MOVING AWAY FROM HOME - AN INTERVIEW

This post is an interview with Robyn Moss, third year Psychology student at the University of Lincoln. Before her degree, Robyn was living in Salisbury, Wiltshire, but decided to move 3 and half hours away to Lincoln for university. Read on to learn about her experience of moving away from home.

1. Why did you want to move far from home?

Originally, I wanted to move far from home for university to have a fresh start and push myself to be independent, not having the option to easily escape my problems and go back home. Of course, I also wanted to reinvent myself and explore a totally new place.

Lincoln, however, was a very unexpected choice of mine as I only picked it to fill in my last choice for university.  I couldn’t think of anything else and I’d never actually heard of it before, but when I went to visit all of my uni choices, much to my surprise Lincoln happened to be the only uni that really felt like it was for me. If you have never visited, read all about how to spend 48 hours in Lincoln.

2. Were you worried about moving and why/why not?

I wasn’t really worried, I was more excited. The only thing in the back of my mind was, if there was an emergency, I wouldn’t be able to get home easily. Other than that, I didn’t really have any worries. I already knew I vibed with the city and any doubts I had were overruled by excitement. 

3. How long did it take you to settle into your new place?

I was pretty much settled the moment I moved in. Of course, it was hard for the first five minutes of watching my parents walk away, and not knowing when I'd see them again. However, you snap out of that pretty quickly due to not having time to dwell on it. You have to unpack, decorate your room and get to know your new housemates, so there’s no time to think about anything else. 

You and your housemates are all on the same boat and it’s exciting for all of you and you support each other. I got on really well with most of my housemates to begin with which helped my feel settled initially but after a few days living with them, I realised they weren’t for me which was a struggle and did lead to me needing to change apartments. However, as soon as I found my group and created my own uni family, I felt settled again. 

I believe that the people you surround yourself with at uni are the key to settling and you won’t always be lucky at first, but there’s no harm in moving apartments if you don’t vibe with your initial flatmates. Most people manage to get on just fine though, it’s unlikely that you won’t get on with at least one person in your apartment.

4. Is there anything you would have done differently?

Not really. I’m grateful for the lessons I have learned, and any issues I had were out of my control. I do wish I’d been to more parties and gone to freshers events, but that wasn’t possible due to my job. I feel that I would have benefited a lot more if I’d have socialised more during freshers week as it took me a while to find my group of friends. Once I’d found them, my uni experience became 100x better.

Where to find Robyn

Instagram: @robynmossx

Thank you so much to Robyn for sharing her story. Have you ever moved far away from home? Let us know your experiences!

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