Living in halls
A realistic Guide to life at UCLan - written by students!
Comments from students...
Part of the process of learning to live independently is getting a network of friends. As you can see from what’s been said previously, friends are just as important as the support networks provided by UCLan. You will meet people in your seminars, workshops and lectures. If you get involved with university life, you’ll increase your friend network in loads of different ways (even if beer does seem to figure quite heavily in the following examples):
“In my first year I lived in Roeburn and people were running up and down, meeting people and getting to know everyone.”
But if at first you don’t succeed, persevere:
“Actually, I remember my first night, because Roeburn people were supposed to move in on the Saturday and the other halls on the Sunday. When we were heading to Roeburn on the Sunday, I was reading through my stuff in the car and realised that we were meant to be there on Saturday. It’s only a day, but you do really feel left out. I walked into the kitchen and they were all sitting there and just looked up. My parents took me to Morrison’s and when I came back they were all gone; the flat was empty. I unpacked all my room whilst my parents went home, then I propped my door open. I was just sitting on my bed. That night, I got really upset and I cried for the rest of the night. I remember when one of my flatmates came in steaming drunk and I followed him into the kitchen and sat with him. Then, on the Monday, we all went to the pub together. We were really good friends for the whole three years after that.”
Sometimes it pays to just take the plunge and get to know people:
“I think the biggest thing you can do, even though it’s really scary, is just go in and say hello to people. I was used to being with people I knew all the time and I didn’t have to be nice to people. Then, all of a sudden I got to uni and had to mix with all these people who were completely different from me. I was like ‘oh god’. Then, when I moved into my flat, I thought ‘sod it' I can’t just sit there being timid for the rest of my life.’ It was fine from there and it just needed that little bit of confidence.”
It’s not always smooth but, with a bit of effort and a bit of support you will soon settle into being your own boss or learning to rely on yourself, however old you are.