Surviving Your First Year: 8 Golden Rules I Learned The Hard Way

OH, you freshers, with your shiny new student accounts and enthusiasm, eager to experience all that university can throw at you.


For many of you, this is the first time away from home. You’re anxious to assert your independence, and mostly this will come in the form of consuming far too much exotic-looking alcohol and being in pictures that you definitely won’t want your parents to see.

Now, I’ve been a fresher twice – yes, I made a Poor Life Choice (hereby known as a PLC) when I first applied to Portsmouth University, but I made up for it tenfold by switching to Swansea as soon as I could. So it is with my wisdom and experience of making some serious PLCs that I am here to guide you through the next year. I want you all to make a point of learning from my mistakes. Alternatively, you could make some even bigger ones so that mine look good in comparison.

1. Firstly, do not attach yourself to someone within the first week of university. You’re here for three years, and they won’t seem half as attractive within six months. Don’t rush; you’ve plenty of time to find someone your parents will hate.

2. Secondly, your student loan is finite. I know, it’s a horrible realisation. You also have to be aware of your priorities: first comes your rent and bills, second to that is food, and then it’s important things like books and shoes that will see you through the winter. Only when you have managed to negotiate these hurdles is it appropriate to spend the rest of your loan on new clothes and alcohol. You will soon learn to budget and shop around – for example, buy fresh food in the market where you only buy as much as you need for cheaper, and then go to JC’s for a pint rather than one of Wind Street’s fine establishments. If you can, try and save yourself some money for over the holidays – right now, it is the end of August, and I am sat here with precisely £9.86 to my name, with three weeks to go until pay day. Remember what I said – learn from my mistakes.

3. Pace yourself. In small to medium doses, alcohol is not necessarily that bad for you – although what is said for your body is not necessarily true for your wallet. However, getting completely obliterated four times a week is bad for you, and you will do well to avoid doing so, else you will be making a PLC. I conducted a personal study this year by getting drunk very regularly for a fortnight. My body held a small demonstration, and I was unable to eat properly for a month. I felt disgusting, looked awful, and my mum was furious, but my housemates were overjoyed by how much food I gave to them – every cloud has a silver lining, I guess.

4. Fourth, eat properly. Please don’t make a point of eating only potato smileys and turkey dinosaurs for every meal just because you can. Eventually, you are going to get sick of beige-coloured food, and you will want some vegetables. Beat your body shutting down on you by learning how to cook. Waterstones in the Taliesin sell some basic student cook books that are brilliant for learning the staples of home cooking, and if you can’t be bothered to buy them, you can just take pictures of the recipes on your iPhone.

5. For this one, make sure your parents are out of the room… Gone? Excellent. Boys and girls, you may have heard of sex. You may have heard that university is a brilliant place to obtain it. Let me tell you, Swansea may have gone up in the University Sex League (up to 12th place, from last year’s 60, woo!), but university is not one massive orgy. Or at least, if it is, I’ve not been invited. Anyway, if you are going to do it, your Students’ Union provides thousands of free condoms per year. Make use of them – and not for balloon animals. Also, make sure that you have enough money the next morning for the taxi of disgrace, rather than having to humiliate yourself with the walk of shame. Alternatively, if you’ve awoken being able to remember their name, you are entitled to take the stride of pride. Congratulations.

6. Join a society. I really, really wish I’d done this in my first year. Since joining The Waterfront – not technically a society, but you know what I mean – I have had the best time at university. I’ve met friends for life, learnt new skills, discovered what I want to be when I grow up, and had some awesome experiences. No matter what you’re interested in, you’ll find a society for it, and if you can’t, don’t be afraid to form your own.

7. Do some work – everyone knows the freshers’ mantra of ‘f**k it, 40 percent’, but organising yourself to do some work from the off is a really good habit to form, and it looks a lot better on your transcript. Learn to organise yourself so that you’re not working right up until the deadline, too. There’s nothing worse than sleeping through the hand-in deadline and waking up to your face in your keyboard, smothered in drool.

