Second year: my two top tips

I’ve just moved into a house with four other girls and am about to start my third, and final, year at University. I’m petrified to say the least. However, I’m excited to see what lies in store for my last year of education. Moving into my last ever student house *cry* got me thinking about second year and the transition from halls to a student house and, to be honest, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my time University. So, I’ve decided to give you the best two things I learnt from second year.

1. Say yes to more.

A lot of people think that first year (Fresher’s in particular) is the time to make all your friends and go out as much as possible and second year is for the “serious” studying. As much as this might be true to some extent, you still can go out a lot and make new friends, provided you say yes to more.

I found second year to actually be more fun than first. I had quite a rocky time when I first got to University and it took me until about February to finally feel settled. So, with this in mind, when I started second year I said yes to lots and lots of experiences. Whether it be nights out, pub quizzes, or dance classes, I was there. This meant I had an amazing second year and finally felt very settled, thank God…

2. Start to think about (but do not stress about) what you want to do/apply for post uni.

This is more of a piece of advice for second semester and after exams. I am a big believer of “it’s okay to not know what you want to do” but I do think you should have an idea of the sector you want to go into. Just so you know what area to apply for and can actually show some passion in an interview.

For example, when I started second year I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. However, during the Easter holidays, I started to google a few career areas and took a few personality tests and found that HR/Recruitment is a sector that I am now interested in. However, I still don’t know what I want to do in that sector and am hoping to get onto a graduate scheme that allows me to figure that out. Fingers crossed!