Karly

Hello everyone! We are kicking off a little series on academic stuff since almost everyone starts uni in September, so I thought I’d put together a post with the sort of advice I wish I’d had when I started uni and my postgrad. Enjoy!

It starts with a suitcase that won’t close and ends, if you’re lucky, with a version of yourself you’re proud to have become. In between, there’s chaos. But the good kind. The kind that looks like takeaway dinners on the floor of your new flat, small talk that turns into something real, and study sessions where you have no idea what’s going on but somehow get through anyway.

Whether you’re off to university for the first time or starting a master’s after years away from education, this one’s for you. A letter of sorts. A guide. A playlist with no actual songs, just wisdom and tea.

Let’s get into it.

1. Move-In Week: Welcome to the Panic Parade

If you’re standing in your new room wondering why your bedding looks like it belongs to a Victorian orphan and your clothes are already wrinkled, congratulations. You’ve arrived.

I’ve done move-in week two very different ways. I’ve packed my entire life into two suitcases and crossed an ocean, knowing I wouldn’t see my family for months. I’ve also loaded every inch of my mum’s car with fairy lights, snacks, and way too many mugs. Both versions were chaotic. Both were valid. And both made me feel unprepared in totally different ways.

Here’s what I wish I’d known:

Pack like half of what you think you need. Especially clothes. I brought so many jumpers and barely wore any of them. Instead, I ended up buying a few in my uni towns and living in those. You will develop a new set of comfort items. Leave space for them.

And please, bring medicine. Whatever you’ve relied on in the past: paracetamol, cold and flu tablets, antihistamines, bring it. You do not want to be flattened by Freshers’ flu with nothing but a vitamin C tablet and some crushed Tic Tacs in your drawer.

Pro tip: walk your class routes before they start. Stock your pantry with comfort food. Get to know the place before you feel like you have to know people.

2. Making Friends (and Surviving Flatmates)

You don’t have to find your soulmate flatmate on day one. You just need one or two people who feel safe to sit next to. Some people will be instant hits. Others will only text you when they need a charger. That’s fine.

In Edinburgh, most of my flatmates were hellish. Lovely on paper, less so in practice. There was a language barrier and a lot of group dinners I wasn’t invited to. I spent a lot of time feeling like the side character in someone else’s flatshare comedy. Eventually, I found a couple of people I could genuinely talk to. That was enough.

Now, full transparency: I didn’t go to that many social events during either my undergrad or my postgrad. I was usually tired, overwhelmed, or choosing to rot in bed with a book instead. So this is very much a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-did situation.

Still, I stand by the advice. Go to things. Not all of them. Just enough to give people the chance to meet you. Invite someone for coffee, even if you don’t drink it. Say yes a little more than you say no, and protect your peace while you do.

3. Studying Smart (Not Just Stressing Loudly)

Undergrad is about learning to balance deadlines and dinners. Postgrad is about pretending you didn’t cry during your last JSTOR search. Whichever one you’re doing, don’t let academic impostor syndrome tell you you’re not cut out for it. Everyone Googles things they should already know.

In full transparency, during my undergrad I had an entire era where I preferred going to the local ice rink for hours, heading to the cinema with friends, and going out to eat rather than locking myself in the library. I would print out my readings or download them onto my iPad, then carry them around and sneak in a few pages while we waited for food. It wasn’t the most conventional method, but it worked for me.

Also, and I say this without shame, I’ve used the library to watch Netflix and Sex and the City more than I ever did to actually do coursework. The library gives me the biggest ick. It’s cold. It’s silent. Someone always has a tuna sandwich or is giggling in the silent areas. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s fine. You’re not broken. You’re just built differently.

This isn’t permission to ignore your workload completely, but it’s proof that your study style doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s. Some people thrive with highlighters and study playlists. Others prefer Carrie Bradshaw and annotated PDFs.

Some practical things:

• Find out how to access past essays or model answers
• Create a gentle study routine (the Pomodoro method actually helps)
• Annotate in your own style. It doesn’t have to be colour-coded or Instagrammable to be useful

Bonus: invest in stationery that makes you feel capable. Emotional support highlighters are real.

