The Glasgow Student Survival Kit

I’m very experienced in being a student. To begin with, I was one for a number of years, but more so in that even when I stopped being a student, I got to continue working with them. Because of this, I’ve got a great perspective on how to survive being a student.

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Silb

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Glasgow, in many ways, is like any other big city but it has its own charm and its own ‘way’.

So, as a self-proclaimed Glasgow student expert, I’d like to share with you some of the ways you can avoid struggle and stress if you are lucky enough to be a student in the great city of Glasgow.

Social Life

One of the best parts of being a student is that if you do it properly, you really will have a great time. Yes, there is a lot of studying and exams, but this is to be expected – that’s what you signed up for.

However, you can offset the stress of the above by making sure you have an active and healthy social life, without breaking the bank, of course.

Glasgow has a great nightlife, especially if you are a student. You can find many cheap entry and drinks deals if you look hard enough. One place to start is online, with sites such as Design My Night. Their Glasgow section should be a first stop when planning a night out. That word ‘planning’ should be gospel. If you plan properly, you will save money and have a good night out.

Another way of getting those desirable student prices is to do something that you might avoid at other times. This is talking to the people with the flyers standing out in the street. Your initial thoughts might be to dodge them, but most of the time they will have free entry passes, or free shot vouchers. For a minute of your time, you can end up saving yourself a fair bit.

Technology

We live in a digital world and while most of you will have a smartphone or a tablet or both in many cases. Whether you are using them properly may be a different situation altogether.

With a seemingly endless list of apps and programs available for you to download, you can really make your life a lot easier. I’m not talking about downloading Angry Birds 2 to curb your boredom, but more along the lines of productive and organisation apps.

One such app that I will personally endorse is Planner Pro. It’s a bit of a mix, as it can act as a calendar, schedule and noting device. Students will have a schedule, put it in your app so you don’t forget. Have an appointment, put it in your calendar. Need to make some notes, you guessed it, app. While these may seem straight-forward, they can be so useful, particularly when you set up notifications.

You can also use technology to help with your finances. It’s likely you’ve got some sort of online or mobile banking method, but there are apps out there that can help you out in different ways. There’s a fintech app called B which fundamentally acts as a bank account, but also tracks your spending habits and helps you both save money and spend wiser. If I had something like that while I was at Uni, I wouldn’t been much more money savvy.

Support

All higher education institutions will offer a support service to their students, this is a fact. However, the amount of students that a) don’t know about them, or b) don’t use them is quite high.

It’s perhaps to do with a stigma around having to seek help or support when others seem to be doing fine on their own. This is an association that needs to disappear.

Student support services are so much more than just ‘helping struggling students’. While they can help you if you are having trouble with your studies, or your finances, they’ve so much more to offer.

They are a great way to get involved in extracurricular activities at college and Uni. They’re also the best place to go to find clubs and programmes that are external from the institution. These kinds of things can not only look good on your future CV, but they are a great way of just meeting new people which is so helpful for international students or even if you’re just studying far from home.

They should also be your first stop when it’s time to start looking for a job. The institutes themselves will obviously have affiliations with certain companies and it can be one of the fastest ways of getting an interview.

Student support centre will do more than you think, so they are very much worth checking out. By doing a simple Google search for Glasgow Student Support, you will be able to find your student support centre.

This post was submitted as part of 'What’s in Your Student Survival Kit?’ campaign. Take a peek at our other submissions and get involved by creating your own content!

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