Advice for starting university
Be positive. Be punctual. Be professional. Be kind
As a first-year primary education student, you will be busy. You will also be challenged and may even feel slightly overwhelmed at times. However, you will learn an unbelievable amount! Your resilience and confidence will grow, as will your passion for working with children. First-year is not the ‘easy’ year. First-year is when you start to lay the foundations to become an outstanding teacher. Put in the graft, listen, read, make time to relax and you will finish the first year with a huge sense of achievement.
In the first week, don’t worry too much about writing everything down. My pen and paper nearly caught fire at the speed I was writing! But you need not worry – everything is explained again over the following few weeks and you will be able to retain all the important info more when the craziness of the first week is over.
In the first month, make sure you become familiar with the library and the resources it has to offer. Learn how to: photocopy, print, find books and journals, take books out and find out how to access tutorials with the library staff. The library will become your best friend when assignments have been set and everything you need to pass is in there. Also in your first month – explore York, explore the Students Union and make time to meet new students and have fun. The latter being equally as important as the library situ!
In the first year… read. And read some more. Have LOADS of fun with friends, but also read. Reading widely is crucial for assignments and will also set you up nicely for the second year. Lastly, and arguably most importantly, make sure you ENJOY PLACEMENT! Being on placement is a wonderful opportunity to learn about the classroom environment, behaviour management and the planning and delivery of engaging lessons whereby the children’s knowledge has been extended by the end. Placement is where you can finally put your ideas into motion and begin to link theory to practice. It’s also an opportunity for you to trial new things and make mistakes.
Have a brilliant first year, first years! You will love being part of the YSJ family!
*A note now to any mature students*
I started university at the age of 25. Being classified as a mature student, I was worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I knew I wasn’t of the age where I wanted to party till 6.00am, yet I also knew I wasn’t going to be returning home to a mortgage and three children either. I felt sort of an awkward in-between age at first. But, I need not have worried. Take it from me, being at university opens up so many different opportunities for different conversations and different friendships with different people. Just have fun, open your mind and smile.
