If you want to get a headstart to college life, you might want to learn a few skills needed to survive your college years. And these may not come as natural as you may think.
If you have already been through college you might know what kind of skills I mean. Things like doing the laundry or paying bills was something done by your parents, and only when college comes around do we actually learn how to do it ourselves. There is no high school class to teach this. All you can do is start building your toolkit early on, with the help of your parents and others around you.
Financial Budgeting
One of the most stressful, yet important, tasks to master during your college years is to budget correctly. This isn’t something you would’ve had to do much of during high school so this skill comes brand new to most college students. If you have had attentive parenting they may have already shown you some budgeting tips, but most of it will come down to your own common sense and a little bit of being money savvy.
You might be one of those lucky students that already has meal plans prepaid as part of your accommodation, so budgeting for food is not a worry. Though don’t be fooled to think you won’t want to eat out with friends every now and then, which means keeping track of your expenses. Keep in mind those other expenses, like drinks on a night out, shows and festivals you are going to go to. The best budgeters understand that it’s all about choosing what you want to do, and not thinking you can do everything with limited resources.
Cooking
You might not need to know how to cook to survive, but knowing a few simple recipes will help keep your budget in check and also impress your new found friends.
In your parents day they didn’t have the luxury of Googling everything, so make the most of it and add this great skill to your toolkit!
Time Keeping
If you are about to attend college you have probably had your fair share of exams and needing to manage your time accordingly. So you are probably thinking, well I’m pretty good at this, then why do I need to worry about it? Well surprise surprise, being at college is a little different from your local high school.
College comes with a lot of free time in between a couple of hours of lectures, which means large spaces to fill. In the beginning this seems ideal, but once you ran out of coffee to drink or spots on campus to explore you are going to need to manage your time so you don’t get lost in it. This will mean having a schedule for studying, plan out your tasks for the day and make sure you don’t drift into daydreams with all of your spare time.
Laundry
You have probably never had to think about which detergent to buy or why you need to use softeners on your sheets until now. College is not all about fun and games, it also teaches you the boring aspect of living alone, including doing your own laundry.
This isn’t a difficult skill to learn, just remember to keep darks and lights separate and avoid the dryer if you don’t want shrunken clothes.
Working with Roommates
If you come from a large family you might understand the idea of task sharing. But many of you have probably never had to share your space until now.
It’s a good time to learn about the beauty of working together, taking the garbage out even if it’s not your turn and having a rota for the less appealing chores like cleaning the bathroom.
