If you could write a letter to yourself as you started uni, what would you say?

Dear Lucy,

As you start uni and jump into working hard on your degree, stop and reconsider your priorities. Yes, ensuring you come out at the end with a good degree is important, but what's equally as valuable whilst being at uni, or arguably more, is building strong friendships. You have less demands in your first year, as your assignments don't count towards your final degree class, so make the most of that freedom by investing time into finding people who you really feel you can connect and be vulnerable with. Like with anything, the more time you invest into really getting to know people, the better your friendships will be. Just seeing people in lectures isn’t enough to build these types of relationships, especially if you have limited contact hours, so prioritize spending quality time with friends throughout the week.

Once you've done that and look back over your time at uni, you'll realise how much you and your friends empowered each other. You’ll be faced with opportunities that you don’t think you’re capable of, and these friends will encourage you to grab them. Once you have listened to them, you’ll really been thankful of their support, as each of those opportunities will mould you into the person that God wants you to be. Therefore, God really will speak to you through other people, so if you always lock yourself away to study- you're going to become unhappy, burn out very quickly and most importantly, miss those precious opportunities to seek guidance from God. Remember to never underestimate the importance of strong relationships- their fruitfulness underpins everything you do and provides you with the fuel to keep going.

Also, moving away from the comfort of life established at home to a vast university and degree intake can definitely make you feel isolated and like a small fish in a big pond at first. Furthermore, university can sometimes be plagued with competitiveness and self-seeking. However, God doesn't call us to function for ourselves. He calls us to be within community, so definitely prioritise encouraging this amongst your course and house mates (Hebrews 10:24-25). You could take turns each week to cook dinner, so everybody is able to come together and spend quality time with each other, or you could perhaps encourage house mates to support each other at sport fixtures or orchestra concerts. From doing this, everyone will at least have a glimpse of God’s insurmountable love, and as a result start to flourish (John 3:16). Furthermore, as God equipped us with gifts to benefits others, I think only by interacting frequently you will learn how he created specifically you to serve him. So building community is definitely the way to go!  

And lastly, once you have settled into uni life, you may realise that your housemates are very different to you in terms of values and lifestyle. At first, this may seem disappointing and discomforting, but try and adopt a positive mindset towards this instead. God may have put people who are different to you in your path to challenge your perspectives and to learn that perhaps there are better ways to deal with certain situations. From being around people who hold different ideas, you really will grow in adaptability, open mindedness and patience. Also, like how different notes can make a pleasing harmonious sound, I think when different people are brought together; the result can be a group which really functions well. Everyone brings different gifts to the table which are all of equal value (e.g. one person lifts the room with their energy, another the consoler etc.) (Romans 12:4-5). Therefore, don’t be disheartened if people seem different to you. Instead, view them as a blessing.

So, always remember how fortunate you are to have the opportunity to go to university, and demonstrate this by making the most of opportunities which fall in your path. Also, try to be excited as opposed to apprehensive about starting this new chapter- God will never leave you and he will take you on a great journey to learn about him, others and yourself (Deuteronomy 31:6). What an adventure!

Lucy x