After saying goodbye to your parents/supporters on that first day you can feel extremely overwhelmed. Suddenly you have to wake yourself up in a morning, cook, do your own washing, motivate yourself to attend lectures and create a new social life for yourself. For some people, this independence is something they thrive on. For others it can be a difficult adjustment. So here’s some advice to help you get through that first term of living like an almost-adult.

1. Distract yourself from homesickness but don’t ignore it. You will probably be homesick at some point. Even if you’re fine most of the time, there will come a point when you’re curled up in bed with freshers’ flu and wishing someone from home could come and look after you. Being busy can help to distract you from missing home too much but make sure you talk to your family or friends from home too. Give them a call, talk to them about your worries and then go back to being busy and after time the homesickness with fade.

2. Make to-do lists! It can feel like suddenly there’s a lot more jobs to remember to do but making to do lists can help you keep on top of things and it’s immensely satisfying to tick them off.

3. Don’t worry about getting everything perfect. You might accidentally turn all your white things pink in the wash or melt a chopping board on a hob. But you won’t be the first! At the time it might be embarrassing but by graduation it will be one of your fondest memories of first year. (Just don’t turn your toaster on its side to make a toastie and set your kitchen on fire. Yes it has been done.)

4. Learn from people around you and work together. Some of your flatmates will be great cooks, others will barely be able to microwave a pot noodle. Sharing responsibilities like cooking and cleaning can not only make the jobs easier but can bring community into your independence.

5. Budget. Perhaps the hardest part of independence but also one that can determine your whole university life. Learning early on how to manage your money can save additional stress later down the line. You don’t have to have to stick rigidly to a budget plan but regularly checking your bank account and accounting for potentially large expenses can allow you much more flexibility to do more enjoyable things.

6. Learn how to motivate yourself. Without anyone else around to remind you to do your essays you need to learn what makes you work. Sometimes that setting out a certain time in the day for work, sometimes it’s promising yourself rewards when you finish a chapter. Find what works for you.

7. Get a support network around you. University is a great place to make friends for life. Join societies, go to socials and make an effort with people around you. Talk to people who’ve already made that jump to independence like your freshers’ reps.

8. Enjoy it. Making your own decisions and planning your own time can be extremely fun but it is important to balance it with being sensible. Nothing dampens fun like being ill, missing essay deadlines or accumulating debt. The surest sign that you are fully independent is not only that you can make your own decisions but that you can make them wisely.

Today is International Friendship Day! In celebration, here are some tips for making friends when you start university!

1. Remember you’re all in the same boat! Everyone wants to make friends and find some reassurance during freshers week and first term. But don’t put pressure on yourself to be best friends with the first person you meet. You might not gel with your flatmates but there are plenty of other places to find friends.

2. Leave your door physically and metaphorically open. During freshers week be open to meeting many, many new people. Talk to anyone and everyone, attend the events – whether that’s the nights out or the day time events and try not to shut yourself away. Inside your flats try and keep your door open to encourage conversation with your flatmates!

3. Societies. Not only are they great for trying new activities but they are a fantastic place to meet people with similar interests and personalities to you.

4. Your course. Lectures can be vast rooms full of people but your seminar groups can be much smaller and a good opportunity to get to know people on the same course as you. It can be very reassuring to have someone to get stressed with about essays and to ask about reading.

5. If you have friends from school or college, try not to rely on them. University is a chance to grow as an individual. You are likely to change from the person you were at college and sometimes the people that you were friends with at 16 years old are not the people you would choose to be friends with at 20 years old. This doesn’t mean you are a bad person, it just means you’ve grown up and grown apart.

6. Part time work. It might not be the first place to go for friends but getting student jobs can be a fantastic place to mix with people that you wouldn’t normally meet. Jobs like student ambassador often have socials that come with them too!

So you have decided that you might want to go through clearing! Whether it’s because you’ve changed your mind about your first choice university, suddenly decided you quite fancy going or haven’t got the grades you needed, clearing gives you the option to apply for universities and courses you many never have even considered before. So here’s some tips to make clearing a bit less daunting.

1. Universities often put the courses that will be on clearing on their websites the night before results day. If you’re having doubts about your course or university it might be worth having a browse of what is available whilst you wait for your results.

2. Don’t be afraid of ringing! Remember that those on the phone want to give you an offer. If you meet the requirements they ask then there is no reason why you won’t get one.

3. Get as many offers as you want! When you first apply to uni you get 5 options. That’s not the case with clearing – you can get as many offers from as many universities as you want, even for different courses at the same university if you’re unsure at the time. You normally have a few days to confirm but in those days you can do more research and take your time making the decision.

4. You can still look round the university. In the days following clearing many universities run campus tours so you can still get a feel for the university with the comfort of knowing that you hold an offer already.

5. You don’t need to have already applied to university to go through clearing. Even if you’ve just decided on results day that you’d quite like to go, you can still apply. No personal statement, no UCAS form, just a phone call!

6. Grades are often lower on clearing, so options you hadn’t considered before may now be open to you. If you have the grades for them you can still be given an offer.

7. You can still use clearing to change courses if you already hold a place at a university. As long as you have the grades for the course you’d like to switch to, just ring up and ask!

8. If you’ve met and exceeded the grades that your firm choice university were asking for then you might want to consider other universities or courses through adjustment rather than clearing.

The night before results day is scary. Even if you came out super confident after your exams, those little seeds of doubt sprout into full blown terror when faced with impending grades. It can feel like these grades are going to determine the rest of your life, like one wrong letter on the page could doom you forever. Of course it won’t. But it definitely feels like it at the time.

So here’s a few approaches to help to manage those pre results day nerves.

The distract yourself approach: Find something to occupy your mind and your time on the day before. This could be spending time with your friends, binge watching an entire Netflix series or cuddling your pet. Anything that can make the day go quicker is helpful.

The look beyond approach: Plan something for immediately after getting your results that you can look forward to. Something to ground you and that will happen regardless of whether you are happy or sad with your results. If you are happy with your results, it is a chance to celebrate. If you are unhappy then it is a way to keep busy and try to focus on something beyond results – like food!

The plan for every eventuality approach: Decide what you are going to do if you don’t get the results you want. Are you going to take a year out or are you going to go through clearing? If you’re going to go through clearing, which universities are you going to ring? Can you find the numbers and what courses are available? (they are often on the clearing websites the night before). What if you do better than you expect? Are you going to go through adjustment? Answering these questions and having a contingency plan in place can help reassure you that no matter what happens on results day, life will go on. Check out my Guide to Clearing for help on how it works.

The perspective approach: This is one of the approaches that everyone should try to take whenever you are nervous about something. Remember that no matter what happens, your life will go on and this result does not define you. At the time it can seem extremely daunting when things don’t go to plan but there’s no minimum age to go to university and ultimately wherever whenever you go, you will enjoy it.

Good luck with your results!