Nick Jackson

During my first year, I’ve built up a few hints for university and I thought I may as well share them. This is a constantly growing list of things I’ve found useful.

Living

• Your accommodation curtains may be slightly less effective than a layer of tissue paper. Consider bringing your own pair (Check your fire regulations) or having something else you can use to block stray light.
• A clock you can read from across the room is really, really useful.
• If you can put up with it, wear a watch at all times of the day or night.
• Buy a couple of unnecessary, but high-quality personal hygiene products. They’re simple, last ages, and make you feel so much nicer.
• Fridge magnets are useful for keeping important things where people can see them (such as accommodation notices). If you can find one, magnets with a built in clip (like a bulldog clip) are amazing for holding up all the takeaway menus.
• Buy a plant and keep it alive to improve your air quality. It will make you so much happier.
• If you’re in managed accommodation, it’s their job to fix things that go wrong.
• Bring a couple of mains extension cords (4 blocks), or you’ll never have enough power in the right place.
• Invest in at least one (possibly more) decent light sources, because flats invariably have terrible fluorescent lighting.

Working

• University printers hate you, and will refuse to print anything even remotely essential in a hurry.
• Your USB memory stick is valuable. Create a plain text file (not a Word document, or even a PDF) in the root level of it containing information on how to get it back to you should it be found.
• If you have a notice board, buy some decent pins for it. They’re cheap and hold important things up for you.
• If in doubt, ask for clarification.
• Don’t be afraid to bug your lecturers, student reps, unit co-ordinators, students’ union or anybody else if something isn’t working as it should.
• If you’re working in dim light, make sure you turn down the brightness on your monitor as low as is comfortable and use a soft backlight to avoid straining your eyes.
• University will eat stationary of all descriptions - pens pencils, paper, Blu Tack, pins, paperclips, folders, dividers, envelopes, marker pens, blank CDs, sticky tape, notepads and so on will all disappear with alarming speed.

Eating & Drinking

• You need (but probably won’t think of getting) scissors, colander, sieve, chopping boards, vegetable peeler (or good knife), hand blender, whisk, loads of wooden spoons, a cheese grater, a spatula and a slotted spoon.
• If you’re going to be a decent cook you need scales, a mixing bowl, and a variety of dishes or trays suitable for baking or roasting.
• Herbs, spices and condiments are invaluable. It’s possible to serve chicken differently every day of the week if you have a decent set of things to mix it with. Char it and serve with rice, curry it, bake it with cracked black pepper and mixed herbs, slice it and toss in a salad, sling it in a tortilla wrap…
• OXO stock cubes are amazing.
• Pasta goes with everything.
• Bread is essential. You can put almost anything either in a sandwich or on toast, but make sure that you buy decent bread. The extra few pence on a loaf is really worth it.
• Even the worst quality water can be made drinkable with a bottle of <supermarket> economy fruit squash. Even the water at Lincoln, which has almost as much limestone in the water as actual water.
• Electric ovens (At least the cheap student accommodation ones) are absolutely incapable of cooking anything at the right temperature for the right amount of time.
• Electric hobs will weld anything to the bottom of your pan and ruin the non-stick coating unless washed or soaked immediately.
• <Supermarket> economy brand ’soft spread’ is to be avoided unless you are literally down to your last pound coin. Don’t even consider it otherwise.

Cleaning & Housekeeping

• If you can get to your cistern, the in-cistern toilet blocks make life so much easier as they keep things cleaner for longer.
• Laundry baskets are cheap and stop smelly clothes from piling up on your floor.
• Get an iron.
• The tumble dryers in the laundry will happily eat pound coins to only marginally dry your clothes.
• Coat hangers are your friends, and are cheap to buy.