| The Truth About Student Life | 20/02/18 |

M O R N I N G 

I almost feel like I've forgotten how to write a blog post, so the format of this post might be a bit 'up in the air'. Therefore, before I delve into things, here's a quick disclaimer... On the 26th December, I uploaded a blog post surrounding the topic of social media, and the influence I feel it has on the mental health of its users. Since then, I have been absent from this blog, and largely absent from social media in general, because I feel as though I've had nothing worth saying recently. I would much rather only upload when I am bringing a little something useful to the internet that even if only one person found it interesting, it would at least have a purpose.

 This leads swiftly on to the subject of this post. Student life, and the truth about how it feels to experience daily life as a young adult, studying at University. I promise to not sugar coat the finer details, and to accurately portray the common notions of being a student. Shall we begin?

My first year of university was definitely a learning curve, and was a year filled with weekly partying, followed by cursed hangovers and a million takeaways. Lectures were mediocre in difficulty, and whilst I studied hard in my first year, I definitely could have strolled on through with far less effort and still manage to get in to my second year without any trouble. To be honest, the first year at university is a remotely easy one, and you can afford to be a bit blasé if you so do please.

The first year of university leaves you in a false sense of security, in a way, because you've conquered the fear of leaving home, you've managed to make some friends and you've thoroughly enjoyed yourself yet still acquired good grades... And you ask yourself, how?

The much awaited long summer swings around, and you're loving life, almost excited to get back into the educational saddle and tackle second year head on - and also getting psyched to tackle the student union too! The truth is, second year is the toughest, most draining time I've experienced in my life (more-or-less) both physically and emotionally.

University is all too often regarded as an easy life. Parties, Netflix and chill, skipping lectures, free money...Need I say more? There are so many stigmas attached to being a student at university, and these are for the majority, inaccurate. I think society needs to take a step back, and address the fact that students aren't always loving their 'care-free' lifestyle, and in actual fact, are very stressed and feel low about their time as a student. According to YouGov, one in four students suffer from mental health problems in the UK. To put that into perspective, 523,300 students joined university in 2015, so for that year alone, 130,825 people suffered from mental health problems in the UK on average. That is an awful lot of students who are not enjoying their university experience as much as you'd expect.

Of course, these statistics are purely based on averages, and there is still a huge 75% of students who have a wonderful time and perhaps don't struggle to get up in the morning for their 9am lectures or feel like they can't face the world that day. But I do feel as though it is so important that this 'care free lifestyle' stigma is addressed and somewhat removed from peoples expectations, because being a student at university can be an extremely difficult time for a lot of people. I know that personally I have struggled with the change from first to second year, and that there are many new obstacles in my second year of university that I have felt incapable of managing on my own. I also think it is so important that you feel supported whilst at university, for instance having lecturers you feel comfortable talking to, friends to confide in, and that you feel your university can provide you with the support and care that you need if you are feeling a bit lost, or overwhelmed by the university life.

Thanks for reading this post, and if you have managed to reach the end then well done! I am trying to take it easy with my workload, as I have a pretty busy schedule at the moment, so I don't think I will be quite back to posting weekly on the blog, as I can hardly do my washing weekly ;)

See you soon x

Sending peace & love,

Ang x