Back-to-School Blogger: My College Experience

As part of the week leading up to the move back to school, I am taking a day from blogging and have turned the reins over to Ariadna from RAWR BOWS. Check out her post below discussing her own college experience in London!

<3 Ashley

Hello! It’s Ariadna from RAWR BOWS here and today I’m gonna be writing on Ashley’s blog about my university experience. I study Chemistry at Imperial College London and I’m going to start my third year in October. Ever since I was little I’ve wanted to go to university, I remember talking to my friends about it and being so excited. I was lucky enough to be able to go to uni in London which was a dream of mine and one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. However, this also meant leaving home and living miles away from my family and in a country I barely knew. I remember flying from Spain to London and being both excited and scared as hell, I also remember how shocking the moving process was and how much my live changed.

Living away from home is something I think you can never be fully prepared for. Yes, you can imagine what it is like: waking up whenever you want, cooking your own meals, doing your laundry, not being controlled by your parents, etc. You can imagine it carries some responsibility with it and a decent amount of fun as well. The first few weeks living on your own are likely to be weird and tough in a way, but you’re probably going to get used to it pretty quickly and you’ll get into the routine without even realising. Personally, I think living away from home is fun and I really enjoy being independent and in full control of my life.

I had a lot of expectations before going to uni, I imagined it being like a movie. You know, walking around with a bunch of books in your arms and bumping into cute guys, sitting on the grass with your friends and working on a group project, going out every weekend, joining a badass club and living the adventure of your life and that sort of stuff. The reality is slightly different though. In uni, everyone is sort of grown up and they’re more independent and in their own world. It’s not like high school where everything was about who was more popular and you were barely ever alone. You’re probably going to spend a lot of time on your own working in the library or just chilling and waiting for your next class. Your friends are going to have different schedules and they’re not going to be there with you all the time. At first it might be weird or awkward to do something without your group of friends but, soon, it will feel perfectly normal. By that I don’t mean that you’re going to be lonely or that I ever felt lonely, I was lucky to find great friends but uni taught me to do more things on my own and that being by yourself is okay sometimes.

Something else that uni taught me was to work every day. Seriously guys don’t leave everything to the last minute. In high school the teacher would always make sure you did your homework or you were revising but in uni professors don’t care, they probably won’t even know your name and no one will be making sure you do your work. So, unless you tell yourself to stop watching Netflix, you might struggle to get everything done without messing with your sleeping pattern!

This post is way longer than what I planned but I hope that, if you’re starting uni this fall, it calmed you down or gave you an idea of what you could expect. I know I liked reading other people’s experiences when I was about to start uni!