Coming to my first year to university. I can vividly remember people telling me how fun it will be, how many parties there will be, and that it is just the best time of your life.

Yes maybe it’s too early for me to judge, really. But honestly this is a more realistic point of view of going to being in a university. Perhaps, it may vary according to the university that you go to. But at least in my university and I believe few others too, the competition is quite high, and as a result this is how university is:

1) You will have hundreds of pages of reading: they always tell me that IB will be more relaxing than university. HA BIG JOKE. My business studies book that we use for one semester this year is as thick as my business studies HL book for two years. Isn’t that amazing? So get used to this. Reading and making your own notes! Because nobody will check your notes and nobody will check if you are listening or not. I find this really difficult to actually listen in lectures. haahha. But listening in lectures help to make your reading tasks less heavy! P.s: the material for my first semester exam is a textbook that is more or less similar to my material for exam in High School for 1-2 years.

2) There are more work than you think: Yes you don’t have those daily or weekly stupid homework. But you have essays and posters and other projects to write. Yes in IB you do write LOADS of essays. But honestly, it’s different. Your lecturer will not bother if you fully understand the topic or if they fully cover the topic. So imagine just about the amount of additional readings you will get?

3) Finding friends in university isn’t as easy as finding friends in school/summer school. I remember going into summer school last year, without knowing anyone. Fortunately, within a day, I was able to find many great friends. So, as I was heading to university, I thought to myself “don’t worry, it will just be like the summer school..” NO. That’s wrong. In lectures, nobody cares who the fuck sits besides you. Maybe in tutorials they do, but everyone is so focused and may already have their friends. So it is not that easy after all, huh?

I honestly could go on and on about this topic but I don’t want to scare you or anything.

Because despite all this negativity, I must be honest, I love how I am out of that high school bubble.

I have not met as many great people as I intend to but the ones I have met are ridiculously great. I find it amazing that we do not need to stay in our little “clique” or “bubble”. So we get to find many friends and nothing restricts us. No gossip, no rumors. Nobody cares about what others do, unless that is your significant others.

University has been challenging but is worth the effort, so really. Don’t worry about it 🙂
Enjoy your time before going to university though, but of course, maximise it once you are here!

Much love,

Shannen ♥