Clichés are gems of advice, so revered that they roll off of our tongues like ‘water off a duck’s back’, if you’ll pardon the cliché.
Below is a list of clichés through which I hope to offer advice on how to adapt to university life and get off to a flying start.
Cliché #1: Hit the ground running
This is the title cliché, because it is so fundamental to getting the most out of university that the rest of this article will be dedicated to showing you how. But first, why bother?
After all university is (at least) three long years, so wouldn’t it be better to approach it at a leisurely pace? I could respond to this by throwing further clichés in, such as ‘Life is short’ and ‘Time flies’, but that would not be helpful.
Let me offer you this more practical reasoning. You are at university for two reasons: firstly to explore a field of academic interest, and secondly to get a good job.
If you want to enjoy your course, don’t leave all the work until the last minute, because that will not be enjoyable, but stressful. Instead, take the time to do work early on.
If you want a good job, you will not only have to do well in exams, but you will also have to involve yourself in various other activities. To have time to do these things as well as assignments and revision, you will need to make every second count.
In truth you are at university for a very short time – less than four percent of your life – so make the most of it. University is an opportunity you will not get again, and if you waste it, you will regret it for the remaining percentage of your life (and that’s a hefty amount of time).
With that in mind, let’s consider how to hit the ground running.
Cliché #2: Old habits die hard
It takes a very long time to break a habit – scientists estimate that it can take anywhere between three weeks and a year to truly change your routine, and lose the desire to do things in the way you used to.
In reference to cliché #1, don’t land on your knees when you arrive at university, or you might just spend a long time crawling through your degree.
Cliché #3: Start as you mean to go on
Following on from above then, don’t set bad habits. Freshers’ Week might not be the best time to allocate study sessions and set sensible sleeping patterns, so what is important is accepting when it is over. As much fun as clubbing every night, waking up at dinner time and consuming only pizza and alcohol was, they are habits that must be reserved for fond memory.
Get into a good routine as soon as possible.
Cliché #4: Pace yourself
That said, you don’t need to abandon nights out as hedonistic luxuries and enter an academic monastery. Dedication is good, but doing too much too soon will result in a burnout. Pace yourself. When Mo Farah wins gold medals he doesn’t sprint from the off – he runs at a speed that he knows he can maintain for the entire race.
Assign a sensible number of hours each day for work, reward yourself with breaks and make sure that you enjoy yourself. Doing these things will ensure not only that you have a good time at university, and maintain morale, but also that you become a well-rounded person, because it is that which employers seek.
If you hit the ground sprinting, you won’t keep it up. Make sure you can maintain your pace.
Cliché #5: Ambition, madam, is a great man’s madness
Okay, so this isn’t actually a cliché, but a quotation from John Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. What Webster meant is that ambition can make people do many things, some regrettable. One thing ambition can make you do is work.
In the years leading up to university, getting there has been your sole aim. You have thought of little else. You worked extensively, you prayed repeatedly and you adhered to every superstition under the sun, in the hope that you would make it to an institution of higher education, such as the one in which you now find yourself enrolled. What next?
If it was university that drove you to work so hard before, what is going to drive you now? It is crucial that you go to university with a new goal in mind. Whatever your aims are, make sure that you regularly remind yourself of them, and measure your progress.
Hit the world running, and you might just run the world.
Original article commissioned by RateMyPlacement.
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