Your Guide to Succeed in University

Do you ever wonder why most alumni or adults say, “University was the best years of my life”? Regardless of what age you start university, when you finish, you should look back and share that similar feeling. University is about learning to explore, discovering who you are and who you want to be and creating the foundation for a lifetime of successes. University is the place where I learnt to make the most of opportunities and became who I wanted to be. It made me aware that just attending university isn’t a silver bullet to success, not unless you take control. The university experience will provide endless possibilities and opportunities, but it’s up to you to take the first step. You will face a roller coaster of emotions. You’ll feel excited and scared, challenged and stimulated, but when all is said and done, YOU determine how you want to look back on this experience.

Starting university can be the most sensational experience of your life, but it can also be the most overwhelming. In fact, it can be downright scary if you do not equip yourself with a plan on how to navigate through university. That is why I wrote this guide. My goal is to not only share my experience and lessons learned, but, to channel this into a helpful guide that may help you adapt rapidly and efficiently to ensure that you make the most of your higher education experience.

This guide will not define success for you. You define success and you can start by creating personal goals. Take some time and think about where you want to be in a couple of years, when you graduate, and 10 years from now. You could have educational goals, career goals, salary aspirations, a list of activities to learn, family and other types of goals. Try writing these goals down and revisit them every couple months to see how you’re doing. By taking the first step of writing them down, it shows that you are committed to making these goals a reality. This guide will discuss topics ranging from what you’ll experience in your first few weeks of university, finding a mentor, networking, and post-graduation. At the end, there is a summary of the main takeaways and the top 10 themes. This guide will help you get through the tough times and excel in the good times of university to achieve your definition of success; it may even become your survival guide.