Advice: University Open Days

Okay, so you may have bungee-jumped your way around Australia, absailed the sheer face of Everest and roughed it around India for five months, so why then, you ask yourself, are you so nervous about your university open day?

This is perfectly natural and understandable. The parental rationale for all things new, i.e your first week in Halls of Residence, flying the family nest and university open days, runs along the familiar lines of: "you're all in the same boat". Meaning that everyone else is arriving at these days not knowing anyone or what to expect from this place and they too have the stomach churning nerves (butterflies, some how make it sound nice! It isn't!) that you also have. Yet the boat analogy really didn't "wash" with me. I felt as if, far from sharing a boat, I was a lone sailor on an entirely uncharted sea. This of course is not at all true and yes, once again your parents may well have been right, you really are "all in the same boat". This does not of course stop thoughts going through your head like, imagine if everyone else has secretly met up beforehand and become life-long friends and you are the only person who doesn't know a soul. This is also untrue.
So what exactly is the point of attending such open days?

Well firstly they really are not that bad. In fact they can be the first enjoyable step towards a fantastic university career. But do try to remember that you are not the only person in the history of open days, whose parents actually asked a question in a room full of twenty-year-olds. So do try not to curl up under your plastic (generally uncomfortable chair) from sheer embarrassment, when the admission tutor asks: "Any questions?" Besides you may need to know the answer!

So having got over the initial nerves and painstaking embarrassment try to really utilise your day. The point of an open day to me was to visualise myself being happy in such a place for three long years. You may love the particular course, the accommodation is fantastic, the nightlife may suit you down to the ground, but there is always that unexplainable X-factor, it just didn't feel right and this for me is really the point of open days. If it helps, imagine that you are viewing a property for the first time (your parents may be the pushy estate agents, but remember, it is only you that is going to live there), could you see yourself being happy living there for a reasonably long period of time? After all to the university you are a customer, they need your custom to survive and receive funding, so shop around carefully.

university open dayNot all open day experiences are positive ones and they don't have to be. You may turn up at the university that you pinned all your hopes, dreams and A level successes on and simply not like it. This is also perfectly natural and although it can be really disappointing, this is the whole point of open days, better you find out now then have a miserable three or more years at university.

If you are lucky enough to attend an open day that is specific to your particular course, this does give you a chance to experience some of the lecturers that you will spend your university career listening to. If you find the subject and the orator lends itself more kindly to slumber than an electronic engineering degree, then this may not be the course or the university for you. Ideally you should enrol yourself on a course that really inspires you, that you feel passionate about. Otherwise the likelihood of you attending that 9am lecture is significantly less and if you had been out the night before, non-existent. Believe me some lecturers really do have hangover friendly voices, so just keep looking!

Although your parents digging you in the ribs, stage whispering "go and introduce yourself darling" may cast you back to your first, terrifying day at school, it is a fact that on these open days you may meet someone who will be on your course or has applied for the same Halls of Residence as you. A familiar face is always a relief when you arrive anywhere for the first time, even if after this initial meeting you spend the whole of "freshers week" trying to sake them off, as the two of you just aren't compatible!

Try and get the most out of your first glimpse at university life and the best way to do this is quite simply to remain "open", to new experiences, new academic disciplines and new people.