4. The “Should I Quit?” Week

It will come. For some, it’s October. For others, it’s right after winter break. You’ll start to feel like everyone else has it together and you’re the only one who doesn’t. That’s when you need to remember most people are faking it to survive. You’re not failing. You’re adjusting.

I had this feeling all throughout my master’s. And during the second half of my undergrad too. Modules got harder. Covid hit. My PMDD started flaring up. It was a perfect storm of exhaustion, self-doubt, and “what am I even doing here” spirals. There were days when getting through a lecture felt like climbing a mountain in slow motion.

Here’s the truth: you can always get help. You can talk to someone. You can switch your modules. You can change your degree. You can drop out. You can start over. You can do whatever you need to do, as long as it brings you closer to something that feels like peace.

None of that makes you a failure. It makes you someone who listened to themselves.

5. Feeling Lonely Isn’t a Failure

It’s easy to romanticise independence until it hits. Homesickness is real, even if “home” wasn’t a perfect place. Missing old friends doesn’t mean you’re not grateful for where you are now. Feeling lonely doesn’t mean you’re doing uni wrong.

I’ve always felt very at peace with being alone. I enjoy my own company. I don’t need constant social plans. But academia can be deeply isolating, especially at higher levels. A master’s or PhD can feel like you’re shouting into the void and getting silence in return.

When I reached out for help at Edinburgh, the university services dismissed what I was going through as just a case of “adjusting to a new environment.” It was one of the lowest points of my academic life, not because I needed instant solutions, but because I wasn’t even being heard. I don’t share this to scare you, I share it because it’s more common than people admit, and you deserve better.

That said, this stage of your life is also a brilliant opportunity to get good at being on your own in a way that feels nourishing rather than lonely. Start doing solo dates. Explore your new city slowly and on your terms. Walk through a neighbourhood you don’t know. Take yourself to a museum, a coffee shop, a gallery, a bench by the river. It’s how a place starts to feel like home, not all at once, but moment by moment.

6. Make Your Space a Soft Place to Land

People rush to buy textbooks, but here’s a secret: half of them are in the library. What you really need is a lamp that doesn’t flicker, bedding that feels like a hug, and something that reminds you who you are.

This has looked like all sorts of things for me, depending on where I was. When I moved to Ireland, I brought instant photos of my family and friends to decorate my new room. During undergrad, I pinned up a cork board full of little mementoes from my travels, printed photos, and brought my pillow from home and my favourite stuffed animals. In Edinburgh, it was fairy lights from IKEA, new Jellycats, and an emergency trip to Waterstones to get my Allie Esiri anthologies, along with a duvet and pillow, since Unikitout decided not to deliver my bedding.

The point is: you get to make your space yours. Whether it’s poetry books on your nightstand, a stuffed cat called Gigio, or a pillow you smuggled from home, these small things matter. They won’t fix the homesickness, but they will soften it.

Give yourself permission to settle in slowly. Let the space become yours over time. Make it feel safe, silly, sentimental, whatever you need it to be.

7. You’ll Change. That’s the Point.

There’s no perfect first year. Only real ones. You’ll cry. You’ll laugh. You’ll discover things about yourself that surprise you. Some modules will bore you. Some lectures will change your life. Some people you meet will fade. Others will become family.

The hilarious thing is, I knew within two weeks of starting undergrad that I didn’t want to study psychology. So off I went to languages, and everything shifted. When I was in Edinburgh, I kept wondering if I should have picked UCL instead. Maybe things would’ve been easier. Maybe not. I still think about it sometimes.

You won’t always know what the right decision is while you’re making it. But you will learn from it. You’ll find out what matters to you. You’ll ask better questions. You’ll slowly become someone who knows how to choose again, and differently.

You won’t be the same person at the end of the year. That’s not a flaw. That’s the goal.

Final Thoughts: You’ve Got This

Being “on your own” isn’t the same as being alone. You’re building something. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

So go slowly. Take pictures of nothing in particular. Romanticise your grocery hauls. Read something just because you want to. And when in doubt, trust that future you is cheering you on.

Because they are. And so are we.