As we get closer to graduation week, we have asked some of our Class of 2024 students to look back at their time at the University of Liverpool and think about what advice they would give to their first-year self.
Charlotte is a BA History student who will be graduating this summer. If she were able to speak to her first-year self, this is what she would say:
Dear First Year Me,
You’ve been desperate to come to university for months. Now that you’re here, you aren’t so sure. You thought that you had outgrown your small hometown, but settling into life in a huge city is something that you don’t feel ready for, and you’re doing it all by yourself.
It is far more difficult than you had imagined, you miss your family and friends. You’re convinced that you’re doing something wrong and that everyone else is having a much better time. You are seriously considering dropping out.
You are having a difficult time settling into university, but, if you persevere, you will eventually find your feet. The discomfort you are feeling is actually growth.
You will learn that as an adult, friendships don’t always form as quickly as they did when you were younger – but, the girls you met on the first night of freshers will become some of your best friends, and you will go on holiday to Italy with them to celebrate the end of first year.
In your second year, you will fulfil your dream of living abroad and move to the United States and study at the University of Tennessee for a semester. You will meet incredible friends and go to sold out football games at the university’s 102,000 capacity stadium. You will enjoy Thanksgiving and see New York City at Christmas.
You will return to Liverpool and get to live with your friends. You will work at the university and finally feel some clarity in terms of your future career.
By third year, you will have completely found your feet, and you will feel incredibly proud at how far you have come and how much you have been able to experience.
Good Luck!
Charlotte
If you could go back and do it all over again would you change anything?
Read more of our First-Year Me letters here, and get in touch with the Careers & Employability team if you’d like to share some advice to your first-year self.