University Myth-Busting

Hi all!

I hope that you are well and enjoying summer as we adjust to the ‘new normal’. With the start of the Autumn term fast approaching, I thought that I’d take the time to bust three common myths about university.

You have to buy all of your own books

Obviously this can vary between courses, but in my experience this is not true at all. Many of the readings for my course are available online and can be located using the Warwick Library Search. There are also various other ways that you can access readings online via the university. Failing that, the physical library is sure to have what you are looking for. The library hold system is also very easy to access. It is also worth just popping the name of the book/article that you are looking for into a search engine. You might be surprised by what you find!

It is impossible to make friends if you live at home

I’ve spoken about this before in one of my early blog posts (https://our.warwick.ac.uk/my-top-3-tips-for-making-friends-if-you-live-off-campus/ ). Again, in my experience, this hasn’t been the case. It might be slightly more difficult to start with, but just try and put yourself out there. Join the relevant group chats and try to strike up conversation with people. Trust me, everyone is in the same boat when it comes to making new friends. 

You need to get 1sts in first year in order to do well at university 

This could not be further from the truth. I know that it might be hard to see it this way, but trust me. In my case (and I’m pretty sure the same can be said for many others), the first year of my course didn’t count towards what will be my final degree classification. I didn’t get any 1sts in first year and, although it frustrated me, I don’t think that it has had a detrimental affect on my progress to date. There is a reason that first year marks don’t count on many courses- first year is the time to adjust to university life. Learning at university is completely different to learning at school…and that’s ok!

So there you have it, three myths about university- busted. I hope that this post will be useful for the incoming students out there and let me know if you’d like me to expand on any of the points that I’ve made!