Education: Cutting the umbilical cord

The first seconds after your parents wave goodbye are the worst. But after that it's time to make a new home for yourself.

HIGHER EDUCATION is always talked about as the start of a whole new life for raw undergraduates. For the vast majority it'll be the first time they've experienced life away from home. The familiarity of friends and family will now be something that is remembered late at night in a strange place miles away.

Life is about getting up in time for morning lectures, burning the midnight oil to get late essays done, making a new set of friends and forging relationships with people you have never met before.

The whirlwind of change sweeps students up from the moment A-level results come out. Those who have not made the grades they need will now be going through the emotional wringer of deciding whether to retake, apply next year, or go through Clearing. For everyone going on to higher education, a place to live has to be sorted out, belongings need to be packed, and a million different things need to be done NOW!

Once the new fresher is at college, there is the maelstrom of socialising that inevitably occurs in the first few days, punctuated by long queues for course registration, opening bank accounts, arranging loans...

But there is always a point when, for a time, the full magnitude of the change in your life hits you. It happens to everyone at some stage. If you talk to those who've gone through university, many will tell you about the first handful of hours that they spent in their room in halls. Their parents had deposited them and their odd assortment of personal gear, and had finally left them - after a few tears - in a dark little room with its little bed, one chair and table and a wardrobe. Simple, bare and nothing like home.

For those first few moments, they felt completely on their own. The umbilical cord attached to home had been cut, and they now had to - relatively speaking - fend for themselves. No friends!

The truth is that going to university or college is the start of a whole now life. Once the family has left, there is little they can do to help in those first few moments. All they can do is to ring and write regularly to stay in touch.

Which is why it's so important to make yourself feel at home as soon as possible. When you are packing, make sure you take along, not just the essentials, but the "important things" too.

University rooms have bare walls. For those first few moments they can appear to be bare prison walls at worst. Nothing brightens a room in halls better than posters, pictures, material, and "stuff" from home. If you have to, strip the walls from home and pack it all in. It's worth remembering small lamps for lighting the room. They make a room feel warmer, especially as some halls only have nasty overhead strip lights.

Your room in halls may be the place where you realise the change in your life, but it's also your sanctuary from it all; it's the place where you have space and time to think. It's worth taking along some pictures from home, so that in those first few minutes you can remind yourself that you aren't alone in the world.

It is tempting to bring the minimum amount possible when you come to halls. After all, it makes it easier to pack and move it all backwards and forwards at the start and end of each term. But the effort is worth it if you feel at home for those first weeks at university. It is also worth bringing useless items with you if you like having them around and they make you feel comfortable.

If there's one thing you can put money on, it is that all students will have a stereo of one sort or another in their rooms. Quite often they're used simply to drown out the racket next door! After all, university rooms have a reputation for thin walls. If you can, it's often good to have a little portable telly as well. Halls of residence have common rooms with a TV, but it's sometimes better to be able to sit back and have an evening in. There are days when you just want to get away from it all: the studying, the socialising, the hecticness of all the life around you.

Getting through the first few hours alone in your room can be hard. But going to university or college, starting a course, having your own life, is about how you can be yourself and how much you can get out of life. So why not start as soon as those parting waves from the window of your parents' car fade into the distance. Take life by the scruff of the neck and make yourself at home!