In one month I'll be starting my second year at NTU, and although uni can be hard work, it can also be quite the adventure. I've had a year full of lessons and not just in Accounting and Finance or Information Systems and Quantitative Methods. Uni has been full of surprises and realisations.
The first lesson I learnt was that awkwardness only exists if you let it. Every situation can be fixed with conversation or laughter and as much as you wish it wasn't awkward the other person is probably feeling the same. Everything can be filled with laughter if you just let it.
The South/North divide is real and it is serious. Pick a side.
Word Counts are one gigantic pain, you will either never have enough words or have far too many and have to go through the difficult task of either filling it in or taking things out. Which will then result in you re-thinking your whole assignment.
Doing nothing can feel like absolute heaven, PJ days watching Netflix or YouTube or just doing something you like such as drawing, alternatively on your day off you could go food shopping or do something productive like cleaning.
Cooking from scratch is usually the cheapest option, also if you're near 2 supermarkets and are like me you will learn which is cheapest for what and try and save even 1p by going to the cheapest. You can also save time, money and effort if you order food together as a flat even if you're not cooking together as a group.
Amazingly, common sense is not required for you to get into university.
Standing up for yourself is good, being rude isn't good and being rude all the time is not acceptable but sometimes you need to stand up for yourself even if that means being blunt.
Everyone can be a good liar or good at sneaking around, whether that is telling your mum you haven't had instant noodles or pasta all week or, trying to sneak into a lecture just before the lecturer arrives.
Its about the experience. Even before I went to uni I never heard someone go 'Yeah I went to uni, the buildings were amazing, oh and the floors were ever so clean' its all about how you make it, either way you will have amazing memories.
Uni isn't everything, it doesn't matter whether you decide to take a year out, leave uni early, or complete your degree it does not matter, what does matter is your happiness, if you've tried all you can and it isn't working then that is fine.
Overall that though, you've just got to remember that uni isn't going to determine the rest of your life and it may be the centre of most of your worries, you choose your destiny. There will always be something at the end of the horizon and remember that new things will come along and one day it will only be a memory and you chose whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
