Welcome to campus learning at Portsmouth

My number one essential item would have to be some way of making notes in your lectures and seminars.

My personal one would be, take an extension lead because you never know where your plugs are going to be.

I would say decorations for my room, like fairy lights can change your whole room!

In order to make my room cosy and to feel more at home, I brought a lot of printed photos with me of friends and family.

The one best thing about living in Portsmouth is the seaside.

It's such a safe option to say the beach but it is true!

It is true.

You can just easily go to the beach during your study break or in the evenings with your friends.

I love that the university buildings are kind of amongst the city, so you feel part of the life here in Portsmouth.

I'm a big history fan, so there's all the museums down on the beach front.

The D-Day Museum and then you've got the dockyards where they've got the Mary Rose Museum.

There is also a really nice park behind the Guildhall.

You can do stuff like little study sessions get the most sun and stuff, and it's really like wholesome.

The first thing you should do when you get to university is collect your student card, hop on to the bus and go for a city tour to explore the city.

And the most important thing is go Freshers' Fayre to get free food!

The Freshers' Fayre is an opportunity for you to check out lots of different stalls and you might even get some freebies.

Last year I got some free pizza, which was just beautiful.

Definitely check out the Freshers' Fayre at the Students' Union because you can get to know all of the societies that you could join.

It's a really good way to meet other new students joining as well as start to find a way around the University before the lectures start.

So you don't just thrown straight into the deep end and can't find anything.

I joined a lot of different group chats before coming to university, such as once my accommodation, once my course as well as just kind of general university group chats.

In Freshers' week with those trials and Give Me Sport where you can try all the different sports societies.

I joined Hockey and I've made so many friends and had such a great experience in first year because of it.

My closest friends personally were my flatmates and a I really got close with my coursemates as well.

But I know for other people it was joining societies, meeting people in literally the most random way sometimes.

One of my really good friends at university is the first person I sat next to, and that is only because we got talking and introduced ourselves, found out a bit more about each other.

So yeah, just be bold and get talking to people.

Towards the Christmas season, I started feeling a bit homesick because I was missing some of the traditions from home.

I either called friends or family from home, or I started recreating traditions from home with my new friends at university.

So that made me feel a lot better.

I think at these times, it's really important to remember there's always family and friends you can call or go see if you are really struggling.

The Student Wellbeing Service is always available if you need to chat.

I think it's really important to make use of all of these to really help with the homesickness.

Remember, everyone is in the same boat.

Everyone's starting a new place.

Everyone's nervous.

Make the most of that kind of time before university properly starts, where you're kind of introduced to university life.

This is a thing that I wish that I was told is that when you first move to uni, likely it will be on a massive high.

You're meeting all these new people, it's an exciting experience, but I think quite quick into that there is also a low with it.

The truth is that it's just what you need is like everyone.

It's literally just adjusting.

So I think just knowing that that is a normal thing to experience, actually a healthy thing as well, just like processing your surroundings as well.

But it is an amazing experience overall.