8. Perhaps the best and most useful piece of advice I can give you is to enjoy yourself. Don’t forget that you’re here to work, but university is also about a whole new lifestyle and learning about yourself and the world around you. Forget school being the best days of your life – your time at Swansea will definitely beat it.

Nothing to see here: the baby boomers and unemployment.

There is no escaping the fact that as a country we are going through one of the worst recessions in history and it is the general population who are paying for it, whether it be through increased food and petrol prices or unemployment. 

It is practically impossible to get through the day recently without a new statistic on the latest unemployment figures in Britain. The majority of these statistics relate to the working-age population as a whole, but there is also a large focus put onto those aged 16-25.

Unemployed persons of the 16-25 age range are now fashionably referred to as NEETS – not in education, employment or training. This is also the group of people who are said to be most affected by being unemployed for long periods of time – with the lack of opportunities available presently, this could be a ‘lost generation’, a whole group of people who won’t be able to access the education and training their parents did. This isn’t due to their incompetence or their lack of will, it is purely because they have had the opportunities that previous generations have had taken away from them. Whether it’s the cutting of EMA, the trebling of university fees, or the cuts in the numbers of apprenticeships on offer, young people are feeling the effects of recession and will continue to do so for much longer than many other groups in society.

The plight of Britain’s young people is one that deserves to be recognised, but I do feel that there is another section of society that is being ignored. This group is made up of those people who are towards the older end of the working age scale, but who still have a few years to go until they are able to be officially recognised as retired. Generally, they are 50 or older; part of the baby boom generation.

When searching for the breakdown of Britain’s unemployment statistics, they tend to be split into two groups – those aged 16-25, and those aged 25 to retirement, sometimes classed as ‘older workers’. Although it is fairly difficult to find more specific figures, there are some available for those who look hard enough. This is particularly galling when you realise that the USA keeps fantastic statistics on this area - breaking down the figures into much smaller age ranges - which are much easier to find.

What is clear from the figures that I have been able to find, is that it is those aged over 50 who are being hit hard and finding it far harder to recover. 

On average, those from this age range who find themselves unemployed are the least likely to find work again; even during good economic times. For example, in the third quartile of 2004, 50.1% of those aged 50 and over found employment again within three months. Within the first half of this year, this figure had been halved to 25.6%. It is also this group which is the second most likely to be made redundant, after the 16-25s.

Clearly, some of these figures will not be completely accurate – there are always some that fall between the cracks, and as a larger percentage of the population this group is always going to be slightly more affected than others – but these are still alarming.

So what does this mean in reality for those people who are caught in this trap? 

The majority of these will have been working for the past 30-40 years. Many will own their own homes or be coming to the end of their mortgage. For those who have still not finished their payments, they may lose their homes, just as they thought they would be reclaiming them from the banks and building societies.

Although some will be lucky enough for their children to be independent at this stage, there will be some whom still have them living at home and dependent upon them. For the latter group, this will have an impact on their children, too, who will soon learn the uncomfortable truths of recession.

Losing employment at any stage of life is a difficult thing to overcome but after potentially decades in the same industry which may have gone into decline it can be even more difficult. Although there are schemes available to help people retrain to find jobs in alternative areas, these are often difficult to obtain help from.

As a society, we are obsessed with youth. Everyone wants to look younger, feel younger, do everything that young people do. Despite so many new laws implemented to address the issues of age discrimination, we tend to shun the positive aspects of being more experienced in life. These people often have a wealth of knowledge that can be shared with the rest of their organisations to enhance both them, and society as a whole.

As our population ages, this problem will only become more acute. Not only will we lose more of our older workers, there will be less of them available to train and support the next generation.  

It is important that we do not lose sight of this group of people, when so many people seem to be turning their attention elsewhere.We need to stop prioritising youth over experience and knowledge.