{"id":6342,"date":"2021-01-20T10:13:29","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T10:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/?p=6342"},"modified":"2021-09-27T18:11:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T18:11:51","slug":"a-small-fish-in-a-big-pond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2021\/01\/20\/a-small-fish-in-a-big-pond\/","title":{"rendered":"A Small Fish in a Big Pond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Moving to university can be overwhelming. Usually, by the time you\u2019ve reached year 13, your position in the fabric of the school is quite well established. You probably have a reputation, a core group of friends and you may even have started being on first name terms with some of your teachers. Then, all of a sudden, you get parachuted out of that familiar environment into Imperial- one of the best universities in the world, in a city like London, with thousands of new faces. Nobody knows who you are. It\u2019s a clean slate. For some of you this may feel liberating, but for others it can be disorientating. If you fall into the latter category, I can sympathise with you. Coming from a school in Manchester with a year group of less than 70 people, nearly all of whom I\u2019d gotten to know pretty well, suddenly being in a new environment with unfamiliar people felt strange. It felt almost like I didn\u2019t have a place. As though I could just get lost among all of the new people and no one would notice. Whilst I do feel this is just a normal part of transitioning to university life, I thought I\u2019d share with you a few thoughts and tips on how to feel less like a goldfish in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Join a club or society<\/strong>. A good way to feel part of something whilst at university is to join a club or society. One which you really enjoy. A fantastic thing about Imperial is that there are a ridiculous number of activities on offer so, no matter how boring you think you are, there will be something that interests you. I took part in East Meets West in first year which really helped me feel like I had a part to play at the university.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Meet as many people as possible<\/strong>. That strange time during Freshers\u2019 fortnight when everyone is asking you where you\u2019re from and which halls you\u2019re staying at may seem like a drag at the time but it is the best time to introduce yourself to as many people as possible. The more people you speak to, or try to remember the names of, the greater chance you have of seeing a familiar face when you\u2019re waiting around on campus. Seeing people I had met before and stopping to talk with them really made me feel more a part of the wider community at Imperial. So, even if you\u2019re starting to get sick of seeing new faces, try to push through and meet as many people as possible during the first month of freshers before asking someone where they live becomes a much less normal thing to do.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Remember why you\u2019re at Imperial in the first place<\/strong>. Never forget that you haven\u2019t just landed up at Imperial- somebody chose you to get a place here. The likelihood is they chose you over quite a lot of other people. Whether it feels that way right now or not, you already are a part of the Imperial community. You don\u2019t need to prove yourself or earn your place- the place is yours to keep.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As a final note, here\u2019s a reminder that however you feel when you join university is valid. It can be a turbulent time with many changes but also offers a huge number of exciting opportunities. Take it at your own pace and remember you\u2019re still the same proverbial fish- it\u2019s just the pond that got bigger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moving to university can be overwhelming. Usually, by the time you\u2019ve reached year 13, your position in the fabric of the school is quite well established. You probably have a reputation, a core group of friends and you may even have started being on first name terms with some of your teachers. Then, all of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1573,"featured_media":6343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[300927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-undergraduate-student-life"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Small Fish in a Big Pond - Student blogs - Imperial College London<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2021\/01\/20\/a-small-fish-in-a-big-pond\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Small Fish in a Big Pond - Student blogs - Imperial College London\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Moving to university can be overwhelming. 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