July 13, 2016, by International students

Looking back to my first days as a foundation student at the university

Settling into university life and making new friends

Petrified cannot even begin to explain how I felt as I arrived in Nottingham and left everything I know behind in Swaziland. I was enrolled on the engineering foundation course and I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I just came in blind faith hoping for the best and as I write this, I can’t help but smile because it was the best decision I have ever made. Nottingham is an amazing city, it is so culturally diverse, alive and yet also homely and the university is a reflection of that.

I settled into my new life without any problems and this is attributed to the help of the international welcome week where I met so many international students who could relate to being thousands of miles away from home. This common ground was a great way to make friends of all walks of life. Furthermore, I was in catered halls for the rest of the year which allowed me the opportunity to meet local students and make life-long friends. I have been asked how I managed to become friends with the local students as well as international students and my advice has always been: Be yourself and you will find a group of people who share the same interests as you.

Sometimes I also get asked “did you join any societies?” I tend to answer back with another question: “Is there a society I didn’t join?” That is the beauty of being at The University of Nottingham, the fact that there is so much to choose from and discover. Looking back at my time as a foundation student, it was a fun year. I enjoyed the trips we took with the department such as this one time we had a trip to Lotus F1 in Oxfordshire. We also had a few social events with the department which were all quite entertaining to say the least. The foundation year really is a great course and I would advise anyone starting the foundation year to just enjoy it and not worry too much.

Tsitsi Ndiriwepi from Swaziland is studying MEng Chemical Engineering.

Find out more about Nottingham’s range of foundation programmes.

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