Written by Stacey Reid. A mature student studying Psychology with Psychotherapy and Counselling at Burnley Campus, in the summer after first year.

Starting university can be a daunting experience. Whether you’ve come straight from school or college or whether you’ve been out of education for a while, you’re going to experience a completely new way of learning. My experience was that the lecturers are fully aware of this, I’m not sure if this is a secret but they’ve seen it all before, in fact, they themselves were students once you know! Whatever you are feeling, or not feeling, is normal. Just because the first friend you met isn’t feeling the same way as you doesn’t mean you’re wrong. You’re different to them or they’re different to you, that’s all.

So, what will it be like? Well, I can’t answer that because every single one of us has a different experience and that’s most of the fun. It certainly gives you plenty to talk about to your classmates, flatmates, people on the bus and strangers in the coffee shop.

What I can tell you is that it starts off slowly, there’s plenty of time to get into the flow of studying. Use this time to familiarise yourself with the process, the surroundings, the people. Make notes, not just of the stuff you’re expecting to learn but of the things that will help you in the next 3 years – the names of people, the areas of speciality of your teaching team, any hints or tips or things of interest that people tell you in those first couple of weeks because you’ll probably have forgotten these little things by Christmas.

And finally, enjoy it! I already miss my first year and I’m only half way through my summer break.