weekdays, and all three at weekends) are provided in with the rent, along with all heating and electricity costs. This is a great help of course, because hall fees are usually paid in one lump sum at the beginning of each term, and so even if you are completely broke near the end of the term, you are guaranteed warmth and electricity and at least one nutritious (albeit utterly tasteless) meal each day.

University flats are similar in concept to the halls, in that you have about a hundred or so students living together in the same building, split into small groups who share the same cooking and shower facilities, etc. The biggest difference is that meals are not provided in the same way as in halls. There are usually four cooking rings, a grill and an oven to share among four students to cook their own meals. Understandably, these can often become the subject of some pretty nasty psychological warfare tactics when prime-time cooking hour starts, just after 'Home and Away'. One of the biggest benefits of this system, as opposed to the halls' meal system, is that you can get to know much better a smaller group of people in the tightly knit, kitchen-based communities within the flats. Equally, you may also get to eat some decent food occasionally, if by chance you stumble across a fantastic recipe whilst throwing random ingredients into a pan. There's more chance of that than getting a tasty meal in halls—they're quite probably designed to taste bland so you won't go back and get more, thus keeping down costs.

Living in a house for your first year is generally something to investigate only after attempts to find a place in halls or flats have been unsuccessful. It may not be possible to find a place in halls if, for example, you have got your place at university through the clearing system, as most places will already have been taken by those with definite offers. There are distinct advantages, however, to this accommodation over the flats and halls. You have a great deal more freedom in what you can do. There are no porters prowling the corridors looking for trouble, and you're not rudely awakened at the unearthly hour of ten o'clock by the cleaners two mornings of the week. Naturally, this also means that you're likely to be knee-deep in chip wrappers, empty beer cans and uneaten three week old doner kebabs at the end of the term, as no-one will ever clear up.

In any case, you will be able to apply for any of these types of accommodation well before you are due to start your course on the form that the university will send to you sometime over the summer. You will then be told soon after what accommodation has been allocated to you. Don't worry if you don't get your first choice of place to live; they're all equally good in one way or another.

Joining Clubs & Societies

One of the best ways to meet like-minded people, to have fun and to broaden your horizons at the same time, is to join one of the many clubs and societies that all universities offer. During the freshers' week, there will probably be held a thing called the 'freshers fair'. This is when all the clubs and societies set up stands in the union building, advertise their clubs and try to get you enrolled into them.

Don't miss this event, even if you do not intend to join anything. It really is fascinating just looking round the diverse variety of things for which people have seen fit to start a society. You will find the more usual music and drama societies, the football and squash clubs alongside the less mainstream ones—the parachuting club, the dungeons and dragons society and the rag society. The latter is a particularly good example of the eccentricity needed to join many of the societies. Members of the rag can often be spotted in the city centre dressed as a chicken or in a nurse's outfit, jangling coins in a red container and trying to get people to 'buy their mag'. It's all for charity, though, so that's all right.

It is always a good idea to join at least one or two of these clubs that take your fancy at the freshers fair, as they are not expensive, so even if you only go to the club once or twice, you don't really lose much. Also, it is much more difficult to join a club part way though the year, as everyone in the club will have already got to know each other, and you feel like a bit of an outsider, even though they do try to make you feel welcome.

If All Goes Horribly Wrong

Although unlikely, there are times when things do not go to plan; something, somewhere seems to have it in for you. Take an example worst-case scenario; you find yourself living in a surreal, nightmarish existence in a kind of ethereal parallel universe. You're living in a flat with two computer scientists whose idea of a great Saturday night is to stay in and drink a bottle of dry cider between them whilst talking extensively of the advantages of having a Pentium 586DX, 120MHz Intel processor and whether or not you may find your floating point overflow stacks incorrectly calculating pi to seventy-four decimal places. Your course syllabus seems to have been set by the devil incarnate, and is made up of every element of every nightmare you have ever had, with a section on the quantum mechanics of complex economic theory in the history of twelfth century Outer Mongolia to really mess you up.

Whatever your particular problem may be—don't panic!

Firstly, any problem you do have is unlikely to really be as bad as it seems at the time, and there is almost always a fairly simple solution. The effect of moving to another part of the country, perhaps for the first time in your life, and embarking on an entirely new kind of education process, inevitably has the effect of slightly disorientating you to start off with, and can be a little overwhelming. Virtually everyone is in the same situation during the first term at university, and it is just a case of getting used to the new lifestyle that comes with being a student.

If you think you are really having serious problem of any kind; work, health, etc., there are various places you can go to within the university for help. If you are having problems with your course, you should firstly see your personal tutor (one should have been assigned to you in the first week) to discuss the problem you are having, and possible solution. It is possible for you to change to a different course within the first few weeks if you wish; this should of course be discussed with your tutor.

For problems to do with health there are several different places you can go to for help. Most higher education institutions have a helpline run by the Students' Union, staffed by trained counsellors, who can talk to you sympathetically about any problems, whether they be stress, depression, exhaustion, or even a cold! You may find the number for this helpline on the back of your union card. A university run health service should also be available to all students, where you can take your problems to qualified doctors, and receive appropriate assistance.