My First Month as a Student

My experience as a first year student 

So I have officially completed my first month as a student in Ulster University Jordanstown, and what a whirlwind it has been.

I don't even know where to start with this blog post on my experience as a student....there is so much to discuss. 

My routine 
So I guess my first point will be, travelling to uni. I choose to travel to University rather than living in Belfast which would have been closer to my University. This was simply due to the fact that I knew I would just hate living in those disgusting houses in the "Holylands" with no heating and uncomfortable beds to sleep in and basically living below the poverty line. This thought was reinforced when I stayed in the lands after a night out during freshers, and I'll just say....I haven't been back. So instead I decided to make the long journey of about 1 hour 15 minutes on my timetabled days. Meaning that for semester 1, i have to wake up at 6am on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday I get to sleep in a whole hour and a half longer to 7.30am!!! The joys. 



Nervous...
On my first day (introduction day), I woke up at 7.30am and got myself ready to get down to the train station to make my 9.21am train to Jordanstown to arrive for 11am. When I got there the whole place was basically a maze, I struggled to find where i was meant to be, so I checked my email and seen that my course director had emailed me directions to the room. So once I got myself to the room I seen that there was many more girls in there walking, so I braced myself and went and sat down beside them. We chatted and got to know each others names and where we were from etc. Then once everyone arrived, the induction began. Many horrific icebreakers later and we went to get registered and I got my student card with my photo on it which know one will ever get to see. Why the terrible lighting? 

I had went in on my induction day with the thought that I was never going to make any friends and I was going to spend my whole university life sitting on my own in lectures, but I was so glad of the friends I made on the first day by just asking their names and we now all have a group chat where we ask each other to sign us in because we are too busy sitting at Pango eating a sausage bap (you know who you are). 

So my first week was full of new friends, confusion, an overload of information and plenty of getting lost (seriously it's a maze).



Normality... 
So when the second and third week came around and I was getting used to going to my lectures for 2 hours each and was somewhat able to find the rooms, I found myself finally getting back into a routine. 
However, a lot of the information from lectures was going completely over my head, and I won't lie, I was panicking a little. Is this course right for me? What even is marketing? Do I even know what public relations is? These were all of the questions on my mind, and many more. Then I calmed myself down and took time to go over the lecture slides at home, and honestly, a lot of my worries went away. I know as time goes on things will make more sense. 

Now one month in, I can honestly say I am loving my course! I can't wait to get stuck in and with my first assignment due in only 4 weeks, that's about to start very soon. 


I love reading blog posts like this one as it shows everyone's different experiences as being a student. Mine, however, is very different to anyone else's I've read so far due to the fact that I live at home and so I am not in Belfast every night of the week partying and going into University the next day hungover. You'll find plenty of blogs about how to survive freshers week etc. 




Thank you so much for reading this post on my experiences in my first month of university. I will be making more post like this as time goes on, updating on how my course is going. 

Siobhan McKerr x