Starting university can be a duanting process but knowing that you have lots of support available can be a huge relief. University can support you in lots of ways not just accademically. Support can come in different forms including in person one to one sessions, group sessions and online sessions. In fact, if you have any type of probelm no matter the topic, your university will be able to support you or point you in the right direction.
Accommodation support
For many people at university they choose to stay on university campus or within accommodation that is within a reasonable proximity to the university, as opposed to commuting. This of course means that you need to find your own house share or flat share for your 2nd and 3rd year. This can be a fairly easy and smooth process however it can also be a little overwheling at times. It is often a process that people havent been through before.
If I had any advice for anyone, it would be to get It done early on in your year as a lot of the cheaper options. Don’t fear though because the university will provide you with support at the beginning of the process and at the end of the process!
If you are struggling to start the process off then reach out to your accommodation team. Your univietsty accommodation team are particularly useful to you because when it is your first time, you may not be aware of where to look and what price is appropriate each week. In addition to this the university will help with your bill management, many students forget that usually on top of their monthly rent is bills which of course are ever increasing at the moment. Therefore, the university should provide you with support on which bill providers will be most appropriate for your usage, finances and your area, which is particularly important when considering Wi-Fi.
At the tail end of your tenancy, landlords or property management services will often inspect the property and assess how much of your deposit they will take or give back to you, A deposit is a sum of money you give to the property management service or landlords and they it will hold from the beginning of your tenancy till the end, if they believe the property needs repair, they will use this money. Landlords and property management services will sometimes attempt to take advantage of students and use the deposit in areas that aren’t necessarily in need of renovation. So, when you have a case like this, the university will give you support and help you argue your side in order to avoid being exploited. A quick word of advice is whenever you move in anywhere, take pictures of the place to ensure you know what the place looked like before you moved in.
Financial Support
University is not exactly cheap and living away from home can rack up lots of added expenses. Therefore, you need to manage your finances appropriately. This is a concept that some student may not have needed to do before because they simply didn’t have enough expenses to need to manage their finances on a weekly basis. The university will provide you with support to help you acknowledge how much money you have each week to spend on different things. They will take into consideration, rent, bill, food, social life and leisure such as sport and societies.
Unfortunately, some people come to university and their finances can often come up short or at the very least be really stretched each month. This can make university a hard process and it can really add stress onto what can be a stressful time at university in some months. Therefore, the university are there to help you, in some circumstances they are willing to offer grants to students that really need the money to be able to survive at university but more importantly excel at their academics.
Financial support is not only given to those who are in desperate need but can also be given to students that come from single income families or students who struggle to find a job for reasons out of their control. This all leads to you not needing to worry about your finances in such a way that it affects your studies.
Academic support
The main reason university is there is to provide you with a good education and ultimately allow you to obtain a degree out of it. Therefore, there is a wide array of academic support that you can receive at all different levels. The library will offer support in the form of classes that you book onto, these can either be general classes learning about PowerPoint or referencing.
Or you can get more personalised classes that suit the topic area that you are struggling with. Sometimes the classes will be provided by students who have previously done your module, therefore they have first-hand experience which can be hugely beneficial. Of course, you can also gain support from your actual tutors who usually have an office hour which you can attend to get face to face support. Otherwise they are always on hand online to better suit your time constraints.
Finally, the university will pay for resources that you can use to help with your academic progress, an example is LinkedIn learning, you can use the videos provided on LinkedIn learning to progress your work and go over anything that you may need more support on. The library should provide help on how to access resources like this.
Welfare support
As we all know ensuring that not only your physical help but mental health is in a healthy state is becoming ever more important and ever more spoken about. University can often get too much for people. However, you should know that you will never need to experience it alone. Universities as a body are some of the most prominent supporters of welfare support we have, therefore there is always support on hand to help you.
There are usually online services as well as physical services that you can use and it is all free of charge. They will be there to help, talk and guide you through anything that evolves around welfare support and they act with complete confidentially.
Job support
Last but not least, job support. Finding a job whilst at university can either be a must for some people of just be a way for people to get some extra cash in their pockets. Either way sometimes it is always easy finding a job at university because not everywhere is always employing.
Nevertheless the university can be there to help you find places that are employing and go further than that they will help you with the application process to ensure that you have the best possible chance of securing a part time role. Further to this the university are there to help you with obtaining a full time job following your completion of university.
Final Thoughts
There are lots of servcies your university will offer to you and they all come within the price of tution fees, so make the most of what is offered to you! If you are struggling ast all then you can reach out via email. If there are services you need but your university does not offer then then they will be more than happy to point you in the right direction and do all they can to help.
