Moving Away For Uni

I'm going to be completely honest in these uni posts, because I feel like I went into this thinking I knew exactly what I was doing, when I actually had no clue at all.

If you're around that age where you have to start thinking about your future and where you want to go to university… PLEASE carefully consider your options. Moving away to a different city, sharing halls with brand new students who you've never met before and learning to stand on your own two feet sound so exciting! However… you also have to consider the fact that you're so far away from everything and everyone you're used to. This got to me a lot at the beginning.
It sounds so fun and exciting… which it is, to some extent, but when you get there and your family leave you to go back to what you used to call home, you're there on your own and you have to start looking after yourself. You're in a city that you've probably never been to, or you don't know very well and you have to be an adult now.

I'm going to be honest, I've never felt my heart drop more than when my parents said they were gonna go back home and leave me to settle in. As soon as I closed the front door of my flat, I felt the lump in my throat and I just wanted to run back and shout "NO! Take me with you!"

I think for the first week or two, I absolutely HATED every second of it. I hated living on my own, I hated my room, I hated everything. As I suffer with anxiety and panic attacks, this was a major test for me and I really struggled with it at first, So, if you suffer with the same thing, please be careful. I would definitely say that you have to push yourself and learn to live outside of your comfort zone, but if you're an anxiety sufferer, it's a lot harder to do that, and I think moving to a city 2 and half hours away from where I am from was a little too much for me.

Despite all of that, I'm still there! Almost 7 weeks in, with 6 weeks left before I leave for the Christmas holidays, I'm still there and ploughing my way through the first semester. I found a happy medium to help tackle my anxiety. Call me stupid or whatever you want, but the only thing that helped me settle in and be happier at uni was coming home at weekends to see my family and boyfriend, then going back on the Monday night to start uni on the Tuesday afternoon. Yes, I agree, it's silly and expensive and I should just "suck it up" as a lot of people have been telling me. But at the end of the day, I do what makes me happy. If i'm in a situation where it makes me unhappy, I'm gonna try my best to improve it.

Don't get me wrong, it is definitely a good experience. I've made so many amazing new friends and you get to meet people from all walks of life, who you would probably never have gotten the chance to meet before. I mean, everyone I know are either from Sunderland, Newcastle, Boldon or South Shields. But now, I have friends from Blackpool, Crook, Bishop Auckland, Ireland, Sheffield, Formby, Chester, Easington, Halifax, Manchester, Nottingham… so many places! It's so interesting to get to know them and learn about their lives and what they would usually get up to.
It is fun to live on your own, without parents too. As scary as it also is, it's quite good to be able to get to make your own decisions and (sorry parents) not have your parents or siblings tell you what you should and shouldn't do.

So! If you're in your final year of college or just thinking about your future, please, please, PLEASE really think through your choices. If you're like me, and you're quite a 'home bird' where you feel happiest and most comfortable in places that you know well and you're used to, really think about whether or not you can live on your own and move away. Try to think past all the excitement and think about if you really are going to be able to cope with all of the changes and going from living with people you're related to, who can look after you, to living with complete strangers.

Many people are different. I know people who were so excited to move away for uni, unlike me who has been dreading it since May. Some have been to eager to leave their house and have took to uni life like a duck to water. If that's you, and you're that kind of person, I commend you. I wish I was more like that. But if you think you're not going to be able to do it, you have a choice. Don't base your decision off of what your friends are doing, or what your family would prefer you to do, or what you older sibling did… if you wanna move away, do it! As long as you can afford to. If you have considered it and think "You know what… I'm quite happy living here and I think a university closer to home would suit me better." then thats great!

I think the happy medium, and what I wish I had done, would be to go to a uni near my home city, but still move out. I think if I went to Newcastle university, which is about 45 minutes away from me at the most, and moved into a student flat, it would still be daunting and scary, but I think I would be more at ease and more comfortable knowing I wasn't that far away and could nip home any time I wanted.

You learn from you mistakes I guess!