As I have now been at University for a month, I am still adjusting to living independently. While the transition has been difficult, I am learning important life skills like cooking, cleaning, budgeting and time management. Living in halls, I was initially nervous about living with strangers but have bonded well with my outgoing and friendly roommates. My first group project was a success, winning both the seminar and course-wide competitions with an app idea for a textbook exchange. Gaining confidence through public speaking pushed me out of my comfort zone and winning has encouraged me for future presentations.

1. Reflection on the first few
weeks…

2. Introduction
As I have now been at University for a month I am still adjusting to life and University and the transition
to now living on my own. I feel that this has been a big jump for me as I now realise how much support I
did rely on from my parents back home regarding cooking, cleaning and also money. For me this
learning experience has been interesting and I have definitely benefitted from the support and guidance
from flat mates as I feel that looking back I should have prepared more for the actual living part of
University. Even though the first week in particular I struggled a lot I now feel a lot more independent
already and now enjoy doing things for myself such as cooking, cleaning, tidying, washing. I really now
appreciate how much my parents did for me back home and that managing all these things as well as
going to University, extra work, work at NEXT is a lot more difficult than I assumed however it is also
allowing me to develop my time management skills.

3. Improvements to my cooking…

4. Living in halls…
 Living in halls we have to live with completely new people who we have never met before. Prior to
University where as some people were nervous about this I was more excited as I feel that I am a
very open minded individual and find it easy to get a long with people and am able make new
friends easily. I was able to get into contact with one of my future room mates through Facebook
and our halls Facebook group where we spoke and was able to get to know each other before.
After bonding on Facebook it made me even more excited to meet my room mates. We were all
lucky enough to bond and be interested in similar things such as music, some of us attended the
same festivals this year and everybody was outgoing and friendly. As I expected I coped well with
this transition from living with new people and feel that my social skills and personality benefitted
me in this situation as we are already comfortable around each other from bonding so well.

5. Budgeting
 Prior to University I saved aside some money for living costs and going out during fresher's.
I was also lucky enough to be awarded with a scholarship for my academic excellence which
helps a lot as my student loan does not stretch further than my accommodation costs. I feel
that budgeting money is a skill which I have already improved on during my time here as I
have learned from the weeks in fresher's to think ahead with money and plan for the month
ahead. I feel that my skills have improved as in the first week of fresher's I did not care so
much for spending and did not think about my actions on nights out as I did spend a lot of
money on drinks in clubs. Progressing onto the second week I gave myself limits and
budgets and implemented rules for myself such as only taking a certain amount of cash out
(not my credit card). When food shopping I would also create a list and ensure that I only
buy the things on the list which are the essentials and not be influenced by the promotions
and advertisements in store.

6. The Text Book Exchange
 One of the first tasks which we were assigned in our Fundamentals unit was to create a product aimed at
students in a group which we were placed in. As this was our first project I was feeling anxious before as
we had to work with people who we had just met and are yet aware of everybody's skills and working
methods. After holding group meetings in the Purbeck House study room out of time our group instantly
formed a clear structure and we were all motivated and determined to win the task with the incentive of a
prize. Before University I would say that I did lack confidence when public speaking especially to people
which I never met before so the idea of presenting did make me nervous however as I was part of a group
of confident speakers this pushed me into not letting down the team and challenging myself so that my
confidence could increase as I was aware that over the next 4 years I would be performing numerous
presentations.

7. The Text Book Exchange
 With this in mind and the mind set of that I am now at University and I do need to push myself more I was able to over
come this by meeting up with the group for frequent rehearsals. All of the rehearsals and hard work into this project paid
off as we performed our role play based presentation in our seminar group and was chosen as the winner of our group. As
this was my first project and being on the winning team gave me confidence and to believe more in myself. Our idea was a
text book exchange app where students can exchange their old textbooks to new students. We presented this in a creative
way by including role play which I starred as the new student who was confused about where to purchase books from and
concerned about the price of the books on top of living costs and fees at University. As we won our task the next step was
to perform in front of the entire course in a lecture theatre being only a few weeks in and still settling this idea did scare
me however with the support of the team and the confidence from winning the first task we were able to put on a high
quality performance where we provided a good explanation of each aspect of our product to the judges where we won
out of the entire marketing course. I was extremely proud of myself and the team afterwards as if someone told me that I
would be presenting in front of a whole lecture theatre a few weeks before I would have been horrified. During this project
we demonstrated key communication skills within the group with communicating over social networking and holding
frequent meetings which I feel made our group successful in this task. By having this good start to my course defiantly
increased my confidence for future presentations and also bought me closer with people in my seminar group making me
optimistic about my course.