The advice to first years thread

liambob1

I remember about this time when I was going into first year I was very nervous and panicky about starting college and worried about not making friends. So I thought id start a thread where returning or past students could pass on pearls of wisdom which will hopefully help our newbies to feel more comfortable with the idea of starting college.

First thing to know is that EVERYBODY is just as terrified and desperate to make friends and settle in as you are, so you will find making friends remarkably easy - Just talk to someone sitting next to you and you could strike up a life long friendship!

Attend ALL of the indication and participate in the silly icebreaker games, they may be childish but they work, they will get you talking to your classmates and everybody can laugh about it.

Join a society! society are a great way to make friends from both your own campus and other campuses, you will meet people with similar interests! You wont have trouble finding a society, in fact you will have trouble fighting them off.

If you are renting be sure to get one of the USI rent books

Sort out your grants/registration as soon as possible. You dont want to incur any late charges or be refused use of services.

Be nice to the porters - you may think the lecturers are important but the college wouldn't function at all without them. One of the campuses was ground to a halt completely a few years ago when they went on strike.

Get involved in the students union. Become a class rep, join the events team, there will be lots of opportunities throughout the year to get involved! The SU and gals may be overbearing at times but they have your best interests at heart.

DO NOT fall behind on your assignments and lab reports! there is nothing worse than spending review week catching up on a million lab reports. Work will pile up, get it done as soon as you can.

Budget properly, it will give you confidence and help prevent getting you into debt, a lot of the banks that try sign you up during freshers week have overdraft facilities, don't be tempted to use them and get yourself into debt. You will receive a mountain of coupons at the start of the year, USE THEM it saves the pennies, which matter to use students

Feel free to expand on this everyone

Dwaegon

Freshers week! This is a great time to get to know your class better and meet new people!

If you don't drink, then don't drink! DIT students know how to have the craic, and DITSU put on stellar events that always draw a serious crowd. From personal experience, the best nights are the ones where you don't have to down some foul-tasting cheap alcohol outside the club just to get a buzz, you can get all the buzz you need from the night itself! (With that being said, the drinks promos on DITSU nights out are a lot better than a lot of clubs around Dublin. And another great factor, all the events are 18+, so there's nobody left out as long as you're of age)

In your first week, ask the porters where your Health Centre is. There's a north and southside health centre, in Bolton and Aungier Streets respectively. You may need it! (I know I have), and there's nothing worse than trying to get a doctors note for a late assignment when you feel awful, and having to run all over a campus to find it.

...I'll think of more later!

The Volt

Go to your lectures. I know it sounds simple but thinking you can catch up or that you can afford to miss the odd class is not a good habit to get into. Trust me, I had repeats at the end of first year and they can ruin your entire summer.

With that said, try to further your learning outside the classroom as well. The Socs office in particular run great workshops on time-management, leadership etc. and there'll be guest speakers, seminars all year long via various societies.

ShamrockGirl

This might be important to people: (visible on the dit.ie homepage)

A dedicated hotline for students, their parents and advisors, is now available at DIT.

The number is 01 402 7000 , and the line is open to assist potential, new and continuing students and parents with general queries relating to many areas such as admissions, registrations, timetables, fees etc.

The hotline is available Monday to Friday 10:00-12:30 and 14:00 – 16:00.

In particular, the hotline should act as a key resource to potential or incoming first year students with any query with regards to DIT College life. Anticipated queries include:

points requirements for courses;
CAO offers;
registrations;
timetables;
fees and grants.
Lots of useful information is also available at www.dit.ie/campuslife/ including information on registering, fees and grants, timetables, undergraduate induction schedules and ID card collection dates (new students).

To contact the DIT Student Hotline, phone 01-402 7000 or visit http://www.dit.ie/campuslife/

Chorcai

liambob1 wrote: »

Budget properly, it will give you confidence and help prevent getting you into debt, a lot of the banks that try sign you up during freshers week have overdraft facilities, don't be tempted to use them and get yourself into debt. You will receive a mountain of coupons at the start of the year, USE THEM it saves the pennies, which matter to use students

Ulster Bank gave a €650 overdraft last year, don't know what it will be this year but really €100-€150 overdraft should cover you.

Anyone in Fine Art (Portland Row) walk around and meet other years, this years 2nd years have a great mix, quite a few mature and secondary students, drop by say hello, ask questions ! Same goes for this years 3rd years they are really nice and I got so many tips and advise from them regarding assesments etc

One thing which I found helped our class was creating a Facebook Group page and having everyone join it, it was so handy for group stuff !

G_R

One thing which I found helped our class was creating a Facebook Group page and having everyone join it, it was so handy for group stuff !

+1 on this,

so, so handy

liambob1

Bump for the new firsties, we won't eat you, I promise

Boulevardier

For God's sake DO THE LIBRARY INTRO TOUR!

It is amazing the panic some students can get into when their first assignment comes up, and they still don't know how to find the right books or journal articles, how to do the printing or photocopying on the Ricoh system or even how many books they are allowed to borrow!

Believe me - getting to know the library ropes early will keep you up to speed.

Aisling(",)

Photocopy articles you need when lecturers mention them,you probably wont even look at them till exam/assignment time but if you were to go searching for them then chances are you wont be able to get your hands on them!