For many students, university is the first time living away from home – and that can feel like a really big change. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the new responsibilities, even if you’ve been fairly independent before. But remember, university life is a time where you can get used to living on your own in a safer, more supported way.
Managing your space
The fantastic thing about living away from home is that you get to decide what you want your space to look like. It’s a great time to figure out what a good home looks like for you. What makes you happy to see? What do you want close to hand? Do you want everything spick and span, or do you want to drop everything on a chair and move on?
Whatever you want your home to be, it’s amazing what a difference it makes to feel like it’s a clean, comfortable space where you’re in control.
Keeping on top of housework
Especially when stresses are piling up, it’s easy to let things like washing up, laundry and cleaning fall by the wayside. Of course, if you’re renting, your landlord will hold you accountable – but it’s also important for your own wellbeing. Having mess build up can have a negative effect on your mental health – it’s like a visual reminder of how out of control we feel.
Try and clean in manageable chunks – that could mean agreeing a day every week with your housemates to clean and tidy the flat, setting small chores every day, or putting one thing away every time you enter a room.
If you’re struggling more – if stress, depression, or other issues are making it hard to keep on top of your housework – taking a day or two to power through it can be a step towards regaining control. It might be useful to recruit a friend to help you out (or just sit on the phone and coach you through it) so you don’t have to motivate yourself through it.
Learning life skills
A majority of students in Scotland say that they left home without being taught how to handle a lot of daily life skills, from cleaning an oven to doing laundry to cooking to paying bills. It’s ok to not know things – now is as good a time as any to learn!
If you don’t know how to do something, don’t be afraid to ask your friends or housemates – everyone’s come with different skills and knowledge. Google and YouTube are also amazing tools to look up tasks. It can feel really great to learn something new, even something as mundane as how to unblock a drain or cook pasta.
Living with other people
If you’re sharing a flat or house, there’s a very good chance that your housemates will drive you mad sometimes. It’s hard sharing space with other people – you’ll all have different wants and needs out of your living space, and you’ll very quickly find the places where those come into conflict.
It can be tempting to avoid talking about it in case it ends up being a fight, but if your housemate is partying until 3am when you need to be at an 8am lecture, or if the pans in the sink are growing a new species of mould, communication is a better way forwards than silently stewing. Try, as much as possible, to be polite, to keep from getting angry, and to offer solutions.
Privacy and boundaries are important, especially when things are getting stressful. The last thing you want when you’re having a bit of a wobble is your housemate wandering through your room without knocking. If you have a part of the flat that’s just yours (like your bedroom), it can be much easier to negotiate and compromise on the shared spaces – your room can still be just how you want it, and you don’t have to be accountable to anyone else.
Read more tips on handling housemates from the University of Portsmouth and International Students House, and some tips on how to have difficult conversations with your housemates.
