So, it’s that time of your life, Uni is starting again!! In this post, I’ll be talking about 15 skills to help you survive university.
15 skills to help you survive uni
1 :Study materials
When it comes to study materials, it’s important to choose the right text books to buy. You won’t always need the books that the professor said you should buy.
Before you buy anything, make sure to reach out to students who study the same course and are a year or two ahead and ask them whether the book was necessary.
How they passed their exams and if they have some good summaries that can save you a lot of money.
If you do need to buy the book, try and see if you can get the book secondhand. There are almost new books out there that you can get secondhand, which can help you save money, because trust me, you’ll need that saved money sooner than you think ;).
2. Classes
Make sure you attend as many classes as possible. That one class that you struggle with? Make sure you go to every class and ask as many questions as you need.
You can either ask the professor during the class or over email after the class.
3. Housing
Make sure you find housing close to your campus or close to public transport.
If you still have to find housing, definitely check out my post about finding housing in Leuven.
4. Finances
When it comes to finances it is one of the most important skills to help you survive uni. Your student years are the best years to practice this.
Learn how to budget: if you don’t want to go too deep into it, having an overview of what money comes in and how much you spend a week is already a good beginning.
After monitoring that for about a month, you will be able to plan how much you want to spend in advance so that you can start saving up for an emergency fund (which is the cost of 3 months’ living expenses). After you’ve saved that, you can start learning about investments, and do that, over time it’ll all build-up
Use student discounts: there are many student discounts, especially if you study in Flanders, don’t hesitate to ask places if they have student discounts or not! Make full use of those.
5. Friendships
Number 5 on the list of skills to help you survive uni, there are friendships! On the first right, this doesn’t sound important at all, yet it is crucial. During these years you will meet a lot of people. Many of them won’t matter in the long run, but those few lifelong friendships can be built during these years.
People you will work hard with and with whom you’ll relax with.
Just so you know friendships aren’t easy to maintain. It takes effort, understanding, and lots of patience, but when you have a solid friendship and learn how to navigate your social battery, you’ll be able to build some solid friendships.
6. Get involved in activities
There are activities, which is the 6th skill out of the skills to help you survive uni. A lot of students who decide to study in another town, or decide to live in a dorm, tend to isolate themselves, especially if they didn’t have many hobbies or activities to do while growing up, to avoid this, join a student association or join some of their activities once in a while. Helping you improve your social skills, get to know yourself better and make friends.
7. Student jobs
If you want a student job for during the year, it’d be best to go with a weekend job. Out of all the skills to help you survive uni, this is one of the skills that depends from situation to situation whether it’s a necessity or just for some extra cash during the week.
You could go to an interim office or work at a Restaurant or bar.
But my best advise is to study during the year, make sure you pass as many exams as possible and work over the summer and save up.
8. Assertiveness
Learn how to speak up for yourself. Learn how to come up with your boundaries and protect your heart. Know your boundaries and learn how to keep them in every possible situation that could go about. By keeping your boundaries and values, you will find confidence in your journey and yourself. You will feel better about yourself in general as well.
9. Communication skills
Learn how to communicate properly. Learn how to argue healthily. Learn how to confess. Learn how to ask for the things that you need.
Learn about trust and navigate what should be said or shouldn’t be said. Before I mention anything, I usually ask myself: “Why is it important I say this? Is it for them or me? Did they ask for my opinion? Are they in a state to listen? “
If not, spare your breath and your opinions, it’ll just be in vain.
10. House chores are more important than you think
You better know how to use a washing machine and clean your room and kitchen. It’ll matter.
All jokes aside, learning how to balance house chores with your studies is a gift. If you are someone who often has chaos in their room, good luck at uni, because every sock you lose or book that you can’t find, can easily waste so much pressious time.
These uni years are the years that can set you up for so many wins in later life with one simple trick: organized space = organized mind.
When your space is clear, it also declutters your mind. If you often have trouble with cluttered spaces, no worries, I also struggle with it, just make sure you declutter and clean up your space once every 2 weeks, it’ll give you a very fresh feeling.
11. Study skills
Out of all the skills to help you survive uni, this is the number one most important one. Learn how to study right: if you learn how to study each of your subjects, it will save you from so much headache during the exam season.
Learn how to read fast. Reading fast is a skill that can be learnt and it’s a crucial one at that! Never underestimate the power of reading fast! It helps you pick out the essence way faster especially if you have a lot to read.
12. Maintain a healthy lifestyle
Make a meal plan. You don’t have to meal prep everything at the beginning of the week, but it does help if you know at the beginning of the week which 5 options you have for lunch or dinner.
Schedule in exercise weekly; yes, you’re finally free from PE, but trust me if you don’t schedule in moving weekly, you’ll get unhealthy really quickly and it’s not solely about losing weight, it’s actually mainly about your mood and energy levels. Exercising weekly helps in more ways than only weight control.
13. Learn how to organize
Organization is so important during these years. Out of all the skills to help you survive uni, this is definitely in my top 3. It’s not easy, but it is worth the struggle!
If you can don’t know where to start, your room is 1. Having an organized room, brings a lot of peace of mind when you go to sleep after a long day of work and school.
Secondly, your schedule. Build a routine. When you have a routine of how you start your day, you’re giving yourself a jumpstart on your day, if you also have a routine for when you go to bed, you can improve your sleeping schedule.
14. Network, network, network
Networking is one of the things that I wish people were emphasised on during my first year. Building professional connections and getting to know people outside of your field can greatly help you in later life.
Also getting to know people with different perspectives strengthen the values that you stand for.
15. Stay positive
The most important thing during Uni life is staying positive. I think this is also the hardest one of all. Being able to be positive about the things that are happening whether good or bad, having a positive outlook on life, greatly helps your study life.
One of the things me and my roomate say to each other daily is “YOU GOT THIS!!!” Regardless of how our day ends up looking we will get through the day! We can choose to make it a good or a bad day regardless of the situations. We can choose how we react to the things that are happening around us.
I hope you enjoyed this blogpost on skills to help you survive uni, definitely let me know what you thought of it and other topics you’d want me to write about.
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Big love,
Joy
