 It’s only been two years since I started university in Scotland, and now I am preparing for my year abroad in Europe. Before my travels, I go back to the bonnie land of the brave on a flixbus to visit friends from my familiar town. Anticipating those I will be meeting in the coming year, I dwell on the significance of these connections to enjoying time away from home.
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 It’s typically presumed that as soon as students have graduated and left their university life behind, they’re filled with excitement about what the ‘real world’ has in store for them. Yet, this isn’t the case for everyone. In fact, some new graduates find it extremely difficult to contemplate their life without the structured education they have always known and are anxious about what comes next.
 Hello, we’re the Unite Foundation and we offer a University Scholarship, specifically for care leavers/care experienced people (if you go to university in Scotland) or young people estranged from their family. We’ve included some definitions at the bottom of this blog to help explain what we mean!
 My exams are over now, and the freedom of summer is slowly sinking in. It’s time to watch movies of flowery frocked teens munching strawberries in fields on the outskirts of civilisation, wild water dipping and tossing shades to the wild grass. These images of summer trickle in and begin to replace the world of word counts and wooden lecture theatres. But what is this concept framed by a vignette of endlessly sunny days, and what’s it doing to how we live our summer?
 If you’re a university student, you’re probably stressed about the rising cost of living. Even before the pandemic, 84% of students reported that they were worried about finances and that these worries had a detrimental effect on their mental health.
Inflation continues to rise, but resources to support student mental health haven’t yet caught up. Only 23% of students are happy with the mental health support services their university offers, and one in five students is diagnosed with some form of anxiety mid-way through their course. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by financial factors out of your control. However, gaining financial literacy and exploring all the options available to you can lighten the burden and help you manage financial stress during your student years.  Whether you’re starting your journey moving into halls or doing it all again this year, loneliness creeps up on us all. I'm going into second year and although I'm certainly not in the same position as last year (familiarity with faces, places, friends and spaces) it can sometimes feel like a full circle.
 Building a steadfast credit history throughout your student years can lead to greater financial freedom in the years to come. A longer credit history positively impacts your credit score. So let's dive right into it: What is credit score and why is it important?
 Ah...food, meal prep and weekly shops - where would we be without it? Richer, probably. With more time on our hands. But alas, a regular excursion to Aldi and bulk making of pasta bake is pretty necessary for student survival. We can’t go without food, however time consuming and expensive it may be. Let’s take a look at managing the food side of student life, and how it coincides with tackling food waste.
 The personal statement is a symbol of that nerve-wracking transitory period between school and university, amongst opening your student bank account, visiting open days, and the tingling anticipation of Fresher’s Week on the horizon. Written by every sixth form student as a precedent to CV writing, it urges them to express their interest in their course, the institution, and what exactly they have to offer themselves.
 As exams across universities start to clog your calendar, it can be hard to think about what comes next. If, like me, you procrastinate by thinking ahead, past this chunk of deadlines that seem to be wreaking havoc to your onedrive, you might get a little shock. No matter how much you might moan and groan for these exams to be over, they almost always mean one thing: the end of the academic year.
 Apparently we’ve done the hard bit. We’ve jumped right into the deep end of making friends, learning online and in-person, scraping by on our student loans to learn how to survive. But, after packing up the Christmas tree and boxing away the Rudolph decorations after a relaxing few weeks at home, returning back to university may not seem all too pleasing.
 Let’s be real, the end of semester one will probably go out not with a bang, but with exams. If you’re reading this as a student in first year, you may be a little confused with what university exams actually are. All you’ve known are the AQA A-Level papers sent straight from hell. So, if the last exams were your A-levels or BETCs sat six months ago (assuming your school even did these), it’s probably been a while since any of us have sat down to do actual exams.
 Work smarter, not harder, is a favourite mantra of mine. Although this article focuses on studying, it can be applied to every aspect of life.
The inspiration for this topic came to me a few months ago, as I sorted through a box of old paperwork in my room. I came across a sheet of paper from my A-levels, listing the hours of revision I had done each day. I stared down the columns of 5s, 6s, and 7s, and was struck by the vivid recollection of just how bad my revision had been.  “Our choices and responses are our only responsibility. Choice is the discipline that makes the garden of our lives bloom.” - Stephen Hanselman
The idea of jobs can be depressing, especially with news about the rising age of retirement – the idea that we have to spend the next fifty years (and the prime of our lives) working for other people. Unfortunately, unless you win the lottery - and any Push fans will know how likely that is to happen, we’ve got to work.  You didn’t think getting a degree would be all fun and games, did you? I guess it was hard to anticipate that opening your laptop would result in a burst of unfinished essays, deadlines, coursework, lectures and seminars all screaming at you.
 So, if you’re reading this, you’ve survived freshers week. That serves a massive congratulations. It may have seemed like seven days of non stop raving, served with a small flu on the side, or an eternal echo chamber of people's names and what courses they're studying. Either way, it's no easy feat transitioning into university and fresher's week is quite a step up.
 The time for a new era has finally arrived, and whether you’re eager to escape from home or busy treasuring last memories of sibling scraps, moving to university is a whole different rollercoaster of emotions. Whilst last month’s blog gave a brief overview of things to bring for your next adventure, this month I’ll be writing some top tips on how to handle freshers week!
 In a world full of social media and other digital distractions, technology can either be a huge time drain, or it can be used to our advantage. Whether you want to improve your family or social life, your work performance, or your study habits, you can do it with the help of a good productivity app.
I'm going to share a few of my favourite productivity apps below, but first let's look at the benefits of using a productivity app to track your habits and goals.  When you leave home for the first time, you face new experiences and challenges, putting your real-world knowledge to the test. Further education programs can expand your academic understanding, but real-life experience is what really prepares you for the responsibilities of adulthood, including financial management. By practicing some early financial planning, university students can enhance their economic responsibility and feel more confident for their futures — here are a few key financial skills to learn as a student.
 Financial management is essential for keeping up with everyday expenses. As a college or university student, you have multiple costs to consider, such as tuition and textbooks. So, here are some tips on how to manage your finances..
 It’s June, which is a horrifying thought – the longest day of the year is less than a week away! But other than existential angst, June also means that Universities are opening for applications. And they want applications. Your application.
There’s over 150 Higher Education Institutes in the UK and they offer around 100,000 courses. The choice is absolutely staggering and it’s very easy to get overwhelmed when choosing a uni. The resources that exist to help you choose are often just as bad – league tables with dozens of categories; you might in interested in knowing a university’s research quality but what does a research quality of 3.34 mean?  The 18th May is when you’re able to register and start your application to begin your undergraduate degree in 2022 ready to submit it from September 2021.
Now while the actual date you’d be starting seems like a lifetime away - If you could call 16 months a lifetime (and a quick internet search tells me that only some rodents can). It is never too early to start taking a look at two things. What you want to study and where you want to study it. The two things are equally as important in your decision-making process so let’s take a look at each and what kind of questions you should be asking yourself as you begin to put together your UCAS application for next year.  The purpose of this article is to try and present learning in a new light – to show that learning can be a powerful and enjoyable tool for life. I’m not talking about any specific area of learning – this isn’t an argument that you should become an expert on the mating cycles of sea-slugs.
This may well seem like a strange concept – you might ask “why on earth would I want to love learning?” Learning is, after all, school and university, endless classes, exams and stress. Isn’t it? No.  University admissions are something that the majority of us would agree should be a straightforward and fair process but it isn’t always clear (and is a topic up for debate) on how fair that process is currently.
What should be considered in a university application? Well the most obvious is the grades of the applicant, a clear indication of academic ability, but is that all admissions should be judged on? After all, everyone has their own barriers to face in life. At Push we love talking about building resilience from your setbacks and using these as a positive element to your self development. The argument is that these barriers are something that should be considered by universities during admissions. A report by the Nuffield foundation found that, selective universities are increasingly taking into account socioeconomic and educational contexts in which applicants achieved their grades but Vikki Boliver of Durham university argues that universities must be even bolder in their admissions process to ensure that students from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds are able to access higher education.  With the vaccine rollouts, it is likely that students may be able to move into the student halls this September once again. It’s important to think about all the little things you may need once you can move, especially for your first year of uni. With this student halls packing list, you will not make the same mistake of forgetting common items like others.
Once it becomes safe to move in, your brain can be very scrambled from trying to think about every single item you will need to live on your own. You may be searching through your university’s website, Reddit, and other forums for answers. To make sure you have all the basics, you can check out our list here and skip the searching. Even after reading a list of the basics, there are still more items you will need while living in the student halls. You never want to be under packed or unprepared for uni life, so the following items can help you be properly prepared. |
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