University homes are nothing like your childhood home. That’s if you move away. My home was 5 hours, 2 trains, and an hour’s walk away from Swansea, the city of my university.
Depending on when you caught me, I’d either love my degree or hate it. Usually dictated by how close I was to assignment deadlines. Some days I never wanted my university days to end, and others I wished it would be tomorrow.
University taught me what a home is more than anything else could have. My idea of home throughout my three years changed like the seasons. My first year was tough. I was lonely, and the city felt rainy, scary and isolating. However, there were days when I appreciated the ethereal beauty of Swansea Bay even when it rained. For that year, my childhood home remained my home. My halls were nothing more to me than somewhere I slept and waited to go home again.
In my second year, I lived with friends, and the place became my home away from home. I loved my room and the sunsets I would see from the window that overlooked the gardens of the terrace houses adjacent to my road. The room was my home, and gradually the university and the city felt like home too. There would be faces I knew, and the lecturers began to know who I was. Finally, I integrated in a way I never had before and felt that sense of belonging I wished for so much in my first year.
At university, you live with all sorts. My third year was a particularly strange mix of 30-year-olds and exchange students, which made the whole university experience feel more foreign. I didn’t love my living situation once again, but at least the city was now familiar and welcoming. I knew the walks I loved to do. The friends who had cars to explore the Gower with. In this season, my living arrangements didn’t matter as much. I didn’t need to rely on living with friends; I was on a committee for a society and had other course mates living minutes away, as well as the demands of third year to keep up with.
Places get under your skin. It took three years, but Swansea got under mine. I knew I would be gutted to leave in June. So for the last few months, I took the long route home to enjoy the beach, and I made sure to tick those last few things off my bucket list before I left.
For it turns out that homes do not come pre-packaged. Ready-made. They take time, effort, and are more than the four walls that make up the place you go to sleep at night. They are about location, lifestyle, community, and the friends you make while you’re there. All of those things don’t happen overnight. The effort is worth the reward, and learning those skills is an important part of growing up.
There’s a lot of pressure on students to get it right first time, and we are definitely sold on a false idea of what university life is like. Ask me today after it’s all over, was it the best three years of your life? I would say yes, absolutely, but that’s not entirely true. I really had to work at it, trust that tomorrow can and will be better and actively create the life that I loved. Simply being in the right place at university doesn’t mean you’ll have the incredible experience they like to sell us on. My advice to freshers or anyone struggling at university, you’re not alone, don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s not easy. Remember, homes are made, not delivered; small steps can make tomorrow better.