First Impressions of uni

For me university life was to be one of the first big major changes in my life. Before this I had always lived at home with my family, having my meals cooked by my mum or sisters and not really having a clear idea of what living alone would mean. Because of this I was incredibly nervous about it, would I get on with the people in my flat and on my course? Would I be able to survive on ready meals alone or would I have to actually learn to cook? These and there other numerous little problems that I would face almost put me off coming entirely!

However once I got here these fears proved to be stupid. Everyone in my flat is very friendly and sociable, we spent the entire of freshers week going out with each other and then feeling bad in the morning! I have made some good friends on my course as well, including Alex with his love for his gloves and Glenn who shares my love of loud music.

So I would say that my first impressions of university life have all been great, and I really have no idea what I was worried about! Though I still haven't yet done any real cooking...

First impressions of university life

This may sound strange or even obvious to some, but before I came to University I didn’t know what to expect. It had been awhile since I had been in an educational environment, two years to be exact. The time I had been at school and college I had been in the very familiar surroundings of my home town with people I had grown up with, so obviously coming to a University and knowing no one after leaving college two years prior, was daunting to say the least. I wasn’t sure how easy id make friends or even how easy I would grasp the work and the deadlines it brought.

But as well as this anxiety, I was also very excited! Excited to see if university life as whole lived up to the experience it was suppose to be. Would the social experience really be as crazy as they say it is? I couldn’t wait to find out. But also I could not wait to start learning my new chosen subject, as its why I was going to university in the first place.

After being here just over a month, I can tell you university life is both everything and nothing like what I expected it to be. It’s very different from college as a lot more of the responsibility to learn is put upon the student, iv found this is both refreshing and slightly scary because if fail to be prepared I’ve got no one but myself to blame. Finding friends was a lot easier than I had first expected as after the first lesson (In which no teacher turned up) I had already began to make friends with Jonathan and then later Alex too. The university nightlife is again definitely what I was expecting and more so, although this being said I can’t say I’ve been out on campus as much as I was expecting. Jon on the other hand is probably more use to this side of University life than I am, that and trolleys but I’ll let him explain that one.

Me and the University of Essex: How a kitchen changed my life.

If you look at my humorous title, you may be thinking that I'm not taking university life all that seriously as instead of mentioning things that seem important in university life such as, my social life or my academic life I am actually talking about something that really shouldn't be changing my life, my kitchen. In all actuality, it has.

In the past few weeks the kitchen has been big subject in my university life. How in a space of three days two trolleys had made its way in. Before university I would have probably have been seething with rage and would have gotten emotional about it. Instead I joked about it and continued cooking as if nothing had ever happened, yes I was angry but I didn't show it, I just continued living my life around 'Troll' the Trolley and putting a grin on my face as if I hadn't a care in the world.

The kitchen is where food is made and before university I hardly ever cooked myself dinner, being Italian, my mum is the best cook that ever lived and nobody can take that fact away from me. With all the great food I was eating day in day out, I felt little need to actually cook dinner for myself. Nowadays I have to not only cook the food, I have to think if it's a good idea to have what I want it in the first place. When I'm at the supermarket I spend ages number crunching in my head working out what gives me the best deal for my stomach and my wallet and it is a very difficult thing to get right which I never had to do before. Unlike back home I don't have a constantly resupplied cupboard so I am no longer eating as if my life depended on it, to the extent that in the past few weeks I am noticeably much slimmer than when I started.

The one thing that has stayed constant from home to university is that the kitchen is a social space. At home the kitchen was home to three games consoles that I used with my brothers, and it was a great talking point as we are all interested in it and had something to say about what we were playing and talking about how terrible Call of Duty is. At university I have no games console and nobody is really that interested in talking about video games, so like everything else I've had to do I had to adapt. I now socialise by playing card games and talking about other things, listening to other people's stories that have happened in their lives.

The kitchen, despite it not really being that important in university life has been a focal point in my university life so far. It has been the scene to the many changes that have happened to me as a person and the events that have occurred in those four walls allowed me to adapt myself to the university environment far more than any other four walls on this campus.