How to Manage Stress as a Chemistry Student

Congratulations on getting into Warwick! As exciting as this new chapter of your life is, university life can bring about all kinds of stresses. This can range from trying to manage your course load, to housing worries, mental health struggles or possibly financial difficulties. For most of these concerns, you can visit the SU website’s advice page, or visit nightline, which is open from 9pm to 9am during term time (these websites are mentioned at the end). This article however, has a few useful tips on how to manage your course load.

First of all, try to treat University like a job. Divide your 24 hours every day into three eight hour blocks. 8 hours for working on your course, 8 hours for sleeping and 8 hours for leisure, which includes playing in sports clubs, society events, cooking, going out, etc. Obviously, this is a rough guide and in first year you might not strike the work/ fun balance straight away, but that's okay! Not every day is the same and first year is about enjoying yourself, meeting new people and exploring a new place away from home!

At the beginning of the term, make sure you note down when any deadlines are! For example, most tutorial work is due the week before the tutorial itself. Meaning, if you check your tabula to find you have a tutorial this week, and you haven't yet done the work, it's already too late. This can easily be sorted by marking all the days you have tutorial or workshops on a calendar as well as marking the deadline the week before. It may seem rather tedious to do all this at the beginning of term, but it is definitely worth it to have these reminders for when you have other things on your mind during the term. The same could be done for laboratory work. Mark the days on a calendar when you have practical labs so you know well in advance when to have the prelab complete as well as the deadline for any post lab work.

Your first term will fly by and at the end of it, you will deserve a well needed break. However, during the Christmas holidays, it may help to read over the modules from the previous term, and possibly do some practise questions to solidify the content in your mind. In the new term, you will have other modules, and it is easy to forget most of what you learnt before. Try to refresh that knowledge because you will have to pick it back up again come the Easter holidays.

You have chosen a challenging degree, which can have very tough periods, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have a good time. Don’t forget to look after yourself - you can take breaks sometimes, but also make sure you join sports clubs and societies. Get involved with campus life. As much as coming to university is about studying for your degree, it is also about meeting new people, being in a new place away from home and having fun!

Warwick SU Advice Page

https://www.warwicksu.com/advice/

Nightline

https://warwick.nightline.ac.uk