Well, hi guys. Let's just quickly move on from the fact I've not uploaded at all in 2018... oopsie, I'm sorry, let's not dwell. What can I say? Second year of university is hard! But anyway, I am here today to talk to you about something that can benefit lots of people. Are you starting your first year of university? College? Sixth form? Going back for your second or third year? I am addressing you here! This post is primarily aimed at those of you who will be starting university (from here on out I'm calling it uni because those seven extra letters are hard going), and are a bit worried, or don't know what to expect. Or even if you think you've got it covered, I hate to break it to you, but you almost probably definitely don't. Sorry about that.

I'll start with a bit of background for you so you're not reading this and thinking, 'Who is SHE to be telling ME this?!' Well, I'm glad you asked! I am about to go into my third and final year of my Childhood and Education degree at the university of my hometown. I did not leave to attend uni, actually I stayed at home with my Mum and Dad (honestly, it's great!) and I don't have any dependents (children). Or even any pets, or anything really. I have worked a casual job whilst being in uni but I will cover that another time.

After realising that I could've made a book with how much I've written about this topic, I've decided to do a three-part post. So this is Part 1, and today we will be talking about everything from organisation, to what you can expect on your first day, to things you think you really need but definitely don't! Part 2 will be all about Freshers, time management and Moodle, and Part 3 will talk about finances and how to budget! So after all this rambling, let's get into it!

Firstly, let's start with what you do need and what you absolutely, 100% do not need.

Get yourself an A4 project book. You absolutely do not need a hundred different notebooks. This may be sad news to some of you, who like me, love stationary. But I promise, it's just a waste of money. A project book is a notebook that is divided into 5 sections using tabs, which you can write on. My favourite project book to use is a Pukka Pad, because they are very sturdy and the paper is nice to write on, especially when using felts, it doesn't go through to the other side too much. Currently, Tesco are selling them the cheapest for £4 - but you can pick up own brand ones for cheaper than this in places like Sainsbury's and Asda. Most courses will be requiring you to take 6 modules to pass the year, I like to wait until I have my timetable and write the subjects on the tabs in order, and then the last module has its own little notebook. I did use an A5 notebook for my 6th module in my second year but I found I was writing so much that it was becoming annoying and I wished I'd chosen an A4 notebook, which is what I've opted for this year. Already you've saved money! Instead of buying 6 notebooks at £2 each, costing you a total of £10, you're only having to fork out £6 for a project book (that will honestly last you all year long!) and 1 notebook (which could really be used for your 6th subject in all three years!). Easy!

My favourite project books are the Pukka Pad range.

It makes it so easy to have all your module notes in one place but have them all separated at the same time.

The kind of notebook I love writing in - a hardback with a wire bind!

Your uni will often send out an "essential" *eye roll* reading list with books that they recommend you buy. It's total lies. You don't need to do what I did, and pay nearly £60 in my first year for just two books. You just don't need to do it. The library will have hundreds of copies of those books! If by some madness your uni library has run out of the book, and your local library doesn't have a copy, use Google Books and Google Scholar. Nine times out of ten, the book and the pages you need will be accessible on there. The 1 out of 10 times it's not, I've been able to trawl through Google and find a free copy in a PDF, you just have to be persistent. I've never not been able to use a book I wanted because I couldn't find it. And often, if you ask your tutor if you can have a quick look at their copy to see if the info in there is what you need, they will scan the pages you need and upload to your Moodle page for your whole class to see. However, you can, if you want to, purchase a book that you find yourself going back to time and time again to use (this will mainly be edited books - they're a godsend!).

Again, if you're a lot like me, your favourite aisle in the supermarket is the stationary aisle. So when I learned I was going back to full-time education, I absolutely could not wait to go stationary shopping! Thankfully for me, my lovely work friends bought me a big hamper full of stationary and pretty much everything I would need, and more, saving me loads of money. The only thing I did buy was a pencil case. But I can tell you now, and please trust me, you don't need to go mad on the stationary front - a couple of pens that are different colours, or one of those Bic 4 colour pens will do, and this will literally last you for your whole uni life. You don't need a pencil or a rubber or a ruler or a pencil sharpener, I'm sorry to tell you, it's just a waste of money! Highlighters are the only other thing that I would say is bordering on a necessity, but again, 59p ones from Lidl will do the job just as well as the £5 ones you really want to buy from Paperchase.

A Bic 4 colour pen will honestly last you your whole university life, and they're so lovely to write with too!

Another thing I want to mention is folders. Please don't get caught in the stupid trap that I did where I had 6 different ring binder folders and about a million different plastic wallets inside each, because I knew I was going to be so organised and bring each folder to each lecture. That didn't even last two days. I probably spent around £20 kitting myself out with those stupid, useless folders that did absolutely nothing because I couldn't even be bothered aimlessly trying to shove the hundreds of handouts you get given per lecture in the slippery plastic wallets! Do yourself a favour and get yourself six document wallets instead. They are SO much easier to carry with you to each lecture and soooooo much more user friendly! I used some sticky labels that I had lying around to write the subjects on each wallet so that I could easily find the one I was after and pull it out of my bag. I promise, it's so much simpler! I found some on offer in Sainsbury's around May time that were really pretty, so I managed to get 2 packs of 3 (so I've only got 3 different patterns but that really doesn't matter, I'm lucky they're even pretty this year!) for £1. B&M do a pack of EIGHT for £1.49, which is such a great price, I'm tempted to get them 'just because'!

