Moving to a new city as an International student
How I made sure I feel at home at university
Moving away from home into a completely foreign environment, making new friends and living away from all the familiar faces and places can be really intimidating. Fear not, you are not the only one who is in this situation. Stepping out of your comfort zone is definitely one of the things you would have to do when you start university. Therefore, these are some of the things that I did to help me settle in my new city.
Brave
Firstly, be brave and embrace everything around you. Say hello to anyone that you might encounter on a daily basis, like your flatmates or even people from your accommodation or neighbours.
Make friends with people because that is one of the best ways to make yourself feel less alone.
Explore
Take a long walk around your city and see what is out there for you. When you have just moved, you need to know your way around. The more you recognise your way around, the more you begin to feel at home. You have got to build up that familiarity of the streets you’ll be strolling past every day, find the shortest and longest way home. When you walk along those streets you might find yourself bumping into familiar faces who might be your neighbours or even your course mates or anyone that you might have interacted with.
Do avoid staying in your room for the whole day! Talk to people around you and spend time making connections. These are the people that you are going to see every day and will soon become your family here and the closest people in your Uni life.
When I was settling into my new home, I was fortunate enough to meet some people while moving my things in. The friends that I first made helped me move my things into the building. Since everyone is new in the area, people tend to be more open to making new friends and this is your opportunity to start conversations.
Shop
Go thrift shopping, go food shopping, go shop for your necessities with your new friends and cook together, share stories together. Go to parties, go have fun. Make an effort to show kindness to everyone around you and anything you have got to offer and settle into your new home.
Decorate
Head down to IKEA or Wilko to get some decorations for your room and make yourself feel more at home. When I first moved into my room, it was cold and empty. After filling the space up with some fake plants, bedside lamps, candles, decorations and loads of unpacking, it felt cosier which makes it more comfortable to be in. This will be the space that I will call home for the rest of my first year.
Call home
Apart from making yourself comfortable in your accommodation, it is also important to connect with your parents and friends. We are blessed in this generation to enjoy the privilege of the internet and the invention of video calls.
As long as you have an internet connection, you can just phone up whoever you might miss just to have a chat and see their faces.
It definitely made me feel less alone when I first moved to an unfamiliar environment. Personally, home is a thirteen-hour flight away so I would have to make full use of my time here to settle in this new city and make it my new home. Everyone is going to go through the same when moving into a new city, so there is no need to feel anxious about meeting new people.
In summary, put yourself out there and see what your new life has to offer. Be brave and carry on being you, and you would settle into your new city just fine.
About our guest blogger
Corene is an International Student based in Nottingham. We loved her response to a question we asked What did you do to help you settle in your new city? Here’s her answer.
Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay