Olivia's 7 adulting tips for university

If you’re starting uni this year, we’ve got a few tips to help ensure you don’t set the kitchen on fire or spend all your loan in your first week.

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1. How to do laundry

Don’t be that person who brings your washing home for your parents once a fortnight. Learn the basics – the settings and what goes where in terms of detergent and softener, and you’ll be well on your way! Just remember: the tactic ‘chuck everything into the washing machine until there’s not even space for oxygen in there’ is often too tempting to resist for washing novices. Your clothes will end up dry and unwashed in the middle of the machine and your new brightly coloured Students’ Union hoody will have probably run all over your whites. Buy some colour catchers, simple detergent capsules so you don’t need to measure anything, and for the love of everything holy – don’t buy white towels.

2. How to cook basic meals

Gordon Ramsay would have a few choice words for what you choose to call ‘cooking’, wouldn’t he? This is fine when you’re at home with chef mum and dad. But what happens when you’re let loose in a uni kitchen? Learn a few basic meals like a trusty Bolognese, a quick stir fry or curry, and maybe even a simple cake or bake that you can impress your new flatmates with! YouTube has some great cook-along videos to help get you started.

3. How to put a duvet cover on

Too many students end up sleeping under an uncovered duvet for months just to avoid the horror show that is trying to get your duvet cover on. Rather than crawling inside and desperately pulling for hours to get the cover on, try learning the best method: turn the cover inside out, grab the corners of the cover from inside, the duvet corners too, and just shake until all you need to do is button up at the bottom. Make sure you have a couple of sets of covers and sheets just in case you cleverly put your bedding in the wash at 9pm – less than ideal if you only have one set….(Oh, and get yourself a good-sized drying rack!).

4. How to budget

Gone are the days when you could make your £2.50 pocket money last the week. Can you be trusted with a student loan?! It’s a good idea to put together an initial weekly budget with your family or older siblings and friends who may have already been to uni. Olivia's top tips for surviving on a student budget are also a good place to start your budgeting research.

5. How to clean

Whether you have cleaners in your halls or not, it’s important you understand the difference between bleach, kitchen surface spray, washing up liquid, bathroom cleaner, and toilet cleaner. It’s not the best idea to wash chopping boards and cutlery in bleach. It’s a less than tasty meal supplement.

6. How to avoid identity theft

Everyone loves a good folder! Make sure you get a few so you can keep all your official documentation from your uni, UCAS, doctor, bank, and Student Finance. Keeping everything filed away safely will ensure you don’t lose anything important, but also makes it less likely your identity will be stolen if someone breaks into your room with an easy target in mind. It’s also a good idea to scan these documents and keep them in the cloud so you can easily access them wherever you are.

7. How to spend your money wisely

There are certain things you should avoid scrimping on, even if you’re a student. Strong black bin bags are a worthy investment to avoid messy spillages, the very cheapest bread is not always the best (you can taste the difference!), and most importantly, wine sold in a box is never usually a good idea.

Taking the time now to learn these lessons will soon make you the envy of all your new flatmates as you enjoy your meals and expertly wash your clothes.

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Student Life Hacks. Hi my name is Olivia and today we're going to talk about some student life hacks to get you ready for university. So maybe you've never cooked anything in your life and that is absolutely fine, but you definitely need to learn some basics before you go to uni, you know, make sure you know how to cook some pasta, some really just simple dishes. There's so much information online and I'm sure your parents and friends can help you out with that as well. One of the best gifts that I got before starting university was definitely a student cookbook. and these are just some that I have. They always have really easy meals, you know five minute, ten minute meals, they're always really affordable and they're literally catered for students. So if you're stuck for ideas definitely grab yourself a student cookbook. Also make sure you go to the supermarket with a list, plan your meals for the week maybe using your book and then write a list out and only get what's on your list and that way it's easier to keep to a budget. No one likes to clean, especially like the toilet, but I think my top tip for this is just clean as you go along. If you make some food or if you do something in your bedroom, just clean up after yourself. It's really not that hard. You don't want to be the person that's leaving stuff in the kitchen or leaving a mess on the floor. Literally just clean, as you, go and that way it shouldn't be too overwhelming and shouldn't become too overbearing and time consuming. Now you might not have used a washing machine before. Don't feel silly. like I didn't before I went to uni either. All I did was ask my mum for some tips before I left. She showed me how to use the washing machine and gave me sort of a little bit of a tutorial. I did a few loads at home, made sure I knew what clothes went in with each other and just had like a general idea before I left. Also a thing you need to think about is how are you going to dry your clothes? Are you going use a dryer? What facilities are available at your accommodation? Do you have a clothes horse or an arrow or whatever you call them? For your finances, it's really important to have a budget. So make sure you know exactly what's incoming and what's outgoing. How much of your student loan are you using on what areas and what do you need to pay for? Is there areas that you could save? Really make use of like student discounts and offers and things like that. Make sure you're leaving yourself a little bit of money for a treat here and there. You know, you don't want to go overboard but you still need to, you know, have a treat, have a takeaway. Make sure your getting what you want as well. Another thing for uni is to have a dedicated space for all of your important bits and bobs. So this is a drawer that I know, anything important is gonna be in here. So not the most professional filing system in the world, but it's simple and it's easy and it works. So these two folders hold some important documents. So the first one holds all of my student loan stuff. So any letter they've ever sent me, any information I need to access my information, things like that. And then in the other folder it's all of my other stuff, so anything to do with work, to do with driving, literally anything else. And then it goes in there. Another thing before you go is definitely register with your GP. You don't want to... get there, become ill especially in the height of coronavirus and then realise you're not registered anywhere, maybe your tooth starts aching and you can't go see a dentist because you're not registered so make sure you register yourself. My friend actually caught herself in quite an unfortunate situation with this where she hurt herself on freshers week and she had no GP to go to so she ended up sitting in A&E for hours when really it could have just been a GP appointment. So hopefully you don't need one but just in case it's always best to be safe I'm sorry. My final tip is don't be afraid to ask for help or advice. I'm glad you're watching this video right now and don't afraid to reach out to people when you get there. Everyone's in the same boat, everyone's going through the exact same thing as you. So if you're unsure about something in particular, even if it is just something simple like how to use the washing machine, ask around, ask your flatmates. ask anyone and I'm sure they will be happy to help you and you're not silly for not knowing where things are or how things work. And most importantly have fun, it's university, it's a great experience. Thank you so much for listening.