My bargain wallets for this year (I bought 2 packs so I have six folders total).

A quick example of a folder with a label so that you know quickly and easily which wallet is for which subject. This is one of the wallets I used last year to store all my paperwork for this particular module.

One thing that you do need and will definitely benefit you is an academic diary. It does not need to be an expensive one by any means, you can pick one up for £1 in supermarkets. I have found that I prefer hardbacks to paperback diaries, and I prefer them to be wire bound as I just find them so much more convenient and easier to work with. I have treated myself to a more expensive diary this year with my initials on it, as it is my last year, but I have previously never spent more than £5. This is the diary I've had bought year, but in baby pink, rather than plum! You can absolutely use your phone or tablet as a diary if you'd prefer to do that, but when I tried this, I found it to be quite unreliable and it just wasn't for me, so I'll pick a paper diary over an electronic one any day!

Third year - go big or go home! (At least that's how I've justified spending £10 on a diary to myself!!!)

If you've stayed with me this far, well done! Moving on to laptops! You need to prepare yourselves for what I'm about to say - it will shock you. Here I go... I do not think you need a laptop for university. Sorry! I just don't! I've got a MacBook Pro that I bought 2 years before I even applied for uni (I deferred for a year) and I've barely used it in terms of my degree. The computers in the library are just so much easier to work with because the monitors there are so big, it's easy to split your screen so you have your assignment open in one window and the saviour himself, Google, open on the other, and some universities even have computers with more than one monitor... I know, what witchcraft is this? But seriously, my grades started going from mid 60s (2:1) to well within the 70s (1st) when I started going to the library to complete my work, which is something I'll go more in-depth about in a moment, but I honestly could not go back to using my laptop. However, if you are so hell bent on spending hundreds of your hard earned pounds, I used to work for a store, that will remain nameless, where I received lots of training on laptops specifically, and in my opinion, HP, Acer, Dell, and Lenovo (just naming a few) are all pretty decent brands and shouldn't let you down (if you need any help with this, you can always message me!), you don't need a big memory because you should be using online storage to save and backup your work (I personally use Google Drive and would even recommend it to my worst enemy because I love it that much), you don't need a good processor because you won't (or should I say, shouldn't) be pulling all nighters playing hardcore games, so although I'd try to get something in the Intel Core i3 range, it might prove difficult for under £300, so for processors, Pentium or Celeron will do the job just fine. Please avoid a Chromebook at all costs though, I've heard nothing but negative things about them, and they are not reliable enough if you are going to do work that will have taken you hours and hours to finish!

To close part one of my uni blog posts, I'm going to share with you what you can expect on your very first day of uni. Enrollment is a big car crash of a mess. Nobody knows where they are going (not even the helper people), you're worried you're never going to find where you're supposed to be and there's nothing more daunting than walking into a room full of people and having to sit by a stranger you don't know. Trust me, I've been there. But the person you will sit by will be lovely and will be just as nervous as me. The person I sat by, I'm still friends with going into our third year together. You might be thinking, 'What if we don't have anything in common?' Come on now, you must have something in common with the person you sit by, or else why would you both be doing the same degree? Introduce yourself with confidence, ask lots of questions so you can leave your first day feeling like you've made a friend. Ask the kinds of questions that you find easy to answer (where are you from? How old are you? Were you in college before this? What A-Levels did you study?) because I find that whatever question I ask someone, they always turn around and ask the same back.

My induction 'week' was more like three days, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We didn't do any lectures these three days, we had the same tutor who told us about themselves and we literally did ice-breakers all day for three full days. Don't get me wrong, there were times where we went into the big hall where we were told we'd be graduating in three years' time and the Vice-Chancellor spoke to us, along with people from the Students Union and some other people that you don't really take notice of because you're just so excited to be all studenty and academic, but that's an hour, tops. Then it was honestly just more ice-breakers. But my advice to you would just be to get stuck in. Tell people the weirdly wonderful things about you. If you have children, talk about them. Your peers, and tutors, will be interested to know why you want this degree, and where you want it to take you. I will always remember my best friend's reasoning for wanting to come to university - "I really want a caravan" and she was so serious, she was one of the only people who was able to answer quickly and with confidence, so whatever reasoning you have for being there, share it with people, your peers will become your friends (granted, not all of them) and you will help them, and they will help you.

I hope this big long read (can you tell I'm ready to go back to uni now??) has been informative and has put your mind at ease about the topics covered. I promise, you will love university, from the breakdowns to the impromptu pub crawls because you just need to get away from your assignments - my best friend and I have been through them all! Make sure to check out Part 2 here, and Part 3 so that you're 100% ready for uni!

Let me know if this helped, what you're going to study, or if you have any advice that you would give to new students!

Thanks for reading,