Feeling homesick? Don’t worry! many students do including myself but here are some tips to help cope with it.

Talk about it.                                                                                                                                                          There is nothing to be embarrassed about, just talking about missing home can make you feel better

Keep busy.                                                                                                                                                                     Go out with friends, go to the library to do work, take a walk, it could be anything! Sometimes if you are sat doing nothing you wish you were at home. Keeping your mind busy distracts you from missing home, and can improve your mood!

Regularly talk to the people you miss at home.                                                                                       This can help a lot as you can share your experiences and you can keep up to date on what is happening at home. Trust me, it will help the people you miss at home too!

Invite people you miss to come visit you if they can instead of you going home.     Sometimes going home too much during term time can put you off your studies and make you want to stay at home instead of focusing on your work. However, if you invite the people you love to where you live, get them to meet your flatmates and show them round the city, it can make you feel better.

Socialise.                                                                                                                                                                      Taking part in a sport, society or even going out every now and again helps you to socialise, meet new people and keeps you busy. enjoying yourself with university friends can take your mind off missing family/friends at home.

It is not easy when you are missing home, but remember that there is always someone to share your feelings with and most students experience it at some point during their studies. You are not alone and I hope some of these tips help you out.

University isn’t all about work! Fortunately students who go to university in York have a beautiful city to explore which is full of places to discover. Here is a list of things to do/ places to visit when you have some free time.

York railway museum

A walk on York walls

York museum gardens

York minister

Viking centre

York Art Gallery

Cruise down the river Ouse

And of course, there are many delightful pubs and bars where you can have a couple of drinks with your friends. For example, the drawing board, house of trembling madness and the slug and lettuce.

Being at university can be a big change to your life. All of a sudden you have to keep track of your own money and it can be stressful. You want to be able to save to allow yourself to go on days out, nights out and even travel on holiday! However, at university other essentials are more important so here are a few tips to help you get the best of both worlds!

1: Make a  note of what you are spending.                                                                                                          If you keep a note of what you are spending, you can start yo pick out the items that are more essential than others, and you can see patterns in your spending. for example, if you are eating out a lot, you can see how often you are doing it and then see how much you are spending in that area.

2: Put an amount of money into a savers account that suits you, and be consistent with it.                                                                                                                                                                                            If you set yourself a certain amount of money that you can save each week/month where you won’t be struggling without it, it will soon add up so if you wanted to treat yourself  you will have money saved.

3: Do your food shopping weekly, not daily.                                                                                                                                                                            When it comes to saving money, you want to avoid spending money on things you don’t need as much as possible. Planning what you are going to eat each day for the week and buying it all at once not only stops you buying extra food, it saves time. If you are not going to the shop every day, you won’t be tempted to buy more than what you need. Another tip is not to go food shopping hungry! if you go do your shop on an empty stomach you will be tempted to buy more food and may then go to waste.

4: Look for deals in shops                                                                                                                                 Doing this can save you money in the long run. For example, if a pack of chicken breasts are £4 each or 3 for £10 and you know that you will use the other packs for other meals, get 3 packs. Food will not be wasted because you can freeze the other two packs and will make the next couple weekly shops cheaper!

5: Buy own brand foods in supermarkets This helps you stick to your budget as most own brand foods are a lot cheaper than branded foods. Also, for most foods, you cant really tell much of a difference in taste, but will help your bank balance!

6: Take your weekly budget out of the cash machine to spend.                                                    Doing this can help you keep track of what you are spending each week and you can see how fast that amount of money goes instead of paying with your card and realising you haven’t stuck to your weekly amount. This will help you take into consideration what items are more important.

7: Save your change up.                                                                                                                                             A good way of saving money is to put your spare change (copper and small silver) into a money tin. When you have filled the tin you can then go to the bank and exchange it for notes and then you have spare money without noticing that you are saving.  This may be a good way to save if you cant afford to put a consistent amount of money into a savers account each month (tip number 3).

Hope these tips help!

We all know there are many Costa coffee shops in York but my goal is to go explore more independent coffee shops and see what they are like! There are so many cute coffee shops i have walked past and need to try!

All my life I have lived in Stockton-on-Tees but on the 16th of September I left my family to live in York to go to YSJ! I live in City Residence and I have met some lovely people. I live in a flat with 4 other girls.